New US Army rifle

murphydog

murphydog

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Overdue

I just added the 6.8 cartridge to my cartridge collection and my unscientific guess is that it is a bit more than a 5.56mm and quite a bit less than a 7.62 mm. I can eventually see the cartridge in something like the bolt action Sako Vixen as a medium range deer rifle.

I'll assume that the proposed rifle will have some sort of built-in features to control muzzle climb. Also, we have to stop expending perhaps 55,000 rounds for each confirmed dead enemy combatant. So, I would not be surprised if the proposed new rifle is limited to single round and three-round burst fire.
 
Last time a similar round appeared was in the late 1940s and it was called .280 British. Sadly, a certain US ordnance colonel was having none of that, thus denying NATO the caliber and weapons it REALLY needed.:( JMNSHO.

Compare and contrast, if you can. ;)

.280 British - Wikipedia

6.8mm Remington SPC - Wikipedia
 
Last edited:
federali said:
I just added the 6.8 cartridge to my cartridge collection and my unscientific guess is that it is a bit more than a 5.56mm and quite a bit less than a 7.62 mm. I can eventually see the cartridge in something like the bolt action Sako Vixen as a medium range deer rifle.

I'll assume that the proposed rifle will have some sort of built-in features to control muzzle climb. Also, we have to stop expending perhaps 55,000 rounds for each confirmed dead enemy combatant. So, I would not be surprised if the proposed new rifle is limited to single round and three-round burst fire.
Click to expand...

Get your head away from those Vietnam numbers.

Our soldiers (including myself) have been trained to fire semi-auto and to make shots count. The spray and pray days of what SOME (not all) soldiers were doing is a thing of the past. We now know that is NOT an effective way to fight, and train accordingly.
 
Back around 2010 I was at a weekend training/fun/group shoot. One of the instructors was a retired Spec Ops Warrant Officer. He said that while he was still in his unit was issued some M4s in 6.8 SPC to evaluate. He liked it a lot. Said it was much better than the 5.56.
Strangely enough it seems to have kinda disappeared. This is the first mention I've seen in several years. :confused:
 
Nothing is going to replace the 5.56 as our battle rifle's caliber anytime soon. It's been a far more successful round than the 7.62, and continues to be a successful caliber.
 
From the article:

“For the past 10 or 15 years, we’ve been really focused on the requirement of lethal effects against unprotected targets,” Norman said. “Now we’re looking at near-peer threats like Russia and others. We need to have lethal effects against protected targets and we need to have requirements for long-range lethality in places like Afghanistan, where you’re fighting from mountaintop to mountaintop over extended ranges."

From this paragraph, it appears the Army spokesman is really saying we need more artillery and lots of it, as well as more tanks. The Red Army, from WWII to today's incarnation, relies on artillery (guns and rocket) as its primary offensive punch, coupled with lots and lots of tanks. I imagine the Chinese Army is the same. While a new small arms round may be needed, small arms are not the primary killer on the envisioned modern battlefield against near-peer threats that the Army spokesman is describing. If you want to kill a lot of Russians or Chinese, MLRS and 155mm literally gives you more bang for the buck. The Army's not going to stop the Russian and Chinese armies with small arms fire and drones.

As we used to say in V Corps Artillery back in the day in West Germany, why take out a point target when you can take out the whole grid square?
 
Cardboard_killer said:
Nothing is going to replace the 5.56 as our battle rifle's caliber anytime soon. It's been a far more successful round than the 7.62, and continues to be a successful caliber.
Click to expand...
That depends greatly on your definition of successful. If you mean lighter, more rounds in a given space and less recoil then yes, it's been a success. If you're talking about stopping power and long range effectiveness, not so much.
 
ChuckS1 said:
...As we used to say in V Corps Artillery back in the day in West Germany, why take out a point target when you can take out the whole grid square?
Click to expand...

Back on the "Rock," as a 3rd AD tanker, we understood that the Warsaw Pact had y'all outnumbered 14 to 1 in tube artillery. The salient point, as I recall, you guys fired missions based on rounds per tube while Ivan's unit of measure was "tonnage per hectare."
 
The reason for the high round count in Vietnam was that in almost all firefights you couldn't see the enemy. You could see where they were buy the leaves moving as they fired or a muzzle flash at night, but rarely do you see them so you could you could do a one shot kill.

Not a sea story. I know because I was there as a Marine Corps infantryman.
 
Cardboard_killer said:
Nothing is going to replace the 5.56 as our battle rifle's caliber anytime soon. It's been a far more successful round than the 7.62, and continues to be a successful caliber.
Click to expand...

Given that 7.62 NATO was an abject failure for the original intended purpose, it's not hard to see that almost any smaller caliber would have been much more successful.

Up until the 1980s 5.56 evolved into a round designed for a specific purpose, penetrating the helmets and body armor of Warsaw Pact troops out to about 400 m. Then came the M4 to reduce that capability and after that came the Sandbox actions against skinny unarmored opponents using Enfields and Mosins from 500 m or more. Oops. Sure, the 77 gr ammo got back some of the capability, but the key word is "some".

I think the main issue is that the army needs something the SIZE of an M4 for house clearance and getting in and out of vehicles. Trouble is a conventional weapon that size cannot meet the stopping power requirements using the current crop of 5.56 ammo at the required ranges from what I have read. It just doesn't have enough barrel.

The bullpup is one answer IF you can get the gun to be safe in the event of a case failure and make it easy to clear stoppages. Even if you fix that somebody will whine about it being ugly and the wrong shape for drill. Me, I don't care what shape it is so long as it is effective.
 
Tom S. said:
That depends greatly on your definition of successful. If you mean lighter, more rounds in a given space and less recoil then yes, it's been a success. If you're talking about stopping power and long range effectiveness, not so much.
Click to expand...
I'm talking about winning. If you want to define the best bullet as the one that corrodes slowest, feel free. That and a buck fifty will get you a cup of coffee.
 
What do the lobbyists and politicians think? They're going to make the decision and allocate the funds regardless of what the military wants, anyway.
 
Every conflict has its “perfect” weapon and when the battlefield changes that perfect weapon needs to change. The 16 was a good weapon for Nam but not so much for Afghanistan where the range of engagement is beyond the effective limit of the M 4. Changing uppers on AR lowers would be useful right now.
 
Back to the topic :).

The article quotes the incoming CJCS and seems to note the 6.8 mm is being considered for the squad automatic weapon role. Interested to see what the logistics people think of that, if the idea makes it to the front lines.
 
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