Army opens competition for 7.62 rifle to replace M4

[Varmint]

Combat vets can correct me if I'm wrong, but seems to me 7.62 might be valuable for stopping power if you're engaging unarmored targets at close range, and actually hitting them - a la Somalia in 1993. But if you're just doing recon by fire, or engaging with little chance of hitting anything, then you're carrying all that weight for no benefit.

Isn't 5.56/7.62 partly used to share ammo with NATO? That seems pointless nowadays, we're not standing elbow to elbow with the Germans fighting a Soviet invasion. Should start with a clean slate and pick the best ammo.

I'm sure this is really just about lining the pockets of politicians and their gun manufacturer benefactors, rather than what the soldier on the ground needs.

 

[Picton]

Combat vets can correct me if I'm wrong, but seems to me 7.62 might be valuable for stopping power if you're engaging unarmored targets at close range, and actually hitting them - a la Somalia in 1993. But if you're just doing recon by fire, or engaging with little chance of hitting anything, then you're carrying all that weight for no benefit.

Isn't 5.56/7.62 partly used to share ammo with NATO? That seems pointless nowadays, we're not standing elbow to elbow with the Germans fighting a Soviet invasion. Should start with a clean slate and pick the best ammo.

I'm sure this is really just about lining the pockets of politicians and their gun manufacturer benefactors, rather than what the soldier on the ground needs.

Not quite, on the NATO ammo-sharing; all our medium machine guns still fire 7.62x51. The Army and Marines alone go through a couple million rounds a year, I'm sure. It's not just in the NATO chain, but the DoD one as well already.

And a clean slate for ammo is a good principle, but if it costs added millions and doesn't deliver much benefit over something already in the chain, I'd rather they save the money.

It's been over 15 years since I was in, and I've got zero experience in central Asian combat; I'll defer to those who do on the inadequacy of 5.56 out there. It always served my needs, but then I was never in much of a war.

We used to have barracks room arguments about 7.62 vs 5.56 all the time; my mind on 5.56's lethality was changed by the D.C. sniper. I agree that it ought to be adequate most of the time, but I also don't really see an insurmountable problem with putting a battle rifle in each fire team somewhere. Or at platoon or company level; wherever.

 

[namedpipes]

Have you ever been in combat? ...

Married going on 30 years to a half Irish / half German lady I met during a bar fight. She was winning.

Beyond that, no.

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This guy will carry your ammo.

NOW we're talking!

 

[AllaSnackbah]

If there was ever a term i could erase from common use, it would be "stopping power".

Somalia was an illusion, you had highly competative guys in units which demand extremely high accuracy standards and accountability, most of these guys had never been in combat. Surprise they missed alot of shots, but i think many of them blamed it on the m855 ammunition "not havung stopping power, i hit that guy 8 times..." instead of looking at themselves and wondering if maybe they just missed. Somalia was also 24 years ago, alot of ****ing people have been killed effectively by 556 since then, so with all that i dont know how rumors of invincible somalians are even ****ing relevant. If ANY data were to be extrapolated from the Somalia gunfight in 93 its that those guys got cut off from elements of support for hours, guess what they were almost out of at the end? ****ing ammunition and water. Switching to 7.62 rifles with up our load by 12%, this will cause more heat casualties in training and force the army to compromise, the compromise would probably be ammo loadout.

Theres no doubt 762 is a more powerful round, but is it really needed in individual rifles? I say hell no.

As has been mentioned time and again the negatives literally outweigh the positives. Soldiers are already weighted down with a metric ****ton of shit, we dont need heavier rifles, ammo, and every accessory for that weapon on top of it.

We also have no need for this heavier caliber bullshit. We're still getting shot at with 762x39 AKs on the individual level, which our current m4 as much as it will hurt buttholes to hear, literally outperforms on all levels. Also, aside from IEDs most engagements are with machine guns, rpgs, mortars, etc. These are longer ranged area effect weapons which individual riflemen dont really have effect against.

The job of dismounted infantry is to fire and maneuver, ie pin the enemy with our machine guns while the grunts maneuver on them and kill them up close, or withdraw. We dont need to hamper our ability to maneuver by forcing guys to carry heavier individual weapons.

