I’m a little bit of a gun nut, and have an interest in things military, so I keep an eye on new weapons development as is reported in the news.
For the past few years, the Army has been trying to develop at least one sucessor to the M-16. The first is the OICW(Objective Individual Combat Weapon) and the other is the XM8.
Recently, both have been canceled. Personally, I’m not terribly broken up about it. From what I’ve read, the development of the XM8 to replace the M-16 seems like it’s spending a lot of money to reinvent the wheel. The XM8 does pretty much everything the M-16 does. The XM8 apparently was more reliable and needed less cleaning.
Arguably the M-16 had problems when first introduced but most of them apparently been ironed out, creating a well used and efficent machine. I’m not convinced we need a new battle rifle at this point, but if we do, it should be a significant improvement on the M-16. Unfortunatly, I can’t think of one that’s both relativily new and an improvement. The G36 seems to incoprate a lot of the same ideas, and is already in production. However, it’s also very similar to the M-16 from what I can see.
I pose the following questions:
1.) Does the M-16 need to be retired withen the next decade as the main US battle rifle?
2.) If so, what are the essential improvements that must be incorporated into the replacement?
3.) Is there a rifle in development or proposed that meets these requirements? Or, does a currently fielded rifle fit the bill already?
They cancelled the OICW!!! But… but… it was cool!
Anway, the Canadian army is introducing the C7-A2, essentially an M-16 with a few tweaks. That’s all the rifle really needed - minor improvements.
The M16A2 an excellent battle rifle, being extremely accurate, high powered, etc.
It also sucks in sand.
Given where most of our foreign engagements are going to be in the near future…I’d say we could use at least a refinement to the design so 3 grains of sand doesn’t render the thing useless for 5 minutes.
I thought the XM8 was (essentially) recoiless with a higher rate of fire and a larger magazine capacity and a bit lighter. Admittedly the only time I’ve seen it is on either the Military Channel or a similar channel. I thought it had a few other advantages as well but I can’t remember now…is this the one with the optical site that allows soldiers to fire it around corners using a viewer on their helmet?
Anyway:
I understand that the next generation AK’s are supposed to have reciprocating barrells, be extremely reliable, light weight, etc etc. I doubt the US military would adopt them, but you never know.
-XT
I’d say that we at least need to be looking at developing a next generation battle rifle. Something with a reciprocating barrell making it more steady on full auto…and probably a platform that will integrate with all the new electronics and next generation ammo they are always talking about.
Ability to allow soldiers to site electronically. Fire a range of ammo. Lightweight, extremely reliable. Ability to fire on full auto without significant muzzle distortion off target. Can be used by space marines, comes in 10 mm armor piercing with digital readouts, over and under grenade launchers, perfect for taking out alien creatures…just got to watch the fusion plants and acid backblast. Stuff like that.
Well-made AK-74s (not 47s) are as accurate or more accurate than M4s, which are becoming more widespread in use. There’s nothing inherently inaccurate about the AK design - with high quality manufacturing (the Bulgarians are particularly noted for this) they can be quite accurate.
The accuracy of the M16A2 is generally overstated, in any case. It’s one of those situations where people invent dichotomies when they may not really exist - “well, their weapon is more reliable, but ours is… really accurate. yeah.” It also stems from fairly widespread use of AR-15 “race guns” modified and tweaked for maximum accuracy, which are far more accurate than a standard issue M16A2.
Well-made AK-74s (not 47s) are as accurate or more accurate than M4s, which are becoming more widespread in use. There’s nothing inherently inaccurate about the AK design - with high quality manufacturing (the Bulgarians are particularly noted for this) they can be quite accurate.
You’re probably thinking of the land warrior system, which is an entire package, not just a rifle. The XM8 is a take off of the German G36, which is basically superior to the M16 in every way but aesthetics.
I thought I saw a show featuring the XM8 where they were demonstrating the ability to fire reasonably accurately on full auto…using one hand. Am I thinking of the correct weapon? It looks like the picture in the link anyway.
Probably if its the new one by Kalashnikov’s private company (?). As you can probably tell what little I know (or don’t know) I’ve gleened from the History Channel/Military Channel. Guns aren’t exactly my forte.
The Ak-10n series seems pretty awesome. We will never see US troops issued red arms though. Why have $300 battle rifles when we could spend $3000 a unit?
In my mind, General Kalashnikov is a genious. As Senor Beef has said, the Bulgies are very nice.
I’m not as up to date on these issues as I used to be, so take some of this as speculation on my part.
As I understand it, what’s now the XM8 was developed to a conversion of the G36 into a weapon capable of being integrated into the OICW weapon system, which itself was part of the land warrior system. For more info on that, land warrior and OICW are a good place to start.
