That time of the year again - Army seeks improved carbine

[Zixinus]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy some Euro gun like my favored G36? Not that I actually think the US military is at all willing to buy from the "eurocommies" as someone in here put it...

There is actual reason why that is: you want your military hardware produced at home (unless you can't and its very expensive, like jet fighters or something like that). Guns definitely apply to this rule. You want to produce your own weapons at war, as war fucks up trade and blocks shipping routes and stuff like that.

Of course, the XM8 was to be produced by the American branch of H&K, who I believe make weapons in the USA. As to why that program was cancelled? Because the Army loves wasting people's (and arms manufacturer's) time apparently and Colt had better lobbyists (seriously, IIRC the program was cancelled because they decided in the last minute that the XM8 wouldn't be a good machinegun).

I would think showing reliability four to eight times lower than its main competitors would definitely qualify a weapon as "bad".

Which raises the question of why they didn't side with the competition then and there? It is just the same waste of time now for the reason it ended up a waste of time then.

No, really, I would genuinely be surprised if the Army would bother to actually replace their weapons. I believe I am missing a part of the picture here, but somehow I am certain that that picture will end in either stupid or the strong suggestion of corruption.

It's not 'sane' to spend $1000 modifying a $200 rifle when you can just buy a decent $500 rifle. They've been kludging the M16 for decades, and a replacement upper was also rejected.

This is due to the "lowest bidder wins" rule that plaques arms selection. They did it with the M9 too, and later had to retrofit the weapon because it had a tendency to explode into people's faces (or more accurately, the slide wasn't to-fit and pop away upwards, IIRC). Vime's boots problem.

[Lizzie]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy some Euro gun like my favored G36? Not that I actually think the US military is at all willing to buy from the "eurocommies" as someone in here put it...

There is actual reason why that is: you want your military hardware produced at home (unless you can't and its very expensive, like jet fighters or something like that). Guns definitely apply to this rule. You want to produce your own weapons at war, as war fucks up trade and blocks shipping routes and stuff like that.

Fair enough I suppose. I half wonder if this sudden need to make better guns is inspired by the AN-94 in Russia...

[Zixinus]

[quote]
Fair enough I suppose. I half wonder if this sudden need to make better guns is inspired by the AN-94 in Russia...
[\quote]

I doubt it. If anything, Russia has a history of copying from the USA. Besides, the USA could have adopted new and better rifles before. That, and we are talking about assault rifles here: they're not that much part of the arms race, not to mention that the Cold War that fueled that arms race is over.

[Stark]

Maybe it was inspired by the AN-94's appalling ergonomics?

Other militaries have changed weapons (some many times) and it's not a big deal. The Americans just have some kind of problem with it institutionally. The lowest-bidder thing is probably how they fucked up the Minimi, though.

[Zixinus]

I am curious as to what that problem is actually.

[adam_grif]

I don't really get why NOW is a good time to do something like this. Economic crisis in full swing, and steadily reducing military commitments overseas.

That, and we are talking about assault rifles here: they're not that much part of the arms race, not to mention that the Cold War that fueled that arms race is over.

Yep. Assault rifles are a very mature technology. The difference between an average one and the best available is quite small.

[Mr Bean]

Yep. Assault rifles are a very mature technology. The difference between an average one and the best available is quite small.

Not really. While you can make two AR that are quite similar in accuracy, ROF and other basic standards. The other parts of the assault rifle, IE weight, time to failure, ease of reassembly/disassembly. These are the kinds of things that show in war or prolonged conflict. The M16 is just a fine assault rifle if you baby it. But don't be surprised when I tell you that there are other assault rifles out there you don't have to clean after every engagement in order to have the same preformance. And there are also other assault rifles than the M16 which are way more robust.

[Mr. Coffee]

It's not 'sane' to spend $1000 modifying a $200 rifle when you can just buy a decent $500 rifle. They've been kludging the M16 for decades, and a replacement upper was also rejected.

Tell ya what, Stark, you find me a company that makes a half decent M-4/M-16 family rifle for just $200 and I'll eat my goddamned hat. It's not a case of spending $1000 to upgrade a $200 weapon, it's the other way around.

Edit: Not sure how accurate a source this is, but this article here lists a US Army contract with Colt Defense, LLC for 124,803 M4A1 carbines at $123 million. That works out to about $985 per weapon. So really, where the fuck are you getting this $200 figure for M4 from, Stark?

[Commander 598]

We've never seen any real evidence to show why the 5.56 round has insufficient killing power. All the stories about guys taking numerous hits to be put down tend to be pretty anecdotal and are difficult to verify.

