06-05-2013, 04:18 PM
Michael Wrote:I am not convinced that any of the GEN III weapons improve the capabilities of the current main battle rifle enough to justify the cost of fielding - this is essentially what the Army and Marine Corps decided a few years ago. They look cool, and have some interesting features, but do they perform better? More lethality? Better accuracy? I know from testing a few years ago, the XM-8 was a little more reliable than the M4, but I believe that was accredited to the magazines used.
BLUF - having been in the loop of testing/evaluating weapons for the Marine Corps, I don't see any drastic changes within the DOD until a replacement (or improvement) for the metallic cased cartridge is perfected. It's all about capabilities, and the metallic cased cartage is pretty close to the apex of development/reliability. The M16/4 family of weapons is not perfect...but it's pretty damn good.
I think that we are seeing an evolving GEN III rifle. From what has been presented so far, it will be gas operated thus able to be modular. The bulk of the current rifles needs to be slimmed down. Plus price needs to come down. If the opposition can produce AK-47s for under $200 (often far less) then we have to have weapons that can be produced at least at a quarter of the price that many of these rifles are going for now.
You are correct that the driving force is the cartridge. We have to replace the .223 (5.56x45), it is just not up to the job. And we need to replace metallic casings with plastic (weight, brass is costly, wasteful to leave on the battlefield). Thus if the 6.5 Grendel is to succeed, it needs to be a bit more powerful and designed to be in a plastic casing. Then design a rifle for it.
As for the current M4/M16, it is over engineered and far too expensive.