On all key technical measures, the Next Generation Squad Weapons program is imploding before Army’s very eyes. The program is on mechanical life support, and its progenitors at the Joint Chiefs obstinately now ramming the program through despite spectacularly failing multiple civilian-sector peer reviews almost immediately upon commercial release.
Indeed the rifle seems cursed from birth...
https://www.armytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2023/02/28/the-not-really-next-generation-weapons-program/
kek, I said this would happen.
i dont understand whats wrong with the ar15, it works fine. why would they want to replace it?
Its a 60 year old design.
Its like only eating vanilla icecream FOR SIXTY YEARS only mixing it up with some toppings or syrups and eventually was upgraded to French vanilla. It's fucking boring and while war never changes the environments/tactics/etc DO.
Also new generation trainees are more maluble to train on new platforms.
sometimes you dont need to reinvent the wheel.
theres nothing to improve because for the last SIXTY YEARS mechanical engineering and mettalurgy has stagnated while electronics have taken over the world.
only way we are getting an ar15 replacement is if me make hybrids or rail guns.
Eugene stoner will go down as influential as samuel colt
Bold to assume the AR15 is the "wheel" of firearms.
It is another design, one that can always be innovated from.
Of course, that's what makes NGSW so frustrating. We could have had 120kpsi M4A2s and cased telescoped 6mm LSATs but boomer generals wanted a battle rifle instead.
While I was team bullpup the textron entry was a close 2nd for me. Boomers stole the future from us yet again.
the most annoying thing was watching the press release after they chose sig. half the questions were about AP. The two assholes were smug the whole time not answering them thinking they are smarter than the public by pulling wool over everyone's eyes.
The sig press releases should have made us realize that there wasn't going to be any advanced improvements.
>The ammo is XX% compatible with current ammo manufacturing plants!
>it has unbelievable barrel life!
and X days later after being selected all the media shows everyone is shooting training rounds that are all brass cased and none of the bimetal cases. If it ever does get fielded, I am sure the suckers who have to drag it around filled with those shitty training rounds for 0% weight savings army promised.
>days later after being selected all the media shows everyone is shooting training rounds
bro, why the fuck do you think they're gonna just start selling full load military ammo to civillains?
Yeah, people were shooting the low load training loads because that's what SIG sold them.
That doesn't mean it CAN'T shoot the higher load rounds, it just means those rounds are going to the army and not for sale on the market.
The SIG FURY SPARTAN WARRIOR SHEEPDOG NINJA LIFESTLYE civilian rounds were shown in the marketing as the bimetal cases.
You can get the bimetal ones as far as I know but the training rounds are what everyone shoots because they are cheaper (no surprise).
Those don't have any kind of penetrator, the military AP load presumably does.
>AP load
not all the ammo army bought are AP. the press assumed was the standard load was AP. It is not. The military bought the AP in a separate line item. I wasn't talking about AP. I was talking about the standard loadout ammo that magically disappeared overnight with its bimetal case with its hard to believe weight savings. Not AP, not training ammo.
Well I don't think that it's much of a surprise that the training ammo is being shot in videos of people training with the rifle.
>not all the ammo army bought are AP
Its the only round the Army bought for its initial stock of ammo. They're setting up the manufacturing for it first, then the training rounds second.
its a design that works without any big drawbacks, you could replace it for an ar18, but the gain wouldnt be as much as the cost.
compared to electronics, yes
advancement has been so limited compared to electronics that pistols are plastic now.
the WWSD project is an example of modern materials as a spiritual successor to the AR15, and all you get is a lighter plastic Ar15 thats way more expensive.
>engineering and metallurgy has stagnated
Lmao what a fucking retard
>mettalurgy
As a metallurgist this is utter rubbish, materials science has advanced more in the past thirty years than in the preceding 30 with the advent of computerized/digitized sensors and equipment such as digital imaging, CT scanning, digitized Scanning Electron Microscopy, making our job and measurements more precise, accurate, convenient, and reducing the time it takes to make advancements.
The truth is the AR-15/M16/M4 has been changed from one drawing to the next to take advantage of better materials, coating processes, heat treatment parameters, inspection and quality control measures, and generally material upgrades whether the materials be actually a superior material or the processing (cold hammer forged barrels and adjustments to it to optimize fatigue/wear resistance, yield strength, etc.) and purity of metals is better with less inherent defects like inclusions or property degrading contamination like oxides, sulfides, copper, etc.
>The truth is the AR-15/M16/M4 has been changed from one drawing to the next
no it hasn't
>better materials, coating processes, heat treatment parameters
nope, milspec hasn't changed at all, frankly the rifle has been downgraded since original release with the loss of the chrome bcg
>generally material upgrades whether the materials be actually a superior material or the processing
It's still 4150 steel and 7075 aluminum my dude
>cold hammer forged barrels
Cold hammer forging barrels has been around a lot longer than the AR-15 has existed.
