Fudd on the brain. It was so close, it was within our fricking grasp; but then some old boomer homosexual at Aberdeen had a nightmare about shooting between mountaintops Afghanistan and now we're stuck with overmatch bullshit. It goes without saying that carrying enough ammo to shoot from dawn til dusk is an overmatch all of its own, but we're committed now. I honestly think that long term, SOF adopting the LAMG is going to create a repeat of the M14/M16 scenario, where another branch adopting the gun that failed (i.e., the air force adopting the M16) gives it a foot in the door for every branch to adopt it.
I read the reason for the over stch (contrary to the popular opinion that it was about penetrating armor) was because they tested the suppression effects of various cartridges to arrive at the conclusion that significantly higher power cartridges at slightly reduced frequency have a greater suppressive effect than lots of small cartridges. That plus the ability to suppress from a greater range. There was a graph associated with this test but I can't find it
Nah, it's based in the few and far between studies down on suppression effects. Volume of fire isn't factored because fires that aren't or can't be determined as possibly hitting a target won't suppress them. That's not to say volume of fire isn't important, it's to say that simply sending as many bullets downrange as possible won't have the intended effect if it isn't accurate enough. Higher power cartridges also have a greater psychological effect and a slightly greater area of effect. In practice, a 240 will suppress better than a 249. It's important to note that this is all pretty academic, since suppression is a nebulous phenomenon to begin with and defining and studying it's causes and effects is both difficult and of little interest to militaries
I read the reason for the over stch (contrary to the popular opinion that it was about penetrating armor) was because they tested the suppression effects of various cartridges to arrive at the conclusion that significantly higher power cartridges at slightly reduced frequency have a greater suppressive effect than lots of small cartridges. That plus the ability to suppress from a greater range. There was a graph associated with this test but I can't find it
I remember reading about this. Basically a 5.56 has to pass within 30cm of a head to have a suppressive effect. 7.62 within half a meter. .50 within a meter and 20mm like within 3 meters or something.
I can't remember the exact stats but I was blown away with how close 5.56 has to be and how huge 20mm suppressive area is.
Nah, it's based in the few and far between studies down on suppression effects. Volume of fire isn't factored because fires that aren't or can't be determined as possibly hitting a target won't suppress them. That's not to say volume of fire isn't important, it's to say that simply sending as many bullets downrange as possible won't have the intended effect if it isn't accurate enough. Higher power cartridges also have a greater psychological effect and a slightly greater area of effect. In practice, a 240 will suppress better than a 249. It's important to note that this is all pretty academic, since suppression is a nebulous phenomenon to begin with and defining and studying it's causes and effects is both difficult and of little interest to militaries
Suppressive effect according to American science is bullet noise not muzzle noise.
>Suppressive effect according to American science is bullet noise not muzzle noise.
It would make sense. Somebody randomly going 'krak-krak-krak-krak' with a machine gun on a battlefield isn't particularly relevant. It's a battlefield, after all, people shoot guns there.
Bullets going 'ptzoing!' and kicking up dirt right next to you, OTOH, is a more immediately pressing issue.
Correct, but the cartridge does effect the crack as well, velocity retention has a lot to do with that. and obviously suppression only works if it gives the impression that returning fire (or otherwise acting) would mean getting hit, so accuracy also matters.
Overheating and case/propellant durability? Think that if someone makes brass cased CT rounds that'll fix the issues? I never read anything to support it, but something tells me that a sliding chamber would be bad for accuracy.
I read the reason for the over stch (contrary to the popular opinion that it was about penetrating armor) was because they tested the suppression effects of various cartridges to arrive at the conclusion that significantly higher power cartridges at slightly reduced frequency have a greater suppressive effect than lots of small cartridges. That plus the ability to suppress from a greater range. There was a graph associated with this test but I can't find it
Interesting, but how slightly? Would it make up for lower number of cartridges brought to bear overall? Being an AB kind of sucks, and being a SAW gunner really sucks.
> telescopic > saving one half inch of space > cost benefit ratio
can it be made to have absolutely no downsides?
OP here, reason I asked this question was because while doing some autistic musing I realized that none of Textron's rifle designs take advatage of the unique geometry of CT rounds then started sketching some stuff up.
H'yep. Something tells me that issuing more and lighter 7.62 GPMGs would solve the whole overmatch issue better than giving everyone a ducking battle rifle.
It's a lot older than GWOT. GWOT Iraq disproved it and GWOT Afghanistan is what enabled the boomers' last hurrah.
It dates back to late 1800s meta, the aftermath of the US civil war, and the British Boer war where smokeless powder had been fielded but field cannons had barely adopted TNT in their cannonballs. Long-range shooting at the Creedmoore matches became a cultural event which had a lot of inertia. Before we called them fudds, they were called gravelbellies.
