Objective Individual Combat Weapons System ("No place to hide" weapon)

Heckler & Koch ^

[mhking]

Goaled to revolutionize the infantry battlefield, the OICW consolidates the needs of the U.S. Armed Forces into one rifle that will selectively replace the M16/M4 carbine and the M203 grenade launcher and accessories.

The OICW integrates these capabilities and adds other functions currently available only as modular units. Capable of firing either the high explosive (HE) 20mm air bursting ammunition or NATO standard kinetic energy (KE) 5.56 mm ammunition, this rifle will substantially increase lethality and survivability on the battlefield. The modular Fire Control System (FCS) will range to the target (with day or night optics) and automatically communicates the range to the ammunition fuzing system. Using advanced turns count fuze arming technology, the ammunition proceeds to the target and bursts precisely overhead. The system goals are to precisely deliver airburst rounds in MOUT and rural terrains that are five times more lethal at greater than twice the range of the M203. The 20mm HE fuze function features include point detonation (P.D.) delay, self-destruct, and a "window mode. "Heckler and Koch (HK) is responsible for the development of the combined 5.56mm and 20mm weapon. Alliant Techsystems (ATK), Hopkins, MN, is the prime contractor, responsible for system integration, testing, 20mm High Explosive ammunition development, training, and support definition. Brashear LP of Pittsburgh, PA, is responsible for the development of the fire control system.

[dcwusmc]

A pound and a half can add up over a long hump, trust me. This is not reliable enough and probably not at all "Grunt-proof" yet. Maybe in 15-20 more years. After all it took almost that long to turn the M16 into even halfway decent... and if you consider the Garand a relic, I would put it and a squad of Marines so armed up against most any other gaggle you could field. Wanna give it a go sometime? Garands, .45s, Bloopers, shotguns against a similar combo of your high-tech toys and see what's a relic...

[Shooter 2.5]

Ask anyone in the Marines, Army, Navy, Coast Guard or Air Force if we should go back to the Garand. Anyone.
Anyone who's active and on this website or thread want to give an answer?
If you're so concerned about the pound and a half, the soldier can take two grenades out of the mag and it's now lighter than the M16 with a 203.

[dcwusmc]

I am not saying we should go back to the Garand. I AM saying we don't need to get this new POS. It won't stand up to real grunts in the real world and likely will get folks killed just like the M16 did when it was forced on us in Vietnam. In fact, in '69 when I was going thru staging bn at Pendleton, I had my first run-in with the Mattel toy store... the one I got would NOT CYCLE AT ALL, period. I had to manually cock the SOB every round. I told the armorer and he basically said "Live with it." The 16 was no longer ready for prime time after the army bureaucraps got done with it; this POS will be just the same. Why would you want to do that to our guys? Have you served?

[Walkingfeather]

I am reading all your replies with great interest. I think you have quite a bit of expierienc on the subject. I am curious if you have seen the Metalstorm technology ( metalstorm.com) and what you think of it?

[Walkingfeather]

Just saw this response. He is a multimillionare a dozen times over(which doesn't make him immuned of course) But I like the multi caliber and multiweapons systems that MS technology supplies. All with no moving parts.

[Shooter 2.5]

Yes, I served. I was in the Army.
And the Garand is still a relic.
That has been the point of every post that I made to you. It's old. It's time has passed. The only country that I know that still has them in their inventory is Haiti.

[FreedomPoster]

Looks rather a lot like that big monstrous thing Zorg had in Fifth Element.

That would be the ZF1.

I want one. ;-)

Here's Zorg using one in flamethrower mode. Couldn't find one of him using it in auto mode when he was trying to take out Leeloo.

Ah! Here we go. Here's a big one of Zorg holding a ZF-1, with a bunch of Mangalorans in the background.

Boy, is this ever an off-topic post, but I love that movie.

All that said, the OICW is an abortion. It's been thoroughly picked apart on TheFiringLine.com, with Travis McGee's comments pretty representative of the consensus over there. This 20mm round should prove itself as on a crew served or vehicle mounted weapon before trying to foist it off on the poor grunt.

[Cap'n Crunch]

The last time I was at Geiger was in 95 for a law enforcement sniper school. The only thing that looked different were the captured Russian tanks from the Gulf War which were sitting over by the ITS barracks.

I went to Mainside and they had a few more by another of my old units, 2/2.

[vannrox]

My Kind of Gun

Some Targets for Practice...

[gilor]

Myself I have a stainless Mini-14.

Love my Mini (RR) thousands of rounds through it and never a single missfire.

[gilor]

The worst weapon to me is the Mini-30 with the Mini-14 a close second.

What don't you like about the Mini-14?

