Military round comparisons

[Tony Williams]

The real question is whether the benefits of such a change would be sufficient to make it worthwhile. I submit that the dearth of hard data in regard to vital aspects of the proposed change makes a rational decision impossible.

We know enough about bullet design to know that we can produce c.6.5mm military ball bullets with much better ballistic coefficients than the 7.62mm M80 (the Russians have been making much better shaped 5.45mm 7N6 bullets for four decades).

Even if we assume that we can't improve on the 7N6 form factor, it is still easy to demonstrate that a 6.5mm military bullet can be made to deliver a ballistic performance out to 1000m which is at least as good as the M80, from a cartridge case which is significantly smaller and lighter and generates a lot less recoil.

In evaluating different calibres, ARDEC produced EPR-style bullets in each calibre and tested them thoroughly before concluding that calibres in the 6.35-6.8mm range offered the best characteristics. AMU came to the same conclusion after careful study.

So there is plenty of data concerning the performance of the ammunition - certainly enough to justify moving on to the next stage, which is working up prototype military ammunition in military guns for exhaustive testing in order to validate the concept.

The stage after that is for armies to decide if the new weapons and ammunition are worth adopting, a decision which will obviously be affected by a range of factors. All I can say about it is that I have attended several presentations on this subject, in the UK and USA, to a wide range of
military people from different organisations, and the overwhelming response has been enthusiastic - "you make it, we'll buy it" being typical.

Stan, forgive me if I'm misreading you, but your attitude to this subject comes across to me as: "because we don't yet have a working military gun and military standard ammunition which have been tested to validate the concept, talking about it is a waste of time". Like any project, this one is passing through stages, and the current stage is to demonstrate the calculated benefits in order to generate enough interest for people to move on to making the ammunition and guns for practical testing. No-one is suggesting that any organisation will commit to acquiring such a system until after this stage has been successfully completed.