How did it disprove it? Giving more and more people optics made a huge difference in infantry effectiveness, even (or perhaps especially) in urban environments
The overmatch meme from Afghanistan didn't work in Iraq's urban environment where shots over 150 meters were almost nonexistent.
3 months ago
Anonymous
That anon said "every infantryman a marksman" though, not overmatch, which is a different thing. Enabling your infantry to more reliably hit things they're shooting at (or at least get pretty dam close more often, thus increasing the reliability of their suppressing fire) is strictly a good thing. Overmatch, or being able to outrange your enemy and with greater effect, is limited by how far engagements tend to happen at all. 300m or less was the most common in Iraq if I recall
3 months ago
Anonymous
I'm that anon. You don't need some meme snowflake round with a rent-seeking exercise camouflaged as a rifle to get accurate shots. You just need a fancy electronic gizmo.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Alright, so what does that have to do with "every infantryman a marksman" and overmatch being different things
3 months ago
Anonymous
Hitting targets is good. Small caliber high velocity rounds help hit targets in normal infantry range because they have less recoil and more shots.
OvErMatCH hurts this. There's nothing innately wrong about every infantryman a marksman in the objective sense, it's always good to have skilled infantry shooters, but in practical colloquial usage it was an anti-SCHV narrative descended from the big bore boomers vilifying 556 as inaccurate, wasting ammo etc.
3 months ago
Anonymous
fpbp. If you want to kill a guy more than half a mile away, use an HE round, preferably something guided.
here; I don't mean to speak for him, but what "every infantryman a marksman" traditionally meant was that each man was expected to hit targets at >800m (and at the time, do it with iron sights).
That's how soldiers were trained for decades: firing from prone against large black bullseyes at extreme distances. WWI came along, and there was actually research done during and after it that suggested that most infantry combat was occurring within 100m, and almost all of it within 400m. But most generals seemed to pretty much ignore that, and continued to emphasize training soldiers to shoot at long ranges against static targets. Then came WWII, with even *more* research done during and after the war, showing that combat distances were even shorter than in WWI. And then came Korea, with largely the same results. Small arms were almost entirely used within a quarter mile, with MGs finding occasional use out to half a mile. The US kept trying to ignore these results, giving us the 7.62x51 and the M-14. But Russia was spooking everybody with the 7.62x39 and the AK platform, and Project SALVO and the SPIW, which indirectly led to the acceptance of the M-16 and its emphasis on lower weight, higher ammo counts, and shorter effective ranges.
Also, at some point, the Army figured out that our troops had never in all of history come under attack by large black bullseyes against a white background. So, the static marksman targets were out and dynamic, human-shaped targets were in. What troops train against now is a lot closer to what they'd see in actual combat (but still far more visible than the glimpses that enemies usually provide).
Modern optics made troops better shots at shorter ranges under stress, but that's different than expecting troops to act like snipers or designated marksmen and hitting targets at 1500m.
3 months ago
Anonymous
err, "Project Salvo and the SPIW" *came along*.
Also, there's a set of charts floating around--I never thought to save a copy--that showed rifleman accuracy at the firing range and "under combat stress". If somebody has it, I think it'd help with the discussion. Basically, accuracy drops like a rock while under stress and firing at an enemy who is under cover and firing back. Accuracy at long ranges falls off a cliff. Not everyone can be a sniper, and snipers prefer to use concealment and cover to keep the enemy from detecting them and shooting at them in the first place... thus keeping their combat stress lower. It's very likely that even the new "smart scopes" will mostly increase accuracy within a quarter mile or so, and have far less of an effect at half a mile or more. All of which would have been perfect for the LSAT carbine, with its lightweight body and ammunition freeing up pounds for better use (say, for carrying more ammo, or lightweight guided munitions capable of dealing with targets more than half a mile away).
And that's the part that really frustrates some of us. Over a decade of effort was put into LSAT to give us a set of weapons that would reduce the soldier's burden (or at least allow them to carry *different* stuff). All of that work, all of the progress that was made, was thrown away by generals who insisted that every rifleman had to be able to place unguided bullets onto an enemy position at the better part of a mile away. There was no need for that; there were far superior options for dealing with that situation already under development. But the NGSW requirements were written to force the Army's new rifle and SAW to become essentially sniper rifles.
3 months ago
Anonymous
There are ways around and through everyone of those objections. CCLTF and CFTs exist for a reason.
