SIG Wins US Army Next Generation Squad Weapon Contract

[TGS]

On the flip side, are we fielding body armor as good as the new Chinese armor, and if so, I wonder if they are looking into a solution to defeat our armor?

Their new armor....the first force-wide fielding of armor ever in PLA history....only begun in 2017 and is reported to be silicon carbide plates. Technical information on the plates is light, as is information as to how widely fielded the armor actually is in reality. I'd be surprised if it's comparable to ESAPI or XSAPI, however, due to weight. Similarly, I'd be surprised if it was comparable to premier level armor like PBZ due to cost as well as lack of maturity in the Chinese body army industry.

They do not currently field a dismounted kinetic weapon that can defeat our ESAPI and XSAPI plates, and their 5.8x42 round is pretty lackluster compared to our M995 and even M855A1.

The Russians historically have fielded some decent armor here and there, but again due to cost it was very limited in issue up until the last few years with the Ratnik program. Their current standard armor, 6b45, can stop a single shot of M855A1 EPR or M955 AP, but not M993 (7.62x51 AP) and the wearer will be subjected to life-threatening blunt trauma if shot with 30-06 M2 though the plate won't be penetrated. It is slightly inferior to western armor, and relatively heavy...it offers the protection roughly that of ESAPI, but for the weight of XSAPI.

I have a hard time imagining Chinese body armor being of greater quality than Russian, given the amount of time of R&D as well as combat testing that the Russians have put into body armor....whereas Chinese body armor was virtually non-existent on any notable scale until one day when they came out of left-field and unexpectedly said, "EVERYBODY GETS BODY ARMOR!". I doubt they've gone "zero-to-hero" on body armor tech when it has been an afterthought for the last 70 years.

[El Cid]

Brown tip and 855A1 aren’t usually the same thing. Brown tip more often refers to MK318 I believe. The entire Army has used 855A1 for many years, regardless of MOS.


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Then that might be my transposing terms. It was 855A1. Def not Mk318.

Now I’m confused. I thought the 855a1 like previous 855’s was still a green tip. And the Mk318 was silver. The brown tip I understood to be the all copper 70gr TSX used by SOF. We new some SME’s to jump in here.

[Wake27]

Now I’m confused. I thought the 855a1 like previous 855’s was still a green tip. And the Mk318 was silver. The brown tip I understood to be the all copper 70gr TSX used by SOF. We new some SME’s to jump in here.

I think Mod 0 is normal copper color, Mod 1 silver. 855A1 is absolutely the image below.



I don’t know about the TSX.


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[Ed L]

Brown tip and 855A1 aren’t usually the same thing. Brown tip more often refers to MK318 I believe. The entire Army has used 855A1 for many years, regardless of MOS.

I think the Brown Tip is a 70 grain all copper Barnes hollow point, or something like along those lines.

[willie]

I think the very high pressure round will cause mechanical problems in the rifle. Makes no sense.

[hiro]

It's been a while since I read @Failure2Stop posts, both here and other forums but if my memory serves me correctly, he carried and was a proponent of 7.62 rifles. I'd be interested in his take on this new round/rifle.

If my memory is poor apologies.

Not sure what the round's performance is at 13", but I believe the SIG M5 has a 15"+ barrel length, and the M250 is 17"+.....and the full power 277 Fury is rated for 3,000fps at 16". It should perform fine out of either system for the purposes of increasing AP range and capability.

It just seems bizarre that they're focusing on this for the average infantryman, who in near-peer conflict are really just close-protection for the employment of other weapons systems. To replace DMRs and company MGs in 277 would be a pretty significant improvement on its own, but issuing it beyond that to each troop seems like the point of diminishing returns is already exceeded.

To wit the Ukraine mention, it's generally more important for Pvt Snuffy to be humping an NLAW, extra Charlie-G rounds, extra mortar rounds, or some other instrument of mayhem than to have to carry heavy ass ammo for a rifle he's incapable of exercising the capabilities of (even if he's a stud on the range, chances are his engagements will be well within the capability of M995 5.56 anyway).

