Posted on 11/15/2005 2:32:39 AM PST by holymoly
November 15, 2005: The U.S. Army’s cancellation of the XM8 (a replacement for the M16) reflects disenchantment with the 5.56mm round, more than anything else. While the 5.56mm bullet was OK when used in an automatic weapon, it is much less useful when you have so many troops who know how to shoot, and can hit targets just as easily with single shots. In addition to better shooting skills, the troops also have much better sights, both for day and night use. It’s much more effective to fire less often, if you have troops who can do that and hit what they are shooting at with the first shot. Most American troops can.
Moreover, the 5.56mm round is less effective in urban fighting, where you often want to shoot through doors and walls. The 5.56mm round is not as effective at doing this as is the heavier 7.62mm bullet. And the troops have plenty of 7.62mm weapons available, in order to compare. There is the M240 medium machine-gun. While this 7.62mm weapon is usually mounted on vehicles, it is often taken off and used by infantry for street fighting. Lots of 1960s era 7.62mm M14 rifles have also been taken out of storage and distributed. While used mainly as sniper rifles, the snipers do other work on the battlefield as well, and the troops have been able to see that the heavier 7.62mm round does a better job of shooting through cinder block walls, and taking down bad guys with one shot. Too often, enemy troops require several 5.56mm bullets to put them out of action.
In a situation like that, it makes more sense to carry a heavier round. The question is, which one? The army has been experimenting with a 6.8mm round, but now some are demanding that the full size 7.62mm round be brought back. There are M16 type weapons that use the full size 7.62mm round (and the lower powered AK-47 7.62mm round). The new SOCOM SCAR rifle can quickly be adapted to using all of the above by swapping out the barrel and receiver. Could be that the army is going to wait and see what SOCOM decides to do.
The other big complaint about the M16 is it’s sensitivity to fine dust, as found in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. This stuff causes the rifle (and the light machine-gun version, the M243), to jam. Troops have to be cleaning these weapons constantly. Another problem with the M243 is that most of the ones in service are very old, and in need of a replacement (with new M243s, or a new weapon design.) The XM8 solved much of the “dust sensitivity” problem, but part of the problem was the smaller round.
A decision on the army’s new assault rifle will probably come sooner, rather than later, because the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are making a lot of Internet noise over the issue.
I had an old pal who had a pre-64 Winchester Model 70 that had been rebarrelled to the 6.5x52 Carcano cartridge for some interesting ammo development tests. It was a little fussy about bullet weights, but with a circa 160 grain bullet and .266"-.268" diameter bullet rather than the usual undersized .264" bullets used in Norma/Sierra 6.5mm offerings, it's a relative tackdriver, and fun to shoot all day.
I seem to remember reading something about that .280 cartridge they were working on. ....sposed to be a heck of a cartridge!
This is from John Ringo's When The Devil Dances
MetalStorm's name said it all; each pack could throw up to twelve hundred 105mm discarding sabot rounds into the air in less than a minute. The rounds were packed "nose to tail" into twelve tubes that were both barrel and breach. The system was electrical and could fire either one round or a series at very high rates of fire. Once clear of the "barrel" the rounds, accelerated at slightly different velocities due to the nature of the system, dropped their plastic "shoes" and a sixty-millimeter dart of tungsten headed downrange at tank-killing speeds. With a hundred rounds packed into each tube, and the rounds going off at an electronically controlled sequence, the air quickly became saturated with tungsten and steel.
Now, that's FIREPOWER! Of course, these are mounted on converted M1 Abrams tanks and the folks in them say "this is gonna suck!" just before pulling the trigger. They did do a number on the bad guys, however. ;^>
Me? I have a preference for the Barrett or a match grade Springfield M1A1 (civilian M14). I also have a guilty fondness for the American 180, for those that know that little joy.
Be nice to it. Have it re-blued.
The squirrels don't care if it's camo. :P
I don't have the funds right now....so I figured that getting all the rust off of it would be more or less "prepping" it for bluing. I thought about trying it myself, but I made a mess once doing the same thing. :-) Getting paint off is a LOT easier than a bad home bluing job! :-)
Good.
The M-14 biggest role was to keep Springfield, Massachussets residents employed. It was an OK rifle if all you wanted to was shoot over the course at Camp Perry. The FAL was better battle rifle. That whole generation of guns that Springfield fielded in the late fifties ranged from decidedly mediocre, like the M14 and M60 to positively putrid, like the M73. THE machingun which proved decisively that it was possible to build a more unreliable machingun than the French Chauchat!
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