SIG Wins US Army Next Generation Squad Weapon Contract

[Mark D]

After watching the Forgotten Weapons videos, I'm warming up to it. But not as a replacement for the M4/M16 family. The logistics alone make it problematic, as previously pointed out.

Based on my experience with government bureaucracy, I expect the lower pressure "training" round will be issued for killing most bad guys. Especially insurgents running around with an AK. Or an equivalent adversary.

For most units, the high pressure "combat round" will probably be unobtainium unless we actually end up in a near-peer conflict. And if that happens, the type of ammo in an infantryman's rifle seems pretty far down the list of important things.

[MandoWookie]

After watching the Forgotten Weapons videos, I'm warming up to it. But not as a replacement for the M4/M16 family. The logistics alone make it problematic, as previously pointed out.

Based on my experience with government bureaucracy, I expect the lower pressure "training" round will be issued for killing most bad guys. Especially insurgents running around with an AK. Or an equivalent adversary.

For most units, the high pressure "combat round" will probably be unobtainium unless we actually end up in a near-peer conflict. And if that happens, the type of ammo in an infantryman's rifle seems pretty far down the list of important things.

I seem to recall discussion around M855A1 saying something similar, that people speculated that it would wind up a specialty round and not a replacement. But I could be mistaken.

But I could see them not issuing the round it was designed around and justified by for cost savings.
After all didnt the Navy build several ships around a new gun system, then cancel the gun systems special rounds to save money and render them multi-billion dollar floating targets?

[HCM]

@HCM Thanks for those links.

It was not clear to me (forgive me if I am dense), but is the purpose of this 6.8 mm round is to: 1) Extend effective lethal range of the rifleman?; 2) Defeat peer or near-peer combatant body armor?; 3) Improve barrier penetration? Or is none of the above? I still think the 5.56 mm round is still very useful.

To give Sig Sauer some credit, some of their optics have been very nice especially their rangefinding stuff. If they had brought out advanced optics to mount on issued rifles, that would have probably made that individual soldier markedly more lethal than this gun/round.

Near peer armor is cited as #1.

Extended range to take advantage of new optics is a distant second.

In the longer linked video Chuck P. Goes into the whole shooting vs fighting aspects of why 5.56 is still very useful.

[HCM]

The 277 Fury in brass cases is just plain stupid for .mil use, no significant advantage over 7.62 NATO.

And even though the case head and round OAL is the same, and recoil impulse identical, the steel head hybrid case is rated at close to 80,000 PSI and the gas port pressure is also going to be a lot higher. The conversion of legacy arms to the full power 277 version is not going to be straightforward.

TGS has highlighted the weight and capacity issue for normal troops, but we also have to remember that the full power version will kick just like a 7.62 NATO does in a similar rifle, since the full power round has the same recoil impulse. I don't see this gun ever replacing the M4 for most troops.

Another point: no matter how good your bullet is, you are not going to get enough velocity out of the 13" barrel to penetrate modern plate armor at anything but close range and very low angles of impact.

If HSLD users prefer this rifle for some uses/environments, I suspect many of them are going to ditch the whizbang optic that does everything for something else, since well trained shooters with a flat shooting gun don't really need a ballisctic computer and range finder for normal ranges.

As previously discussed the brass case ammo is intended for training.

While the lower pressure brass case round may be cheaper, the real advantage of the lower pressure round Is the ability to use it on current military ranges designed for 5.56.

As discussed earlier and in other threads here The area required for small arms ranges, i.e. the surface danger zone or SDZ is significantly larger than the area required for the range itself.

As a result, there are many military training ranges which are restricted to 556, or specificlly restricted to frangible 5.56 which has a reduced SDZ vs standard 5.56.

If you only shoot the full power 277 ammo now you have to do your rifle training on ranges that are rated for 7.62 NATO and up. Those ranges are already in high demand for machine guns and precision rifles.

You have the same issue with other training facility such as life fire shoot houses.

Logistics issues like this are why you see things like 5.56 caliber conversion kits for the scar H and 7.62 NATO barrels for the new Mk13.

So regardless of the merits of the M5 versus the M4, if the M5 is going to be a thing there are very practical reasons to have a lower pressure training round.

[Ed L]

Using the lower-pressure, softer shooting brass ammo to train and the higher pressure hybrid stuff to fight seems to me to be one of those ideas that’s way better on paper. Are soldiers on longer deployments going to have access to the soft stuff to stay sharp? Will the higher pressure stuff shoot differently enough that the training is of limited help? Seems like a dichotomy that could get messy in the real world.

If they don't do a lot of shooting with the high pressure ammo in different conditions with regular troops shooting it, I am concerned that there may be potential problems that will not be discovered until they get the gun in combat.

[Bucky]

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?

[Caballoflaco]

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?

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Jour...-Rocket-Force/

Meanwhile, the conventional arm of the PLARF is the largest ground-based missile force in the world, with over 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles and with enough antiship missiles to attack every U.S. surface combatant vessel in the South China Sea with enough firepower to overcome each ship’s missile defense.4 The elevation from Second Artillery Force to PLARF—that is, elevation to a full-service equivalent to the army, navy, and air force—is indicative of China’s increased reliance on missile forces at the operational and strategic levels.

As mentioned by @Wake27 small arms aren’t what kill people in near peer conflicts. I always believed the professionals when they said that, but watching the artillery war that the invasion of Ukraine has turned into has helped me truly understand it.

Rubizhne, Ukraine:

[JHC]

I seem to recall discussion around M855A1 saying something similar, that people speculated that it would wind up a specialty round and not a replacement. But I could be mistaken.

FWIW I know folks issues the brown tip 855A1 on deployments going back years now, from when it was early hot news til more recently. They were all Infantry.

[Wake27]

FWIW I know folks issues the brown tip 855A1 on deployments going back years now, from when it was early hot news til more recently. They were all Infantry.

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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[JHC]

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.