XM-7 NGSW rifle program apparently stalled?

[Borderland]

I guess NATO is on board with the new cartridge. Isn't that more or less how we ended up with 5.56 x 45? IDK, just asking.

[feudist]

I guess NATO is on board with the new cartridge. Isn't that more or less how we ended up with 5.56 x 45? IDK, just asking.

IIRC, we strong-armed them into the 7.62x51 after everyone agreed that an assault rifle(full auto, intermediate cartridge, a'la the AK) was the way forward, because, rifleman.
Then we crawfished and browbeat them into the M16/5.56, because LeMay shot some watermelons....
We're astonishingly lucky, against all odds, that the M16 is as great as it is, because common sense had nothing to do with it.

[Half Moon]

IIRC, we strong-armed them into the 7.62x51 after everyone agreed that an assault rifle(full auto, intermediate cartridge, a'la the AK) was the way forward, because, rifleman.
Then we crawfished and browbeat them into the M16/5.56, because LeMay shot some watermelons....
We're astonishingly lucky, against all odds, that the M16 is as great as it is, because common sense had nothing to do with it.

Yep. Could be wrong but my recollection is the US Army really wanted the .308 and got the Brits to agree to drop their experimental .280 bullpup assault rifle and adopt .308 on the basis we'd adopt the FN-FAL. So of course we adopted the M-14. Only to drop it for 5.56 and the M-16 (with pre-turbine helicopter lift limitations plus jungle warfare being driving factors)...

[wolf76]

The DOD Budget Estimates for 2023 provides more info on the ammo types for 6.8x51mm. The GP Projectile is based on the EPR design and is only designed for use against personnel and light armoured targets, not peer body armour. The SP Projectile is indeed an AP round designed to defeat a wide array of hard targets and my guess is that it's most likely based on the M1158 ADVAP design: https://www.asafm.army.mil/Portals/7.../AMMO_ARMY.pdf

[JoeTom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdAYSEm5zJA

This guy has an excellent channel. I think his criticism on the NGSW is on point. The main takeaway has already been stated here in a couple ways. Bottom line: small arms are Personal Defense Weapons and the real casualty producers are belt-feds, mortars, artillery, air, long-range standoff explody things, etc.

Personally, I feel like this is just the continuation of the long-held cultural tradition of romanticizing the mythical American rifleman as still being the pinnacle of warfighting technology. You can see it as far back as the legend of the minutemen and Patton's famous M1 Garand quote. Not to downplay the importance of the infantry. Even today, you still have to put the troop with the rifle on the ground and in the place before you can say you own it. But all this focus on NGSW is just strange given that the projections for the showdown in the Pacific with China say that it will be almost exclusively a long-range slugfest of missiles led by the Navy, Air Force, and Marine and Army aviation. Small arms will barely be featured it seems other than to pull security on the smoking craters formally known as Okinawa, Guam, and Hawaii. Just my thoughts.

[Joe in PNG]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdAYSEm5zJA

This guy has an excellent channel. I think his criticism on the NGSW is on point. The main takeaway has already been stated here in a couple ways. Bottom line: small arms are Personal Defense Weapons and the real casualty producers are belt-feds, mortars, artillery, air, long-range standoff explody things, etc.

Personally, I feel like this is just the continuation of the long-held cultural tradition of romanticizing the mythical American rifleman as still being the pinnacle of warfighting technology. You can see it as far back as the legend of the minutemen and Patton's famous M1 Garand quote. Not to downplay the importance of the infantry. Even today, you still have to put the troop with the rifle on the ground and in the place before you can say you own it. But all this focus on NGSW is just strange given that the projections for the showdown in the Pacific with China say that it will be almost exclusively a long-range slugfest of missiles led by the Navy, Air Force, and Marine and Army aviation. Small arms will barely be featured it seems other than to pull security on the smoking craters formally known as Okinawa, Guam, and Hawaii. Just my thoughts.

But are we still going to need guys to go into things like houses or other structures where the bad guys are? Will they need to go where the wheels and tracks don't work?

[Caballoflaco]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdAYSEm5zJA.

[HCM]

But are we still going to need guys to go into things like houses or other structures where the bad guys are? Will they need to go where the wheels and tracks don't work?

Yes and yes, And as the Russian experience in Ukraine demonstrates wheels and tracks are VERY vulnerable without adequate infantry protection.

[HCM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdAYSEm5zJA

This guy has an excellent channel. I think his criticism on the NGSW is on point. The main takeaway has already been stated here in a couple ways. Bottom line: small arms are Personal Defense Weapons and the real casualty producers are belt-feds, mortars, artillery, air, long-range standoff explody things, etc.

Personally, I feel like this is just the continuation of the long-held cultural tradition of romanticizing the mythical American rifleman as still being the pinnacle of warfighting technology. You can see it as far back as the legend of the minutemen and Patton's famous M1 Garand quote. Not to downplay the importance of the infantry. Even today, you still have to put the troop with the rifle on the ground and in the place before you can say you own it. But all this focus on NGSW is just strange given that the projections for the showdown in the Pacific with China say that it will be almost exclusively a long-range slugfest of missiles led by the Navy, Air Force, and Marine and Army aviation. Small arms will barely be featured it seems other than to pull security on the smoking craters formally known as Okinawa, Guam, and Hawaii. Just my thoughts.

While I agree that a bigger heavier gun with more recoil, bigger heavier ammunition, and less of it is a step in the wrong direction, your dismissal of the value of infantry in general is naïve at best.

[JoeTom]

While I agree that a bigger heavier gun with more recoil, bigger heavier ammunition, and less of it is a step in the wrong direction, your dismissal of the value of infantry in general is naïve at best.

Dismissal of value is not what I was trying to convey. I'm wondering if maybe our military tends to historically overemphasize the impact of the rifle on the battlefield. I don't know how anyone can look at the war in Ukraine and claim that the infantry are not valuable. I think that what the war has shown is that the existing calibers in the current military rifles and squad automatic weapons work just fine for the role they fill on a full spectrum, peer-to-peer battlefield.

But are we still going to need guys to go into things like houses or other structures where the bad guys are? Will they need to go where the wheels and tracks don't work?

Absolutely. I wasn't trying to claim we wouldn't need that. I was questioning if, in the specific context of a fight in the Pacific with China, NGSW is even relevant. My understanding of what that war would look like (at least initially) is that it would be ships, aircraft, submarines, and rocket artillery shooting each other from basically over the horizon. Not infantry slugging it out on the beachheads.