Notice how nobody commenting here whos been there and done it is in favor if this...?

Another thing is this, individual rifleman accuracy in the army is trash right now. People cant hit with the rifle we currently have... lets give them one that recoils more...

Stupid stupid stupid.

 

[fencer]

Really makes you stop and think what the guys that fought in WWII had to deal with. There was no body armor, but everything else was heavier and men were smaller

But 7.62x63 is one helluva round, with helluva effective range, but there were no optics...

All about trade offs

 

[frenchman]

Instead of spending millions of dollars and god knows how long to get it fielded.
Why not just train more snipers or more marksmen and field more of them with longer range weapons..

Win, win situation for everyone!

And they could be deployed instantly with no new equipment!

Always blame the gear when you already have the better gear in inventory!

The guy with the scoped stick and the guy with the bigass antenna sticking out his pack are the first to catch a hot one. After that, they go for the Red Cross, and then for the guy with the loudest mouth. Sadly, not all bad guys are retards.

 

[Waher]

NOW we're talking!

You think that's awesome until the creepy tech billionaires build private armies of those or the deep state goons in .Gov builds an army of those loyal to it, which unlike soldiers, won't ever have any problem oppressing their fellow citizens or question orders.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

You think that's awesome until the creepy tech billionaires build private armies of those or the deep state goons in .Gov builds an army of those loyal to it, which unlike soldiers, won't ever have any problem oppressing their fellow citizens or question orders.

Yep. Hopefully civil war 2.0 kicks off before then.

 

[fencer]

You think that's awesome until the creepy tech billionaires build private armies of those or the deep state goons in .Gov builds an army of those loyal to it, which unlike soldiers, won't ever have any problem oppressing their fellow citizens or question orders.

Me thinks the "virtual soldier" is only decades away. You are safely in a storage container in New Mexico, with your virtual reality suit on, and your nearly indestructible, robo soldier is going door to door in shitholeastan tossing bad guys out of windows.
Load out will be 5,000 rounds of something 30 cal

 

[Varmint]

Somalia was an illusion, you had highly competative guys in units which demand extremely high accuracy standards and accountability, most of these guys had never been in combat. Surprise they missed alot of shots, but i think many of them blamed it on the m855 ammunition "not havung stopping power, i hit that guy 8 times..." instead of looking at themselves and wondering if maybe they just missed.

In the book it's a Delta operator who complains about 5.56, saying the Delta guy with the M-14 was dropping guys with one shot.

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Really makes you stop and think what the guys that fought in WWII had to deal with. There was no body armor, but everything else was heavier and men were smaller

But 7.62x63 is one helluva round, with helluva effective range, but there were no optics...

All about trade offs

When I pick up a Garand I think exactly that. Those guys were tough.

 

[Varmint]

You think that's awesome until the creepy tech billionaires build private armies of those or the deep state goons in .Gov builds an army of those loyal to it, which unlike soldiers, won't ever have any problem oppressing their fellow citizens or question orders.

If they run on Microsoft OSes, just wait for the blue screen of death and go take a sledge to it.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

In the book it's a Delta operator who complains about 5.56, saying the Delta guy with the M-14 was dropping guys with one shot.

Right up till he ran out of ammunition and was overrun and killed by a mob with rocks and machetes.

If only he'd had more stopping power.

 

[Varmint]

Right up till he ran out of ammunition and was overrun and killed by a mob with rocks and machetes.

If only he'd had more stopping power.

He was not talking about Gordon or Shughart. The book also describes an M249 gunner knocking down an old man twice with bursts, and he still gets up and stumbles away. Doesn't sound like ammo savings.

 

[Waher]

Right up till he ran out of ammunition and was overrun and killed by a mob with rocks and machetes.

If only he'd had more stopping power.

He needed a bayonet to turn his rifle into a spear. But the army stopped issuing bayonets to most troops after Desert Storm because of the number of idiots screwing around and sticking each other with them.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

He was not talking about Gordon or Shughart. The book also describes an M249 gunner knocking down an old man twice with bursts, and he still gets up and stumbles away. Doesn't sound like ammo savings.

Randy Shughart was the sniper who was carrying an M14. He was overrun and killed after running out of ammo at the super 6-4 crash site.