>purity of metals is better with less inherent defects like inclusions or property degrading contamination like oxides, sulfides, copper, etc.
This is the only part that's true and its impact on gun barrels is practically nonexistant.
>why are we replacing this rifle, it’s old but works perfect.
>it’s old
>yeah but why replace it
>it’s just old stop asking questions.
What we really need is a short stroke 16in urgi firing a modernized plastic cased 22-250
To get ahead of the curve to combat against future drone warfare. Armored Landbased Combat Drones might be to hardy for the 5.56. Or they might/probably be to accurately dangerous to get in a fire fight with do to being co-oped with targeting computers, so added range of the 6.5 would be needed to help neutralize such targets at safer distances.
Against small stuff maybe. Otherwise the drone will probably be as well armored as the infantry plates it can't punch through.
added effective range to better utilize computer assisted aiming. Piston driven so better suppressed. And heavier to ensure women can't be in combat roles
lmfao
its not really the rifle that's the problem but the ammunition. They could have just refit the m4/m16 to 6.8 ammo but the army being what they are they thought well might as well get new guns out of it as well.
Catch-22 of:
>A meaningful upgrade would just be changing out the ammo
>But that'd be so fucking expensive and laborious the only justification would be a whole new system
>But a whole new system isn't necessary.
I never thought I'd be a crayon simp but the marines consistently seem to be smarter than the army when it comes to procurement.
Honestly putting all the eggs in one basket of a single producer for your sidearm and your service rifle and your GPMG does not feel like a good idea to me. Reeks of corruption.
>marines smart when it comes to procurement
I believe that marines move up to command positions because they aren't dumb enough to qualify for infantry and in the army they move up because they are too dumb to be in the infantry.
>reeks of corruption
I almost believe it could be but I think the army don't really know what they want when they ask for something or maybe they just refuse clarify.
>the marines consistently seem to be smarter than the army when it comes to procurement.
you mean adopting a DMR style service rifle that weighs more than the XM7 before its loaded and fitted with a suppressor? that smart decision? lmao.
>ArmyTimes
Go and shit in a ditch dumbass
>aaaaa the NGSW sucks so hard even normies recognize it this makes it valid after all!
seethe, sigger.
>Civilian testing, testing Army either never did or is hiding, also only recently demonstrated that the rifle seemingly fails, at point-blank ranges, to meet its base criteria of penetrating Level 4 body armor (unassisted). True, the Army never explicitly set this goal, but it has nonetheless insinuated at every level, from media to Congress, that the rifle will penetrate said armor unassisted. Indeed, that was the entire point of the program.
The gun doesn't stand up to standards that there is no evidence the Army ever set for it, and that have come entirely from journalists trying to read between the lines in absolutely ridiculous ways. Wow, it's fucking nothing.
>For guaranteed hits, the shooter still must manually ‘ping’ the target. This takes back usable seconds and makes shooting 100% accurately on the fly, as envisioned under the program to justify the reduced available round count, an utter pipe dream.
Wow, the scope still requires pressing a button to laze the target before instantly giving you a fire solution and letting you share that target's position with your buddies. This totally isn't how everyone with at least a partially functional brain expected it to work.
The "civilian testing" being done is almost certainly not using the AP rounds anyways
Retards hyped it up as punching rifle plates with ball ammo out to the M4's maximum effective range against unarmored targets. It's an absolutely retarded standard that nothing can meet.
Some retards might've said that but it doesn't mean that the rifle has 'failed' as claimed. It's absolutely capable of penetrating level IV plates.
Spent 6 months trying to explain to people that 6.8 ball wasn't going to blow through modern body armor, and that if you really wanted to find out you could shoot the same velocity magnum round out of a 24 inch 7.62 barrel and prove it for yourself
still bitter the textron entry didn't pan out.
everyone said this would happen bro. because it's happened before, several times.
it literally happened with the m14. it probably happened with something even before that, but that's as far back as i can remember.
They should have just brought back the X-M8, because it looked like starship troopers
Basically all i can find on this guy are 3-4 different articles all shitting on the NGSW.
Personnel mounted laser detectors are already in use, the xm 157 laser will be limited by this, as PEQs already are.
The bi metal cases always seemed like the worst compromise, if they were willing to wait for/develop CT they could have had something wonderful.
As it is this is a sidegrade at best, the additional penetration being dependent on round selection kind of destroys the main advantage we all thought it would have in favor of less ammo, more weight, higher pressure, and more complex ammunition.
Sig sucks ass
>Personnel mounted laser detectors are already in use, the xm 157 laser will be limited by this,
With who, and do they give a remotely accurate bearing on where you're being lazed from? If not, then the XM157 isn't really limited by that. Keep in mind the XM157 can also share the position of whoever you just lazed like the spotting portrayed in the Battlefield series, allowing them to be engaged with other options.
