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Subject:
Little Bullets Lose Respect
Horsesoldier
11/15/2005 9:36:07 AM
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| A monumental swing and miss by Strategypage on this one . . .
>>November 15, 2005: The U.S. Army?s cancellation of the XM8 (a replacement for the M16) reflects disenchantment with the 5.56mm round, more than anything else.<<
Which, of course, explains why we cancelled XM8 (which could easily be rechambered for another cartridge/caliber combination) in favor of, um, not to state the obvious, a rifle firing 5.56mm ammunition . . . in fact, mostly in favor of a carbine firing 5.56mm ammunition from a shorter barrel.
>>Moreover, the 5.56mm round is less effective in urban fighting, where you often want to shoot through doors and walls.<<
No, you really do not "often" want to do so since blind fire means you are just p*ssing away bullets and runs entirely counter to our actual doctrine for doing CQB. You might want to shoot through automobile doors and windshields, but that is another matter.
Whoever wrote this does not know what they are talking about.
>>The 5.56mm round is not as effective at doing this as is the heavier 7.62mm bullet. And the troops have plenty of 7.62mm weapons available, in order to compare. There is the M240 medium machine-gun. While this 7.62mm weapon is usually mounted on vehicles, it is often taken off and used by infantry for street fighting. Lots of 1960s era 7.62mm M14 rifles have also been taken out of storage and distributed. While used mainly as sniper rifles, the snipers do other work on the battlefield as well, and the troops have been able to see that the heavier 7.62mm round does a better job of shooting through cinder block walls, and taking down bad guys with one shot. Too often, enemy troops require several 5.56mm bullets to put them out of action.<<
And an M14 is about the size and length of a boat anchor, making it esteemably unsuitable for CQB use . . .
>>In a situation like that, it makes more sense to carry a heavier round. The question is, which one? The army has been experimenting with a 6.8mm round, but now some are demanding that the full size 7.62mm round be brought back.<<
Um, no, sorry, there are not, at least not anyone whose opinion means much and who has not been whimpering about this issue since 1965. At least that's what I see, assigned to a USASOC unit -- 95% of the guys I work with are perfectly happy with the SOMOD M4 and the other 5% like 6.8mm. *No one* I work with who is an actual shooter thinks that 7.62x51mm is the answer for any weapon except those intended for sniping and medium machineguns.
>>There are M16 type weapons that use the full size 7.62mm round (and the lower powered AK-47 7.62mm round). The new SOCOM SCAR rifle can quickly be adapted to using all of the above by swapping out the barrel and receiver.<<
Um, sorry, but no. SCAR-L is the bulk of the contract (something like 120,000 5.56mm SCAR-Ls, less than a quarter of that SCAR-H in 7.62x51mm) and to convert it to fire a round that exceed the overall length of 5.56x45mm (i.e. 7.62x51mm) you have to change out the upper *and* the lower receiver. Which is to say, you need an entirely new weapon, plus/minus the handgrip and shoulder stock.
>>Could be that the army is going to wait and see what SOCOM decides to do.<<
Or could simply be that the money for an unnecessary change of weapons was not available since we're spending billions each month fighting a war?
>>The other big complaint about the M16 is it?s sensitivity to fine dust, as found in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. This stuff causes the rifle (and the light machine-gun version, the M243), to jam. Troops have to be cleaning these weapons constantly. Another problem with the M243 is that most of the ones in service are very old, and in need of a replacement (with new M243s, or a new weapon design.) The XM8 solved much of the ?dust sensitivity? problem, but part of the problem was the smaller round.<<
I think the "M243" reference pretty clearly sums up the incompetence of the writer of this piece.
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