Army picks SIG to produce Next Generation Squad Weapon

[markm]

the Army knew they couldn't ignore demands for a larger caliber rifles by troops.

That sentiment goes back to the 1960s when the M16 was first fielded. I tend to agree with Boringguy45. Another idea that won't likely go anywhere.

I'm unaware of any 6.8 round that is in any way an improvement over 5.56. Granted M855 is a mediocre round at best, but a simple switch to Mk262 would be massively wiser than anything 6.8

We played with 6.8 very briefly, and it makes no sense. Might as well just go 300 worthless.

[Pasta123]

Was the bureaucrats still dreaming about one shot kill?

[Pasta123]

Good lord, what's wrong with just getting off-the-shelf improvements? Do they hate their 5.56 ARs as much as their M9s?

[bp7178]

The Sig Sauer design chambers a 6.8 x 51 mm round with a maximum chamber pressure of 80,000 pounds per square inch that extends the weapon’s range without the need for a longer barrel or heavier ammunition.

80K PSI.

[Pasta123]

That sentiment goes back to the 1960s when the M16 was first fielded. I tend to agree with Boringguy45. Another idea that won't likely go anywhere.

I'm unaware of any 6.8 round that is in any way an improvement over 5.56. Granted M855 is a mediocre round at best, but a simple switch to Mk262 would be massively wiser than anything 6.8

We played with 6.8 very briefly, and it makes no sense. Might as well just go 300 worthless.

So how did the 6.8 TVCM perform? Can most of its improvements made over to the 5.56/7.62 NATO?

[1168]

That sentiment goes back to the 1960s when the M16 was first fielded. I tend to agree with Boringguy45. Another idea that won't likely go anywhere.

I'm unaware of any 6.8 round that is in any way an improvement over 5.56. Granted M855 is a mediocre round at best, but a simple switch to Mk262 would be massively wiser than anything 6.8

We played with 6.8 very briefly, and it makes no sense. Might as well just go 300 worthless.

This particular 6.8 looks line this: https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread...ury&highlight=
And it would make sense as a DMR or Mk48 (had other similar cartridges not already existed), but it puts its pants on one ear and eyeball at a time as a M4 replacement.

[zack991]

Um, what? Where did you get that shit from?


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Overseas major issues were found in Afghanistan especially at distance and in certain situations upclose that the round was not performing as designed and it wasn't effective at dropping the taliban.

The round has had proven problems just zipping through targets and not tumbling as designed. Plenty of articles over the years talking about it and the army tried to correct its short comings with the M855a1 that with its high pressures was wearing guns out 50% faster. This has been a well known problem with the round especially out of 14.5 inch rifles we use. Certainly not pulling it out of my ass, and it has been a major issue for over two decades plus now. How is any of this news? The 9 years I spent as a grunt we had issues with it and friends who are still in were still not happy with the m855a1 revised round.

2002
https://defensereview.com/weaponammu...ikov-solution/

2008
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna24828356

2010
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...n-afghanistan/

2010
https://www.tactical-life.com/news/u...eters)%20apart.

2017
https://www.foxnews.com/world/long-r...orse-m-4-rifle

2019
https://www.realcleardefense.com/art...et_114140.html

"None of the M855's shortcomings is surprising, said Don Alexander, a retired Army chief warrant officer with combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Somalia.

"The bullet does exactly what it was designed to do. It just doesn't do very well at close ranges against smaller-statured people that are lightly equipped and clothed," says Alexander, who spent most of his 26-year military career with the 5th Special Forces Group."


"Paul Howe was part of a U.S. military task force 15 years ago in Mogadishu, Somalia's slum-choked capital, when he saw a Somali fighter hit in the back from about a dozen feet away with an M855 round.

I saw it poof out the other side through his shirt," says Howe, a retired master sergeant and a former member of the Army's elite Delta Force. "The guy just spun around and looked at where the round came from. He got shot a couple more times, but the first round didn't faze him."

With the M855, troops have to hit their targets with more rounds, said Howe, who owns a combat shooting school in Texas. That can be tough to do under high-stress conditions when one shot is all a soldier might get.

"The bullet is just not big enough," he says. "If I'm going into a room against somebody that's determined to kill me, I want to put him down as fast as possible."

"These carbines had shorter barrels, usually around 14.5 or sixteen inches, which gave them lower muzzle velocity compared to the full twenty-inch barrel of the M16. The lower velocity of these carbines led to incidents such as those in Mogadishu where the M855 fired out of a CAR-15 failed to fragment and put targets down reliably.


The issue of M855 lethality continued to plague the military in the post-9/11 era. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on, the U.S. Army and Marines began to issue out M4 Carbines, which use a 14.5-inch barrel, in larger numbers. This only exacerbated the problem with M855."

Special Operations Forces were already well aware of the limitations of M855 in short 5.56 rifles following their experiences in Mogadishu. They already had an alternate bullet in the form of the Mk262, a seventy-seven grain open tip match round originally issued with the Mk12 SPR, a version of the M16 designed for precision fire."