Wagner actually, and it does give direction.
Without a doubt, the xm157 is cool technology, but it is already being pre-empted, its not going to give us the gap we had with the Iraqis.
https://eurasiantimes.com/russias-helmet-mounted-spider-laser-detection-device-that/
For every:
"we're buying these 55k m27s to replace the SAW for our less than 700 squads"
The corps gives us one:
"we're going to put a lift fan where the fuel tank should be, sacrificing range, payload, maneuverability and weight for the capability to operate a 100 million dollar plane in austere environments"
The marine corps lives at the extreme ends of procurement intelligence
/k/ope and seethe chud.
His fucking haircut tho
it looks like a discount G36
whats so special about it?
Oh no it failed the all important pour mud directly into the action test!
After nearly a decade as a crayon eater and PMC, I can tell you that the largest problem faced by the US military and it's small arms programs is the ability for the intended shooters to actually hit a target. Thats been the problem since maybe WWI. Even in recent years, the reason the marines fielded a 4x ACOG and 500meter range qualifications and the army had to limit to 300m ranges and red dots was because the army didn't have the ability to train up that ability in their shorter enlistment time frames. Over time, fewer and fewer % of the population comes from a background of firearms familiarity. Back in WWII, a lot more people were marksman before ever signing up. Today it's abysmally low. Coupled with the increasingly poor quality diversity hires the military is scraping the barrel for. They are trying to solve the wrong problem. Larger caliber, heavier rifles are only going to make the issue worse. If someone is blasting 4" groups with a red dot M4, giving them a heavier recoil and heavier weapon and expecting performance at 600 meters is insanity. But here we are. I don't disagree that there would be some benefit to a caliber upgrade (hell 6mm ARC could be done without a lot of retrofitting to current platform) but the overall idea is like a pit crew arguing with the designers over how to wring an ounce more performance out of a race car by changing the tires or removing metal from here, while they have a chimpanzee in the driver's seat. That problem has to be solved first. The goal of the next generation rifle program should be selecting a weapon that fat zoomed retards have the highest accuracy with. I think it's also sort of chasing the dragon trying to bust Lv4 Plates because by the time we retrofit our entire military to something that can do it reliably, technology is gonna shit out the lv5, and we will be right back where we are now arguing about current calibers vs lv4. Just my .02 cents.
>Admitted crayon eater
>Why get a bigger cartridge when the main problem is training limiting effective range
>Forgets that a major part of the problem is making an aim assisting scope standard issue with the rifle
Pottery
I understand how those scopes work, and you don't. You think it's wizardry that it can use a LRF and give a simple dope. I know that doesn't matter if the shooter lacks the fundamental skills to put the round where it needs to go, assisted reticle or not. Not to even start on wind onxe you are past 500m. They were boasting 1000m capabilities, as if that would now be simple for the average burger grunt.
I'll add, to no one in particular, that I'm here in Ukraine and I've noticed that many of the higher tier units have adopted high numbers of M4's over the AK. There is certainly not a negative reputation of their efficacy or reliability at any rate.
>Over time, fewer and fewer % of the population comes from a background of firearms familiarity. Back in WWII, a lot more people were marksman before ever signing up. Today it's abysmally low
Gee, I wonder why that is?
Shit on gun owners, gun rights go on campaigns against gun owners and labeling them as "devils", then turn around and wonder why your recruits have nearly zero knowledge of firearms or how to use them.
Chickens coming home to roost.
Also ignoring the fact that you rarely get a shot at those distances because good infantry knows how to hide and use cover, and good armies don't use infantry in places where you can't.
Also ignoring the fact that at those ranges, you can have your fire support (autocannons/mortars/HMG/drones) do the shooting. Which, with the new smart scope, is easy, quick and accurate.
IMO the M5 has value as a DMR for those rare cases where you need it. And preparing options for any kind of armor is a decent idea - if the chinks just so happen to field LVL4 you'll be happy to have a weapon that just so happens to penetrate it. Then again, for that case they should rather have something that works with existing ammo manufacturing and doesn't require stainless steel cartridges. A long-barrelled bullup in .300WM for example.
I've always said they're too butthurt about China's 5.8 round which caused them to go this route to save their egos.
holy shit this is the lightest skinned "black" guy I have ever seen
That's what happens when you don't spend most of your life on the front porch.
My issue with the NGSW is the entire "muh AP" "muh range" "muh stopping powah" discussion is fundamentally flawed.
You dont have 500m sightlines in the fucking jungle. You dont have chinese soldiers perfectly exposing their plate to you at a 90 degree angle from their barricaded position in a house. yeeting 50 rounds of 5.56 through the window and maneuvring before throwing a frag inside is 99% more likely to happen than any soldier, magic aim assist scope or not engaging le heavily armored enemy at 500m.