[Shooter 2.5]

There are two problems with the Mini design. Ruger used 10-32 screws to mount the gas block. If a person doesn't know any better it's possible to squeeze the barrel so that only eight inch groups at fifty yards are possible. That's an operator problem but Ruger should have know better to mount the gas block that way.
The second problem is the gas block isn't mounted to the stock. It's mounted to the barrel directly so that there is no support for the barrel. The entire barrel arrangement isn't attached to the stock at all. When the barrel heats up, the operating rod slams into the gas block and bends the barrel. It is possible to have a small group from a Mini, but only if the shooter fires at a slow rate in order to keep the barrel cool. As soon as the barrel heats up, the groups string vertically.
I have asked every Mini owner that I could for the last two years to see what results they have been getting with their rifles. The first group never bothered to see what it will do on paper. One group treats the rifle like a spray and pray and they work within the fifty yard capabilities. There is also a group that found out how bad it is and sold it at the first opportunity.

Good magazines are a key to it's reliability. Buy good magazines, stay away from USA brand magazines and it will shoot under bad conditions.

[dcwusmc]

I was retired by then but my wife and I were at Pendleton last year for the Birthday ball... NICE!

[Travis McGee]

Question: no one denies that the Garand was a great rifle in 1945. It was.

And some still argue for a hard hitting long range primary battle rifle in .308 or similar.

What I don't get is you devotion to the 8 shot Garand with the "SPRING" clip, instead of the 20 shot box mag fed M-14.

What gives? Do you think the tiny bit of extra velocity from the 30-06 is worth going from 20 to 8 shots?

[Vigilant1]

The M16 has some major design flaws, but some good features as well. It vents gas into its own action with every shot, dirtying the rifle's most vital parts. It must use high-quality propellants, as cheap powder will foul the thin gas tube and jam the rifle. If a case sticks part-way out of the chamber, the recoil buffer will be protruding into the stock, preventing the opening of the action to clear the jam. With this type of jam, one must unscrew the front hinge pin screw to seperate the upper & lower receivers, not a happy prospect when you're under fire and/or at night. The forward assist is clumsy to use under stressful conditions. The rifle is sensitive to dirt, mud and sand, and must be constantly cleaned. The 5.56mm cartridge showed a clear lack of effectiveness in Afghanistan, regularly failing to stop the enemy with solid torso hits and lacking the ability to penetrate even light cover with any remaining energy. Its controlability in full-auto fire is very poor, which is why the complex and fragile burst mechanism was added (a bad technological solution to a training problem - proper fire control). The good features of the M16 is it's ergonomics (controls are all in the right place), accuracy, light weight and use of modern materials and manufacturing methods.

The M14 is pretty heavy, is very expensive to produce, and the 7.62mm NATO cartridge has too strong a recoil impulse to allow any control at all during full-auto fire in an infantry rifle-sized weapon. The open-top receiver allows mud and sand into the action. It's good points are that in semi-auto fire, its a rifleman's rifle, a dream to shoot, and very accurate. It's rugged and reliable. It has excellent long-range and penetration of light-to-medium-cover capabilities.

The AKM remains the best compromise, being supremely reliable, reasonably light, having a cartridge that offers reasonable controlability and good stopping power and penetration, and being very cheap to produce with the most outdated machine tooling. It's downside is that the ergonomics stink (the safety being the real problem), the AK-47 milled receiver variant is way too heavy, and it has limited long-range capability.

The answer may be to incorporate the best features of all these weapons into a new rifle with a new cartridge. The Russian 7.62x39mm cartridge that the AK uses enhances reliability greatly because of its tapering case. US military ballistic testing has identified the ~105 grain 6mm projectile at ~2900 fps as the best ballistic 'sweet spot', similar to a .243 Winchester round with heavy bullets. Advances in smokeless propellants, such as those used in Hornady's Light Magnum ammo, offer higher velocities in the same round with the same case pressures, compared to standard IMR powder. So a tapering case cartridge, maybe slightly larger than the 7.62/5.45x39mm ComBloc case, using the new high-tech powders and a 105 grain 6mm bullet at 2900 fps would be the round for a new rifle. It would offer a lot less recoil, would be shorter and lighter, and yet would offer similar long-range, stopping power and penetration performance as compared to the 7.62mm NATO. Like the .243 Winchester it's ballistically identical to, it would be a deer round, not a varmit round like the 5.56mm NATO round. Caseless ammo technology just isn't ready yet, so the conventional brass case is still the way to go.

The new rifle would use the tested & proven gas system of the AK-47. It would be embodied in a rifle using modern materials, but incorporating the loose tolerances of the AK. The milled aircraft aluminum upper receiver (a la M16) and polymer lower receiver (a la Glock) setup used on the new Armalite AR-180b may be the right choice. Also, a bullpup design like many current battle rifle designs offers a standard-length barrel with a short overall length, a great asset in close quarters while retaining long-range capability. Some kind of simple recoil buffering system and/or a very efficient muzzle brake would help controlability in full-auto fire, as would the bullpup configuration.

