New Army "Caliber Configuration Study"

[stanc]

Depends on how you define GPC. At the moment the US Army has four rifle/MG cartridges used in the anti-personnel role: 5.56 x 45, 7.62 x 51, .300 Win Mag, .50 BMG. Only the first two are used in the standard rifles/MGs routinely carried by dismounted infantry; a single GPC could replace both of them in the organic squad weapons.

Not in my wildest dreams have I imagined the GPC also replacing the .300 Win Mag and the .50 BMG, even though such capabilities may occasionally be attached to squads for specific purposes.

Well, .50 Browning is in a completely different class than the other rounds, so I sure wouldn't consider it when defining a "General Purpose Cartridge" for use in man-carried weapons.

As I see it, a true "general purpose" round would be used as 7.62 NATO was originally intended to be: For the infantry rifle, automatic rifle, sniper rifle, and GPMG.

However, snipers have since gone beyond 7.62 NATO, to special purpose cartridges like .300 Win Mag and .338 Lapua. In addition, the automatic rifle has -- in most cases -- been replaced by the LMG, while the GPMG has become the MMG.

Now, the LDAM program seeks to replace 7.62 NATO for MMG use with a round that would necessarily be much bigger, heavier, and more powerful than the proposed GPC. That means infantry platoons would, as I said, still have two different calibers, just bigger and heavier than what they now use.

Since what you call a GPC would, at most, only replace a mix of calibers in the rifle squad, not at platoon and higher, a more accurate name would be Squad Common Cartridge (SCC).

Hey, I just realized that's also my initials!

Of all of the small arms western forces have faced recently, the PKM seems to have been the most problematic. The nearest western equivalent is the MK48. I can't see the US being happy to replace the MK48 with a weapon which could be outperformed by the PKM. Which implies that the GPC needs to be able to at least match the long-range hit probability of the big 7.62mm cartridges.

I don't know whether or not that is a goal of the CLAWS program, but for the sake of discussion I'll assume it is.

In that case, is it not possible to achieve that level of long-range hit probability with a Squad Common Cartridge which is smaller and lighter than the notional GPC?