I guess we should all take mark bowden's word as gospel, instead of the 20 years of combat experience during gwot where 5.56 platforms have been out killing the **** out of tens of thousands of people worldwide while M14s sit in piles of junk on the floor of armories.

Theres also a passage in BHD where an M60 gunner putting rounds on a guy and he didnt immediately die. This is because surprise, unless you make a CNS hit, bullets dont usually kill people immediately. Thats why its common practice to shoot them to the ground, and then shoot them in the head if they need the extra killing.

Theres no magic bullet that is man portable and cost effective for training. Best to carry more ammo, and put alot of rounds in them when they need it.

M855A1 is supposedly a nasty round thats doing an outstandingly good job of killing bad guys, this 762 bullshit is coming from the Afghanistan war because guys want rifles to shoot back at dudes lobbing rounds at them with PKMs and DSHKs from extreme distance, when what they really should be doing is calling in air to actually effectively kill them. I get, it but these guys are forgetting the Iraq war where light weight and more ammo was the way to go.

762 really solves neither of these issues effectively, it will just make civilian book authors, internet commandos, and generals who sit in air conditioning watching the fight on a drone feed feel better about their big dick man-bullets, but the reality is its hits, and soldier's ability to maneuver on the enemythat count, not caliber size.

 

[crazymjb]

Shot placement is obviously going to be the most important factor. Heavier bullets matter more when it comes to distance, barrier penetration, etc. There may be a place for them in say a designated marksman role, and obviously we need the medium machine guns, but I don't see a tradeoff for having everyone carrying a heavier caliber rifle being worth it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Roy Rogers]

Anyone know what rifle calibers other leading militaries are deploying or developing: Israel, China, Russia, U.K., etc.?

 

[AllaSnackbah]

In the book it's a Delta operator who complains about 5.56.

Yep, his name is Paul Howe.

25 years after the battle in Mogadishu, he's still training. Surely he's found a 7.62 BR solution to the weak sauce 5.56 14.5" M4 problem by now right?

Oh wow, heres his signature rifle being developed by wilson combat, lets check out the specs.

https://www.wilsoncombat.com/paul-howe-tactical-carbine/

Available Calibers: 5.56mm
Barrel Length: 14.7"
Overall Length: 34.25"
Weight Empty: 6.25 lbs.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

Anyone know what rifle calibers other leading militaries are deploying or developing: Israel, China, Russia, U.K., etc.?

Israel: 5.56mm NATO
China: 5.8×42mm DBP87‎ (QBZ-95); ‎5.56×45mm NATO‎ (QBZ-97)
Russia: 5.45x39
UK: 5.56mm NATO

 

[Varmint]

Randy Shughart was the sniper who was carrying an M14. He was overrun and killed after running out of ammo at the super 6-4 crash site.

I know the movie depicted it that way, but from the book, it seemed they didn't know what happened to the two snipers once they were dropped in, and no mention of how they were armed.

No one is saying this one anecdotal history lesson tips the balance in 7.62's favor. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages of 7.62, and to ignore the advantages is silly.

Afghanistan vs Iraq vs Somalia just shows the Army is too rigid by making everyone carry the same equipment on every mission. Maybe insert a couple 7.62 rifles in each squad, or offer it for missions where guys on the ground think it's needed. A designated marksman wouldn't need to carry 210 rounds of 7.62.

 

[Varmint]

Yep, his name is Paul Howe.

25 years after the battle in Mogadishu, he's still training. Surely he's found a 7.62 BR solution to the weak sauce 5.56 14.5" M4 problem by now right?

Oh wow, heres his signature rifle being developed by wilson combat, lets check out the specs.

https://www.wilsoncombat.com/paul-howe-tactical-carbine/

Available Calibers: 5.56mm
Barrel Length: 14.7"
Overall Length: 34.25"
Weight Empty: 6.25 lbs.

He's doing what is popular, not what's good for the Army.

I did a little reading, people say Delta was mostly carrying 11.5" barrel'd M16s in Mogadishu, and the 5.56 was not tumbling properly due to lower muzzle velocity. Explains their poor results on skinny Somalis.

 

[Picton]

I know the movie depicted it that way, but from the book, it seemed they didn't know what happened to the two snipers once they were dropped in, and no mention of how they were armed.