I had been reticent to share an opinion on this for a while, but the more I've talked it over with people, the more I'm confident this is a stupid idea along the same lines as the looney tunes comic-con retro uniform. I'm also a bit of a fanboi and biased, but I think it's telling that the USMC isn't following suit...an organization that historically overvalues the concept of the nostalgic Rifleman, even still referring to individual infantrymen as Riflemen, and units as Rifle Companies, Rifle Regiments, etc. Maybe I'm a tool, but I think that's a clue.

[Mark D]

Jose Gordon on the overmatch rant, but Chuck P. also discussed the problems with general issue of bsttke rifles in other episodes.

Good videos from HCM, but for folks who want the cliff notes version of the 4 hour P&S Modcast, here's a 16 minute excerpt of Chuck Pressburg explaining why he thinks a heavier caliber rifle is stupid. He's pretty savage. This conversation is a few years old, but I think it's relevant to the new rifle.

[TGS]

It's been a while since I read @Failure2Stop posts, both here and other forums but if my memory serves me correctly, he carried and was a proponent of 7.62 rifles. I'd be interested in his take on this new round/rifle.

If my memory is poor apologies.

Nah, you're remembering correctly...but I think his comments would align with the one's I've made. Here's what I found:

I do some .308 stuff.

Here's my advice: unless you have a clear use for the gun, don't do it. They are all costly, and the better ones even more so. The point of diminishing returns hits very fast, and a thousand dollars of investment is very easily required for incremental gain at the levels above hobbyist grade. That said, nothing wrong with being a hobbyist, but the differences between tiers gets crystallized pretty fast.

Despite my dour post, I am actually a big .308 gas gun fan. I love the way it smacks steel out to 800 meters, drops hogs, and at matches makes 5.56 shooters green with envy when a decent .308 shooter beats them at run-n-gun. There are really solid ammunition choices for every application, and while recoil is a factor, my 8 year old can shoot my suppressed APC and keep asking for more.

All of that said, the average line unit kid doesn't receive 1/10th of the instruction that my 8 year old has, and that's only the first problem with widespread use of 7.62. Lots of folks are reading these articles, but failing to see the trees for the forest (yes, that is intentionally reversed). The problem, as far as the program is concerned, is less about shooting and more about piercing armor. The problem, as far as reality is concerned, is that it isn't focused enough on shooting, therefore making armor penetration less relevant. I don't know where the fallacy came from, but 16" 7.62 gas guns are not easier to shoot than 20" gas guns, and 20" gas guns are not easy to shoot well. It takes work, practice, determination, and experience to get to a good place with them.

The other significant problem is carrying ammunition. 7.62 magazines are bulkier, heavier, and less friendly to the average hand than 5.56. Average loadout for 5.56 is 210 rounds, spread over 7 magazines, with one in the gun and six on body. The largest practical .308 magazine is the Magpul 25 rounder, and even with them, you're going to need to cut to 200 rounds in 8 magazines to be anywhere near realistic on-body magazine space. This is a pretty involved topic, and rather than typing out a novel, I'm just going to skip ahead to weight. Those 200 rounds of 7.62 are going to weigh over 10.5 lbs, as opposed to 210 rounds of 5.56 at 4.2-5.9 lbs. Yeah, we can get into lightweight alternate case material, but a project that takes two years to get the weight of the ammunition alone down to where it's not excessive is hard to make the hinge point for an interim program.

That said, there is definitely a place for a 7.62 gun, but it's a specialist/niche material solution that depends on the skill and strength of the individual user to show clear advantage.

The other problem is the ergonomics of the M5. Great gun for short 3-gun matches, or for laying in and pinging steel from distance....but the ergos suck for someone that's going to have to do CQB in a combat environment where you're exhausted. Not only is the M5 substantially heavier than the M4, but compared to your average 7.62x51 system it's got a thiccc-ass barrel on it, is very front heavy and unbalanced. That's not going to work out well for troops who by the nature of combat operations are exhausted and unable to keep the weapon in a proper low-ready position.

[Ndbbm]

On the high pressure full power round, I saw they are getting a lower power training round as well. Any thoughts of just using the training round unless there’s a specific need to issue out the full power round?


Jason

[Tokarev]

A bit of info on the companion belt fed M250:



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