As for the under-barrel grenade launcher, the 20mm pump-action unit on the OICW may be reliable and effective without all the electronics junk. It should be set up as a modular system where the grenade launcher and electronics are add-ons that meld well with the basic weapon, and all systems can still work if the electonics fail. That is the opposite of the OICW approach, where the technogadgets, the programmible-fuse grenades, electronics, optics and 'secure' computer battlefield network were the primary goal of the design, with a chopped 5.56mm carbine tacked on almost as an afterthought. The basic rifle should be a rifle before anything else, reliable, effective and capable in its own right.

Those are my ideas on this subject. Comments?

[Shooter 2.5]

I have a little experience with the M-14/M1A and only one experience with the AK design so I'll try to keep my comments to the M-16.
I believe that your comment about separating the upper and lower receivers is wrong. I"m not aware that they have changed from the front and rear push pins to a front screw design. Separating the upper and lower is a simple matter of pushing out the two pins.
As far as the M-16 needing high quality powder isn't correct. I have been loading for the AR for sometime and I get a lot of reloads from a company in Dallas. The problem in the '60's was that they used the wrong powder. I hear more warnings for loading the Garand and the M1A than I have ever heard for the 5.56
The comment that the gases flow into the parts of the M-16 is correct just as the residue flows into the gas chamber of the AK. I don't see that much of a difference. Both rifles should be cleaned after firing.
Using the forward assist is easy. It takes a hit with the firing hand to do. It is not recommended. I don't know many people who wish to jam a round into a chamber thinking that it will be easier once the round has been fired.
The control under full auto is the best of all of the assault weapons ever made. That is a fact. The military decided to remove the full auto mode because the troops were constantly running out of ammo.

There have been e mail reports of both the 5.56 and the 9MM. Although the e mail reports looked authentic, doubts have been raised over who created them. If you have a better link to the miltary that gave a report of the failure of the 5.56 or the 9MM I would appreciate a link.

[phasma proeliator]

Ping

[archy]

I am reading all your replies with great interest. I think you have quite a bit of expierienc on the subject. I am curious if you have seen the Metalstorm technology ( metalstorm.com) and what you think of it?

Yep, I saw one demonstrated at the Naval Weapons Support Center at Crane, Indiana a few years back. It looks to me like they've got an immediate future as a defense against incoming sea-skimming missiles like the Exocet, sort of a continuous shotgun defence such attacks. I expect that'll be one of the first practical applications for the concept.

And with land mines falling out of favour for area defence, remotely triggered Metalstorm mortar launchers have a serious application for denying critical locations such as bridges, mountain passes or desert-area waterholes to unwelcome visitors. Metalstorm offers a swell opossibility of differing warhead mixes for such projectiles to be used, depending on the target configuration.

And though I doubt we'll see a Metalstorm application in the small arms field in the near future, the possibility that something along the lines of a multishot M79 grenade launcher but with the punch of a Light antitank weapon, possibly using a ring airfoil grenade, is certainly a more likely bit of useful kit for the poor bloody infantryman than the OICW now appears to be, and it should be quite usable in urban or built-up areas in MOUT operations, as well, a *master key* for doors or walls where access is immediately required.

-archy-/-

[archy]

That would be the ZF1.

I want one. ;-)

Here's Zorg using one in flamethrower mode. Couldn't find one of him using it in auto mode when he was trying to take out Leeloo.

See Post #79. The ZF-1? My favourite!

So, what does the little red button on the bottom of the gun do...?

[archy]

As for the under-barrel grenade launcher, the 20mm pump-action unit on the OICW may be reliable and effective without all the electronics junk. It should be set up as a modular system where the grenade launcher and electronics are add-ons that meld well with the basic weapon, and all systems can still work if the electonics fail. That is the opposite of the OICW approach, where the technogadgets, the programmible-fuse grenades, electronics, optics and 'secure' computer battlefield network were the primary goal of the design, with a chopped 5.56mm carbine tacked on almost as an afterthought. The basic rifle should be a rifle before anything else, reliable, effective and capable in its own right.

Those are my ideas on this subject. Comments?

I agree that the rifle and grenade launcher should both be individually suitable, stand-alone weapons in their own right. I think the Brits may well have been onto something with their original EM-2 .280/30 [7mm] bullpup rifle design of the 1950s. Redesign it for bottom or other ambidextrous-use ejection, ambidex controls, and with more corrosion-resistant materials, and I think you'd really have something.

As for the grenade launcher, during WWII the Germans developed an explosive grenade cartridge for their hand-fired 27mm leuchtpistole and the Argentines have a high-explosive 12-gauge shotgun shell, said to be just right either for halting automobiles at roadblocks or for determining the lengths at which manufacturers of ballistic protective vests will honor their products' guarantees. The Russians seem to have found their 30mm underbarrel grenade launchers to be as suitable as the larger-bore American versions, so there's certainly some indication that it's at least possible.

But where's the belt or drum-fed 20mm version for vehicles, if it's such a useful design? That would seem to be the eventual replacement for the existing Mk13 vehicular and ground mounted automatic grenade launchers, if the ammunition works as advertised.

-archy-/-