No one is saying this one anecdotal history lesson tips the balance in 7.62's favor. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages of 7.62, and to ignore the advantages is silly.

Afghanistan vs Iraq vs Somalia just shows the Army is too rigid by making everyone carry the same equipment on every mission. Maybe insert a couple 7.62 rifles in each squad, or offer it for missions where guys on the ground think it's needed. A designated marksman wouldn't need to carry 210 rounds of 7.62.

No, but you can bet his buddies would. Complete with spare ammo for the SAW guys, spare ammo for the 240 guys, spare rounds for both the 60 and 81mm guys, spare rounds for the AT guys, an AT-4, a couple of mines, spare batteries for all the radios... Everybody hauls the entire unit's equipment in the light infantry world. The added weight has to go on someone's back, there's just no way around it.

And the more key weapons systems there are in different calibers, the more complicated the cross-load gets. It's another headache a lot of units just won't want to bother with; civilians would be shocked at how much cool, expensive equipment gets left in the arms room, simply because it's s PITA to employ.

That said, I do think there's probably a place for a long-range marksman somewhere; I'm just not sure at what level. There are already scout platoons at battalion level, and their snipers shoot 7.62 NATO.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

I know the movie depicted it that way, but from the book, it seemed they didn't know what happened to the two snipers once they were dropped in, and no mention of how they were armed.

No one is saying this one anecdotal history lesson tips the balance in 7.62's favor. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages of 7.62, and to ignore the advantages is silly.

Afghanistan vs Iraq vs Somalia just shows the Army is too rigid by making everyone carry the same equipment on every mission. Maybe insert a couple 7.62 rifles in each squad, or offer it for missions where guys on the ground think it's needed. A designated marksman wouldn't need to carry 210 rounds of 7.62.

IIRC According to Durant (the pilot and only survivor) Shughart went in with the M14, Gordon had his M4. Gordon died earlier in the fight, Shughart fought on and ran out of 7.62 ammo, then fought on with either Gordons M4 or M16s the chopper crew had in back before going dry on ammo and being overrun.

There is no evidence other than anecdotal from Somalia saying 7.62 performed better, thats why im saying instead of bringing it up we should use the data from 20 years of gwot.

The problem with having DM's with different calibers in the plt is when they go dry on ammo they cant take ammo from guys with m4s, and nobodys gonna strip ammo off a 240 belt to keep a DMR running.

Im not claiming to have answers, but imo saddling everybody with 762 rifles isnt it.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

That said, I do think there's probably a place for a long-range marksman somewhere; I'm just not sure at what level. There are already scout platoons at battalion level, and their snipers shoot 7.62 NATO.

Some units are fielding SPRs in 556.

If the army is really worried about it why not give out a couple 1-8 VPOs on 16-18" 556 guns with quality ammunition? Because Gen. Denny Dickbeater still has a hardon for the good ol days when men were men and men carried wooden stock M14s.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

He's doing what is popular, not what's good for the Army.

I did a little reading, people say Delta was mostly carrying 11.5" barrel'd M16s in Mogadishu, and the 5.56 was not tumbling properly due to lower muzzle velocity. Explains their poor results on skinny Somalis.

Idk man, 11.5" M4s have put alot of people in the ground over the past 20 years, and are still the preferred rifle fielded by USASOC, even with the .308 SCAR rifles available. And the SCAR-H is probably the best 762 rifle this stupid study will see. That should tell us something.

 

[AmeriKHAN]

Ridiculous? No way. You need energy to defeat armor. 5.56 is lacking compared to 7.62.

Nice to see the mil looking at other options besides 'pussy guns' (old armorer quote, not mine). Perhaps 5.56 has run its course.

Technically speaking, you dont necessarily need power to penetrate armor. What you need is a bullet composition of something harder than the armor in question. .30-06 can be stopped by Level 4 body armor. A smaller round tipped and jacketed in something harder could - in fact, penetrate that armor. You could have a large, heavy, steel bit and try to cut glass with it but a smaller and lighter diamond bit would still run circles around it like a hreyhound on a rabbit's ass

 

[whacko]

In the book it's a Delta operator who complains about 5.56, saying the Delta guy with the M-14 was dropping guys with one shot.

