Free Republic

PM got to spend some time recently with the world's newest celebrity weapon: the HK416, the U.S. Special Forces assault rifle that (we're pretty sure) killed Osama bin Laden ### The World's Newest Celebrity WeaponHeads turn eagerly as painfully bright sunlight pours through an opening door of a dark New York City warehouse. Smiles mix with the winces; a celebrity has arrived. Two men in black T-shirts step into the shadowy building, carrying opposite ends of a large green case; they place it carefully on a table. One unlocks the clasps and cracks open the case, revealing two disassembled Heckler...

The U.S. Army has finally addressed years of complaints about the M-4 and M-16 assault rifles. The M-4 is a short barrel M-16, and has become very popular with the troops. The army has asked the Department of Defense for permission to spend a few hundred million dollars on upgrades for its 400,000 M-4 assault rifles. The big change is replacing the main portion of the rifle with a new component that contains a short stroke piston gas system (to reduce buildup of carbon inside the rifle) and a heavier (by five ounces) barrel (which reduces barrel failure from too...

Perhaps the single most exciting thing that happened at NDIA International Infantry & Joint Services Small Arms Systems Symposium 2008--away from the firing range, of course--was a confrontation between Jim Battaglini (Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. James R. Battaglini) of Colt Defense and U.S. Air Force Col. Robert Mattes, the director of the Comparative Test Office for the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts, while Col. Mattes was giving a speech and promoting the idea of an open competition to determine the best infantry/assault carbine that can be supplied to U.S. military infantry warfighters. Specifically, the purpose...