Saw the new army SIG rifle on forgotten weapons

Gene L

Nice, I guess, but it weighs 14 pounds!!!  I don't know how this is going to play out.  
A 135 gr. bullet moving at 2600 fps.  

Uncle Fester

It convinced me that most bolt action rifles would be able to handle the pressure of the "military" loads.  If that is true, the 277 Fury is going to be a screaming success as a "270 Short Magnum."   6.8 Western - RIP.

Gene L

The military load has to have a two-substance round...stainless steel at the primer end to accept the much higher pressure, then brass on out.  Practice ammo will be lower pressure brass only rounds.

Bigslug

So, it would seem that we're going to field an individual-issue rifle that weighs in excess of ten pounds. . .



. . .with commonality of ammunition with the squad automatics. . .

. . .



. . .firing a round that can make short work of a peer-adversary's body armor. . .



And just how many millions did we spend to figure this out?

shotgunshooter3

I'm not sure where the Forgotten Weapons guy is getting 14#. All data I've seen is indicating the base rifle weighs in the neighborhood of 8#. No 5.5# M4, for sure, but no 14# bludgeon either. Maybe that's a worst-case scenario with optic, suppressor, PEQ-15, etc, or possibly the LMG variant.

As far as developing a new round, etc, it's not as simple as reinventing the .30-06 with a FDE coating and cool name, to the tune of millions. The performance the 6.8x51 achieves is done with a 13" barrel, and the ammo weighs a good bit less than 7.62. I'm not sure, and kind of curious, as to why the Army specified the 6.8mm bullet, but to a large extent I think they got what they were looking for: Short barrel performance, ability to defeat peer/near peer body armor, reliable functioning in machine guns, less weight.

Time will tell if it was the right choice. It will be a very long time before the folks outside of combat MOSs are issued this rifle, and I imagine the M4 will still play a huge part in support roles.

Bigslug

Time will indeed tell.  Given the circus clown car series of events that seems to surround the military purchasing ANYTHING, I think U.S. small arms procurement is at least as much about awarding kinky favors provided by contractors as it is properly outfitting the troops.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the discussions on what exactly they want to accomplish in armor-penetrating capability.  I guess if you drive to the fight in a Humvee or helicopter, armor that actually has a chance of stopping even lesser rifle rounds might not be that cumbersome.  Given that our "near peers" aren't known for attaching a lot of value to the life of their individual soldiers, I'm curious as to exactly what armor we're expecting to be defeating.  WWI and WWII pretty much proved that rifle work beyond 400 meters is rare and that most of it is at 200 or less, so it seems unlikely that increased range for the average troop is a big consideration.

I will throw them this bone:  when you need the squad MG's to provide long range area denial, the 5.56 isn't a great tool for the job.  Seems like they may be dancing around the fringes of the German and British WWII model of the infantry existing to support the MG-42 or the BREN, which did most of the actual shooting.  The WWII British web gear even went so far as to get rid of the purpose-made pouches for SMLE stripper clips in favor of big pouches for BREN mags that the riflemen were supposed to carry and pass off to the MG man when he needed them.  Hmmmmm. . .while it makes sense for the M249 SAW to go away, it's ability to run off the rifleman's magazines as well as belts is probably worth retaining.  Anybody hear what this M250 is all about?

Gene L

I find it hard to believe 14 pounds as well, but Ian said that included everything, including ammo and an optic and the suppressor.  Barrel is 13" long.  I may have misheard him, but I don't think so.

bullsi1911

[quote] I'm curious as to exactly what armor we're expecting to be defeating[\quote]

The stuff we left in Afghanistan. 

GrapeApe

bullsi1911 said:

The stuff we left in Afghanistan. 

BAM!!!

Gene L

On looking further, it appears that the heavy weapon is the squad automatic version.  I'm not sure the funds are going to be available with the state the economy is in; we'll have to see.

Gila

Gene L said:

On looking further, it appears that the heavy weapon is the squad automatic version.  I'm not sure the funds are going to be available with the state the economy is in; we'll have to see.

That never stopped them before...

Wambli Ska

Gila said:

Gene L said:

On looking further, it appears that the heavy weapon is the squad automatic version.  I'm not sure the funds are going to be available with the state the economy is in; we'll have to see.

That never stopped them before...

Yep, must be fun to continually write checks when the account is stupidly overdrawn….