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When I pick up a Garand I think exactly that. Those guys were tough.

Those men drank brown liquor.......and ate steak! They were men.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

Those men drank brown liquor.......and ate steak! They were men.

While on that topic, another thing i think should be mentioned is this, everybody, myself included, looks to generations past for the definition of "real warrior". We look to the Spartans, Romans, Norsemen, Samurai, the doughboys of WWI, the hard dicks of vietnam and say "oh they dont make em like they used to..." Its usually meant as a swipe at current or later generations of warriors.

Now im the first one to be extremely critical of my generation, the millenial generation. Overall millenials are ignorant, lazy, entitled pieces of shit, but within the millenial generation of safe space, trans aware, hipster faggot ****s are some hard charging warfighters, generation gwot, something must be said for them. Most of the guys who've fought in the past 20 years of war grew up as sheltered little bubble wrap children of the soccer moms, we may have had an uncle in vietnam or something but for the most part we lived in an illusion of world peace. Not like the so-called greatest generation, whos fathers fought in WWI, or the warriors of Vietnam whos fathers were in WWII or Korea. Most of these guys were in grade school on 9/11, they went from peace into 20 years of long, politically demotivating war against an elusive enemy and on an individual man level they have kicked ****ing ass, and right now they're gearing up for the next phase of WW3, or whatever the **** we're heading into. These guys are true warriors, theyve humped 125lb rucks into the mountains of afghanistan and driven across hundreds of miles of arid desert to topple one of the worlds strongest conventional militaries in a few weeks, then conducted COIN there for over a decade while getting no support from DC.

I think history will be kind to generation gwot in the future, i think they will be regarded just as highly as the "greatest" generation in the not so distant future.

 

[whacko]

While on that topic, another thing i think should be mentioned is this, everybody, myself included, looks to generations past for the definition of "real warrior". We look to the Spartans, Romans, Norsemen, Samurai, the doughboys of WWI, the hard dicks of vietnam and say "oh they dont make em like they used to..." Its usually meant as a swipe at current or later generations of warriors.

Now im the first one to be extremely critical of my generation, the millenial generation. Overall millenials are ignorant, lazy, entitled pieces of shit, but within the millenial generation of safe space, trans aware, hipster faggot ****s are some hard charging warfighters, generation gwot, something must be said for them. Most of the guys who've fought in the past 20 years of war grew up as sheltered little bubble wrap children of the soccer moms, we may have had an uncle in vietnam or something but for the most part we lived in an illusion of world peace. Not like the so-called greatest generation, whos fathers fought in WWI, or the warriors of Vietnam whos fathers were in WWII or Korea. Most of these guys were in grade school on 9/11, they went from peace into 20 years of long, politically demotivating war against an elusive enemy and on an individual man level they have kicked ****ing ass, and right now they're gearing up for the next phase of WW3, or whatever the **** we're heading into. These guys are true warriors, theyve humped 125lb rucks into the mountains of afghanistan and driven across hundreds of miles of arid desert to topple one of the worlds strongest conventional militaries in a few weeks, then conducted COIN there for over a decade while getting no support from DC.

I think history will be kind to generation gwot in the future, i think they will be regarded just as highly as the "greatest" generation in the not so distant future.

Yeah.....I'm a gwot guy too.

WW2......4 years away from home.....no phone or Internet. Aafes trailers. Much much much higher casualty rates.

Us....Starbucks Pizza hut and baskin Robbins on the fob......really?

Look......the latest training plans out and comments from tradoc.....be prepared to fight the next one "uncomfortable".

I still stand by my statement ......the WW2 guys were far better than me and my peers. I spent 2 1/2 years "over there" trying to live up to my grandfather's legacy of sacrifice for his nation. In short.....I did my job.....but never lived up to his standard.....not even close.

 

[goodlife30]

An extra 12 lbs for the additional firepower sounds like a good trade-off. The rifle is likely to heaver too, though, I guess.

You do know most of us were carrying about 50 pounds of gear in the desert? And you want to add 12 more pounds? For what? Want 7.62 call up the medium machine gun that's belt fed. I won't even mention the folks walking up and down mountains in the stan