The OICW plans appear to have been scrapped, but the rifle subsystem was considered as a standalone weapon to replace the M16. That, essentially, is the XM8.
I’m not sure how the OICW issue affects the future of the land warrior system, but perhaps they found the XM8 more compatable with the needs of this program than an off the shelf G36.
It depends on how you perceive reasonably accurately. Automatic arms aren’t as hard to control for a skilled shooter as you might think. The first time I fired an assault rifle on auto, I was able to place about 90% of the rounds into a car at about 120 yards using 3-4 round bursts. I’d imagine I could be reasonably accurate with a standard assault rifle one handed if the need required it… so I’m not sure what your observation amounts to. What you may have seen might have simply been a skilled shooter being reasonably accurate with an assault rifle with a standard operating system.
As far as I know, the G36 doesn’t have a recipricating barrel system, nor any unusual recoil control mechanism.
I’m not sure about that. The AN-94 is named after Gennadiy Nikonov, the designer. It may have the recoil control mechanisms that you’re thinking of… I can’t recall how exactly it works, but it can load and fire a second round before the recoil impulse affects the shooter, effectively eliminating recoil on the second shot in a two round burst.
Considering how many of American engagements in Iraq consist of close-quarter firefights in urban terrain, I think we have a little room to fudge around with our accuracy. It’s nice to be able to put rounds in the black at 500 yards on the KD course, but that’s not as important as my weapon actually firing when I pull the trigger after taking point in a four-man stack. I’ll take reliability any day.
And, as one of the poor saps who had to spend way too much time lugging around an M249-SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), the piece that the modern fire-team is built around implementing, I think a significant amount of effort should be put toward making sure that hunk of garbage doesn’t jam up any time someone looks at it wrong.
It would be nice to see a cheap and simple solution but I’m not holding my breath. The M-16 has a lot going for it with an adapatable modular design and excellent ergonomics. A lot of folks feel the gas system is it’s biggest weakness. The direct impigement gas system vents hot barrel gas directly into the reciever to operate the bolt. The feature was taken from another rifle but I’m not aware of any other current battle rifle that uses this system. A company in Phoenix has been building a gas piston upper (barrel, sights, top half of reciever and bolt/carrier) for AR-15s for over a year. It uses a simplified version of the standard bolt carrier without gas rings on the bolt. With no carbon coming into the bolt there is far less cleaning required and better reliability.
Basically, the M-16A2 is being faded out. The M-4 is replacing it as the standard issue weapon for the Active Duty Army. The M-4’s most significant change is the colapsable buttstock, which makes it much more useful when fired indoors.
The AK-47 is a better weapon, as it is less likey to jam, and is more resistant to malfunction, however, the AK-47 fires a 7.62mm round which takes it out of the category of a defensive weapon. The M-16/M-4 fires a 5.56mm round.
Automatic weapons are not all they are made out to be. In the Army we are trained to fire accurately. Firing on “full auto” generally does no more than burn up your rounds faster. Therefore the fully automatic weapons are generally used for area targets, rather than point targets.
Nitpick: The AK-47 does indeed fire a 7.62 X 39 round, however the AK-74, in service for many years now fires a 5.45 x 39. One of the main advantages is soldiers can carry more ammo. Furthermore, the AK-101 is chambered for the familiar US 5.56 X 45 (.223). The Israeli Galil, an AK variant, is also chambered for the NATO round.
Yeah, really!? I don’t get what you’re saying either…
First of all, what does the size of the round have to do with it being “defensive” vs “offensive”. Further, when has the Army ever worried about weapons being in the “defensive” category??
As far as the G36 v XM8 goes… the xm8 is a much simpler and cheaper weapon that can be mass produced at a much lower price than the G36. Back when it was my business to know prices, I believe the M4 was going around $800 or so, and the G36 was about $1400… so price is a big issue.
What’s this about the Xm8 program cancelled, though? Last I heard, the contract was going to be decided on after this November, but I hadn’t heard anything about it since June or so… well November has passed, was there some news recently that I didn’t hear?
Damn, I’d say that it’s most significant feature would be the shorter barrel and shorter sight radius (we are talking accuracy in this thread, aren’t we.) Not to mention that the telescoping stock allows an adjustable pull which is desireable when wearing different amounts of equipment. When I have on armor and plates, I need a shorter pull to be comfortable. When I am wearing hardly anything, I want it fully extended.
This has nothing to do with shooting indoors or outdoors, though. It has to do with how much gear is covering my shoulders and chest.
Again, though some of your facts are correct, nothing here is logically sound. 5.56 was adopted so that soldiers could carry MORE ammo and therefore be MORE offensive…