My own experience on 7.62x39mm rounds versus much heavier .303B or .30-06 rounds indicates that the heavier rounds ARE better and killing and/or disabling "targets". Of course one might call effectively severing limbs of or shattering dense bone structures of the "target" overkill... The smaller round is still quite sufficient for the job, depending on shot placement, and my "targets" (Deer) are probably much better at handling the effects of being shot than a human.

In conclusion, the 5.56mm's lethality isn't really an issue.

[CaptHawkeye]

That's...basically what I said?

I agree the 7.62 round has superior killing power for obvious reasons. That's like wondering if a direct hit from an Abrams 120mm SABOT round would kill someone faster than a bullet.

Complaints about the 5.56 round's "power" strike me as exclusively the result of loud Armchair Generals and over-excited soldiers who don't want to believe they just have shitty aim.

[Edward Yee]

Heh... so part of the problem is figuring out whether it's the weapon system or the "delivered package" that's at fault? Reminds me of the little SCAR brouhaha. TL;DR version of that: When USSOCOM decided not to buy any (more) 5.56mm-caliber SCARs, the Internet spun it as "SCAR cancelled by SOCOM!" FNH USA's been spinning it as "the Mk 16 weapon/program were never cancelled, they're just not buying even though it performed so much better!" while a USSOCOM PAO told Kit Up! (a Military.com blog) that it actually hadn't been so improved as to justify spending limited funds compared to other SOCOM priorities... like, say, buying the 7.62x51mm variants.

[Stark]

Tell ya what, Stark, you find me a company that makes a half decent M-4/M-16 family rifle for just $200 and I'll eat my goddamned hat. It's not a case of spending $1000 to upgrade a $200 weapon, it's the other way around.

Edit: Not sure how accurate a source this is, but this article here lists a US Army contract with Colt Defense, LLC for 124,803 M4A1 carbines at $123 million. That works out to about $985 per weapon. So really, where the fuck are you getting this $200 figure for M4 from, Stark?

Aside from contracts involving maintenance and spares, it's an example. After-market mods (which the army already uses, and which have also often been rejected) aren't always going to be cheaper. Just man up and change weapons instead of clutching the AR15 family like a security blanket. The army already covers the M16A4 in electronics and silliness worth many times its value, and why fix something shit when you can just buy something not shit? Of course, the 416 was rejected, so obviously fixing the AR15 isn't going to work either.

[montypython]

The Bushmaster ACR is among the best of the newest home-grown US designs, but even that has some issues that need sorting out, and Bushmaster prices are on the high side too.

[Mr. Coffee]

Tell ya what, Stark, you find me a company that makes a half decent M-4/M-16 family rifle for just $200 and I'll eat my goddamned hat. It's not a case of spending $1000 to upgrade a $200 weapon, it's the other way around.

Edit: Not sure how accurate a source this is, but this article here lists a US Army contract with Colt Defense, LLC for 124,803 M4A1 carbines at $123 million. That works out to about $985 per weapon. So really, where the fuck are you getting this $200 figure for M4 from, Stark?

Aside from contracts involving maintenance and spares, it's an example. After-market mods (which the army already uses, and which have also often been rejected) aren't always going to be cheaper. Just man up and change weapons instead of clutching the AR15 family like a security blanket. The army already covers the M16A4 in electronics and silliness worth many times its value, and why fix something shit when you can just buy something not shit? Of course, the 416 was rejected, so obviously fixing the AR15 isn't going to work either.

Because the M16/M4 platforms aren't shit. It's a perfectly good weapon when properly maintained. And when I say properly maintained I don't just mean basic cleaning and such, I mean things like replacing shot out barrels (the army buys those for about $240 a barrel, by the way), worn bolt carriers, cleaning the gas tube, ect. I'm willing to bet that in most cases of these anecdotes about an M4 or an M16 having a stoppage is mostly due to parts fatigue issues of things as simple as worn springs and follows in the magazines. It's the same reason why the US military bitches about what a piece of shit the M249 is while other nations using them don't seem to have the same problems, because theirs aren't old as hell and shot out to hell and back.

Do we need a new rifle? Sure, but not in the way you think. What we need are new weapons period, because after the last eighter years or so of hard use the ones we have are old and worn the fuck out.

The Bushmaster ACR is among the best of the newest home-grown US designs, but even that has some issues that need sorting out, and Bushmaster prices are on the high side too.

Yeah, it's a neat gun to. It's also expensive as all hell, with the base model costing around $2500 per gun. For the cost of one ACR I can get almost three M4s and all the fancy doodads you can mount on the rails of an ACR will work just fine on an M4.

