I would think General Milley would know the difference between a round size in millimeters and a caliber, but perhaps not. A 6.8 caliber would be 6.8 inches in diameter.
Is the term “caliber” proper here? I assume it is a 6.8mm round. I am used to hearing “caliber” referred to as inches.
Am I old fashioned? Did I miss the metric conversion of everything?
I presume (cause its bad to ASSume) that the General is referring to the 6.8 mm SPC.
The army experimented with a .17 caliber round in the middle 70’s.
I picked up a few cases from a range on Hunter Liggett. Found a couple of FMJ 17 caliber bullets in the backstop, too, as I recall.
I was running a Meteorological Team in support of Army RDT&E there at the time.
Not much punch as a deer or big game rifle, but cheap ammo and great varmint round.
Let’s hope that this is not the 6.8 SPC round, as that has only slightly better aerodynamics than a brick. Build a round that can fit into a standard M4 magazine that has a bullet with a coefficient of drag closer to that of a 6.5 mm bullet, and you will have a winner.
There should also be a lot of winners in the civilian marketplace, as the military sells off all of its 5.56 mm uppers and ammo. Given Trump’s propensity for wanting to make government more efficient, there is no reason not to sell off unneeded surplus and recoup the money.
Damn, army guys are impressive. Us Coasties needed a whole ship to back up such a round that wasn’t even that big, only 5”.
“This weapon has an accurate range far in excess of any known existing military rifle today. It will fire at speeds that far exceed the velocity of bullets today,” he said. It will penetrate any known body armor or any expected to be developed in the next 25 years, he added.
I think the good general may be just a bit optimistic. He certainly can’t be thinking of the 6.8 SPC which was referenced earlier in the article, albeit not specifically by name. In fact what he is claiming is ballisically impossible. I suspect this is more of a sales pitch to ill informed and gullible congresscritters.
Will it be a fully semi-automatic 6.8 caliber?
Awesome. Just do it. This is great news.
The British had planned to move to a
.280 calibre rifle prior to WWI, the new rifle was to be the P-14 which was susequently rechambered to .303 as a war time exigency to to supplement the SMLE. The P-14 was produced by Winchester and Eddystone (Remington). Due to a shortage of ‘03 Springfields the P-14 action was redesigned as the P-17 in 30-06. More P-17s than ‘03s were used by American soldiers during WWI. Remington eventuall used the used to P-17 as the basis for the Model 30, a fine rifle. You could still see the P-17 influence 50 years later in the Reminton 660 series with its dogleg bolt handle. It is said that the Remington 700 was an updated version of the Model 30, thus the P-14 - P17 family, but I have not studied to 700 enough to confirm this.
Later.