The AR-15 is a civilian version of a military carbine that Armalite was (unsuccessfully) trying to sell to the Pentagon’ Is it still a viable candidate (technically, not politically) for the Army now?
Anything - as long as they keep the field proven direct impingement system and don’t put any of those new-fangled gas pistons in there.
...all components desired are currently available at Brownells.com...
They could do a lot worse than a Colt AR-15 HBar. I had one, actually several, and loved it. Extremely accurate and that 20 inch barrel is still pretty short.
Since it would not be as handy as an M4, every soldier could be issued one of those FN pistols which hold a huge number of rounds.
Some could be issued a highly accurate longer barreled scoped semi auto in something like the 6.5 Carcano or 6.5 Greek .243 etc.
Just fun to try to figure out especially since I won’t have to use them.
The first step would be to move up to a caliber that ends a fight with one hit.I gave up on 5.56 as a serious caliber years ago,give me a 7.62x51.
Go with the 3.8 pound OIP variant in .243 Winchester with th HK piston design.
http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/oip-3-8-pound-ar-shot-show-2015/
There's a lot of truth to that statement.
Active Duty ping.
I suggest they return to .30 caliber weapons.
My father says they need to bring back the M1 Garand or at least the M-14. Even so, I always thought if they had to go to a sub .30 caliber round, I always thought they should have used the .270 Winchester or the .243 Winchester or something similar.
The M4 is basically an up to date CAR-15.
1. Standardize the 6.8 SPC (6.8 Remington) as a replacement for the 5.56 NATO. [The 6.8 SPC was specifically designed to work in weapons designed for the 5.56 NATO cartridge.]
2. Standardize a gas piston drive upper receiver like the HK416 and that will cure the carbine's reliability problems.
3. All legacy weapons in inventory could be easily converted to the new caliber by changing barrels, bolt assemblies (and carriers), magazines, and modifying the M27 links to 6.8 SPC for the M219/Mk 46 SAW. Change over would cost far less than a new rifle and training and logistics would hardly be affected.
Either that or start issuing the .30 caliber M1 carbines issued as control weapons for the last M5 carbine tests that the troops preferred over the M4! The US Army has been a total cluster flock when it has tried to replace the M4 carbines.