[Stark]

See? The AR15 isn't bad at all; it's just DEMANDING! It's totally fine if you never, ever put it under stress! Stoppages are just anecdotes! This attitude is probably why there's so much support for whatever corrupt reason exists behind the failures of all these expensive selection processes. Pretty much every weapon tested is better than the AR15; they're not selected because the American culture of the AR15 makes it acceptable to be corrupt.

[Aaron]

Why the hell don't they just do what the rest of us do; maintain the things properly?

[Stark]

Even new AR15s always fail these competitions. Obviously maintenance isn't the real problem.

With the Minimi I'm pretty sure they're just made in the USA out of old sewing machines. The weapon has an international reputation for accuracy and reliability in all conditions. The irony of Americans complaining about Minimi reliability (and calling for replacement, even!) when they use probably the worst assault rifle of any western nation is great stuff.

[Aaron]

Does anyone know of any studies done on the reliability of the Canadian C-7 and the M16s the Brits use? I'm just wondering if this problem is a Yank thing or not. I may not like the C-7 but I never had any issues, aside from breaking a retaining pin.

[Stark]

Given the stats even on constant fire in tests, I think it's likely that any given user could go their whole career without a failure. The ADF guys I know who cross-train in Hawaii don't like the M16s either, but they seldom have problems either (outside 'was stored improperly and we had to spend all day cleaning them).

[weemadando]

Does anyone know of any studies done on the reliability of the Canadian C-7 and the M16s the Brits use? I'm just wondering if this problem is a Yank thing or not. I may not like the C-7 but I never had any issues, aside from breaking a retaining pin.

From reading various bits from Iraq and Afghanistan it seems that a lot of the UK and other commonwealth forces who still have M-16 variants in operation have been trading them out for C-7s amongst some units as they are the preferred version now.

[Mr. Coffee]

See? The AR15 isn't bad at all; it's just DEMANDING! It's totally fine if you never, ever put it under stress! Stoppages are just anecdotes! This attitude is probably why there's so much support for whatever corrupt reason exists behind the failures of all these expensive selection processes. Pretty much every weapon tested is better than the AR15; they're not selected because the American culture of the AR15 makes it acceptable to be corrupt.

Gee, by that retarded rational then all weapons are every bit as crappy as the M4 because wouldn't ya know, long term hard use wear and tear effects pretty much everything that goes bang. Sure, every weapon is better than the M4. You should also note that every weapon tested also costs two to three times what the M4 does. Even factoring in after market additions to the M4 to fix the flaws it has (ad a gas piston system, Picatinny rails out the yang, ect) it's still cheaper than any of the other weapons it's test against and we already have the fucking things in service and existing contracts with vendors for spares.

It ain't corruption, Stark. It's fucking cost. We can buy 100k M4s from Colt for $120mil or we can buy half or less that number of weapons for the same cost with any of the proposed replacements.

[Commander 598]

That's...basically what I said?

I agree the 7.62 round has superior killing power for obvious reasons. That's like wondering if a direct hit from an Abrams 120mm SABOT round would kill someone faster than a bullet.

Complaints about the 5.56 round's "power" strike me as exclusively the result of loud Armchair Generals and over-excited soldiers who don't want to believe they just have shitty aim.

I felt that it would add something to the discussion. Also I forgot the part about having to track one down over several hours after hitting it ( at least one in the lungs) with several 7.62x39s. On the other hand I've seen one drop almost instantly from a single 7.62x39 delivered to same general area.

[Stark]

Are you stupid? The OP is yet another example of the AR15 family being the worst of several tested weapons. You can't handwave this with 'age of weapon' and 'omg parts failure'. Your simpleminded costing analysis (which doesn't even take into account that the AR15 family is always going to be cheaper because its established until AFTER you change) is irrelevant to your attempts to dodge the repeated failures in controlled tests to factors that aren't relevant. They keep testing because they KNOW the AR15 is shit, and they WANT another weapon, and they PROVE those weapons are better. Then ... nothing happens... probably because American procurement is corrupt and dishonest and a whole generation of Americans like you were raised to defend the M16.

The fact you provide no sources for any of your cost comparisons and don't bother to consider that improved uppers for the family have already been rejected is just sad. It was cheaper for every army that changed guns to stay with their old weapons too; they changed anyway because it was better to do so. America is the largest, richest military in history. I guess all that's left it... justify how the M4 is actually a quality weapon and you don't need to replace it after all every time it loses a reliability trial.

The cheapest option was probably to stay with M1s way back when.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Hey Stark, do you happen to remember any of the stuff said about the AUG when you guys were adopting it?

[Commander 598]

The cheapest option was probably to stay with M1s way back when.

Certainly wouldn't be complaining about lethality!