"A U.S. Army study found that the 5.56 mm bullets fired from M-4s don’t retain enough velocity at distances greater than 1,000 feet (300 meters) to kill an adversary. In hilly regions of Afghanistan, NATO and insurgent forces are often 2,000 to 2,500 feet (600-800 meters) apart.'

[MegademiC]

Thats a shot placement, bullet, and expectation issue.

Ive seen deer take a 12 ga slug through the heart and not be "phased" and run 50 yards.

Expecting a non cns shot to drop someone every time will always lead to complaints.

[1168]

Every long range engagement I’ve been involved in in Afghanistan was decisively one-sided. Infantry units have organic weapons larger than 5.56 for longer engagements. I keep hearing about these long range ambushes with PKMs and DShKMs, but we crushed them, in my experience. I understand that experiences vary, and I have some black bracelets, but I think the “goat herders outranged us” bit is grossly exaggerated. Hell, in the time that “overmatch” slide show surfaced, Afghanistan was just starting to heat up.

And like Paul, I’ve found that people that need shot frequently require rounds plural. Cool thing is, war is a team sport, so I bring friends and family. And 5.56’s light weight enable us to carry lots of ammo.

I wasn’t in Somalia in ‘93, but I know at least 4 people that were. Two taught at my Bco 3/75 Team Leader Course in Ar Ramadi, and one of those was like the go-to marksmanship dude, renowned in 3/75. We got in some serious fights in that time period together, and we all shot some dudes, and some of us got shot. The other two Mog vets grew up to be CSMs at Delta, then later JSOC and SOCOM. Some of those 4 dudes have shared their Mog experiences with me and/or TV cameras. None of them ever relayed a need to replace 5.56, and the organizations involved continued to use 5.56 in primary weapons, which continued to be CAR-15 shaped. Hilariously, one of them liked to refer to his 416 as his “CAR-15”, and no one was going to correct him.

Better ammo than M855 already exists.

[Wake27]

Overseas major issues were found in Afghanistan especially at distance and in certain situations upclose that the round was not performing as designed and it wasn't effective at dropping the taliban.

The round has had proven problems just zipping through targets and not tumbling as designed. Plenty of articles over the years talking about it and the army tried to correct its short comings with the M855a1 that with its high pressures was wearing guns out 50% faster. This has been a well known problem with the round especially out of 14.5 inch rifles we use. Certainly not pulling it out of my ass, and it has been a major issue for over two decades plus now. How is any of this news? The 9 years I spent as a grunt we had issues with it and friends who are still in were still not happy with the m855a1 revised round.

2002
https://defensereview.com/weaponammu...ikov-solution/

2008
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna24828356

2010
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...n-afghanistan/

2010
https://www.tactical-life.com/news/u...eters)%20apart.

2017
https://www.foxnews.com/world/long-r...orse-m-4-rifle

2019
https://www.realcleardefense.com/art...et_114140.html

"None of the M855's shortcomings is surprising, said Don Alexander, a retired Army chief warrant officer with combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Somalia.

"The bullet does exactly what it was designed to do. It just doesn't do very well at close ranges against smaller-statured people that are lightly equipped and clothed," says Alexander, who spent most of his 26-year military career with the 5th Special Forces Group."


"Paul Howe was part of a U.S. military task force 15 years ago in Mogadishu, Somalia's slum-choked capital, when he saw a Somali fighter hit in the back from about a dozen feet away with an M855 round.

I saw it poof out the other side through his shirt," says Howe, a retired master sergeant and a former member of the Army's elite Delta Force. "The guy just spun around and looked at where the round came from. He got shot a couple more times, but the first round didn't faze him."

With the M855, troops have to hit their targets with more rounds, said Howe, who owns a combat shooting school in Texas. That can be tough to do under high-stress conditions when one shot is all a soldier might get.

"The bullet is just not big enough," he says. "If I'm going into a room against somebody that's determined to kill me, I want to put him down as fast as possible."

"These carbines had shorter barrels, usually around 14.5 or sixteen inches, which gave them lower muzzle velocity compared to the full twenty-inch barrel of the M16. The lower velocity of these carbines led to incidents such as those in Mogadishu where the M855 fired out of a CAR-15 failed to fragment and put targets down reliably.


The issue of M855 lethality continued to plague the military in the post-9/11 era. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on, the U.S. Army and Marines began to issue out M4 Carbines, which use a 14.5-inch barrel, in larger numbers. This only exacerbated the problem with M855."

Special Operations Forces were already well aware of the limitations of M855 in short 5.56 rifles following their experiences in Mogadishu. They already had an alternate bullet in the form of the Mk262, a seventy-seven grain open tip match round originally issued with the Mk12 SPR, a version of the M16 designed for precision fire."

"A U.S. Army study found that the 5.56 mm bullets fired from M-4s don’t retain enough velocity at distances greater than 1,000 feet (300 meters) to kill an adversary. In hilly regions of Afghanistan, NATO and insurgent forces are often 2,000 to 2,500 feet (600-800 meters) apart.'

Guess I should’ve trimmed the quote more, I was talking about 855A1 specifically since that’s what we’ve used for some time.


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