3 months ago
Anonymous
If you're training for an important test, you don't work to meet the bare minimum. You go above and beyond what is required so that you are ready for anything that will come your way. Those generals understood that. By training out to greater distances, their troops are more effective at shorter distances and still able to be effective at engagements which are less common. When you're talking about people's lives at stake, it changes things. This isn't some petty matter. Those men need to come home and in order to do that, they need to be able to hit a target that they can see with their own two eyes.
3 months ago
Anonymous
If they wanted range they should have adopted a high velocity grenade launcher
The idea you can expect someone to peg someones exposed camoflaged head at 800 yards in combat is nonsense
How would you even identify a target that far out from a quick glimpse of camoflaged body armor
If you don't hit it on the first shot they will find cover and know where you are now
3 months ago
Anonymous
>The idea you can expect someone to peg someones exposed camoflaged head at 800 yards in combat is nonsense
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what a sniper is expected to do. However, that's clearly not the argument that I'm making. It doesn't matter if engagements "usually" happen out to only certain distances. What matters is being effective at the range of distances that a soldier can see. 800 yards is not very far, especially in open country. If a bunch of hobbyists can be effective marksmen at 1000 yards, then it's no stretch at all that professional military men should be expected to do the same. You are clearly missing the point. I seriously doubt any argument will change your mind.
3 months ago
Anonymous
snipers do not operate "in combat", they can only kill people when they aren't being shot at
when they are being shot at they're significantly worse off than regular infantry
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I'm pretty sure that's exactly what a sniper is expected to do
It's not. Neverserveds have a bizarre misunderstanding of what snipers actually do based on quirky exceptions. Snipers are for killing morons standing still in the open who don't know anyone is around. Actual long range shooting in peer combat, against multiple people, moving targets, people in cover or shooting back etc is a machinegun team's job.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>what "every infantryman a marksman" traditionally meant was that each man was expected to hit targets at >800m
This. In the old terminology, "marksmanship" didn't mean "proficiency at reliably repeatable accuracy" (ex. "marksmanship badge"), but rather sharpshooting (engaging targets at >600 meters).
err, "Project Salvo and the SPIW" *came along*.
Also, there's a set of charts floating around--I never thought to save a copy--that showed rifleman accuracy at the firing range and "under combat stress". If somebody has it, I think it'd help with the discussion. Basically, accuracy drops like a rock while under stress and firing at an enemy who is under cover and firing back. Accuracy at long ranges falls off a cliff. Not everyone can be a sniper, and snipers prefer to use concealment and cover to keep the enemy from detecting them and shooting at them in the first place... thus keeping their combat stress lower. It's very likely that even the new "smart scopes" will mostly increase accuracy within a quarter mile or so, and have far less of an effect at half a mile or more. All of which would have been perfect for the LSAT carbine, with its lightweight body and ammunition freeing up pounds for better use (say, for carrying more ammo, or lightweight guided munitions capable of dealing with targets more than half a mile away).
And that's the part that really frustrates some of us. Over a decade of effort was put into LSAT to give us a set of weapons that would reduce the soldier's burden (or at least allow them to carry *different* stuff). All of that work, all of the progress that was made, was thrown away by generals who insisted that every rifleman had to be able to place unguided bullets onto an enemy position at the better part of a mile away. There was no need for that; there were far superior options for dealing with that situation already under development. But the NGSW requirements were written to force the Army's new rifle and SAW to become essentially sniper rifles.
>There was no need for that; there were far superior options for dealing with that situation already under development.
Also this. You have all sorts of far better counters. Miniature kamikaze drones, new CG rounds that can go nearly 1 km, AT4-CS ER versions that can reliably reach out to 800 m, even that upgraded FLY-K Mk.2 "knee mortar", which has a range of about 810 m with the new HE shells. Blast radius doesn't suffer from combat stress.
The issue was Afghanistan's specific operating environment. Your enemy was a bunch of literal hillbillies armed with rifles and the occasional machinegun, meaning any high-tech counter was considered wasted money by the higher-ups (though they eventually realized that taking out talib spotters reduced both the likelihood of ambushes, and their general coordination if/when they occurred, hence the Switchblade). Plus, the common mission envelope (long-range foot patrols) was not conducive to heavy support weaponry (which tend to require a mechanized infantry meta).
3 months ago
Anonymous
>, meaning any high-tech counter was considered wasted money by the higher-ups
FPV drones are like $500-1000. Its just burger boomers were behind the curve. >muh EW
Yeah sure, goat herders would be running EW
3 months ago
Anonymous
Cheap drones are a consequence of DJI's continuous improvements to drone tech over the past 10+ years. You simply didn't have the same cost-efficiency 9 years ago. Sure, several drone models had, by and large, the same performance as today, but for 5x the cost.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Cheap drones are a consequence of DJI's continuous improvements to drone tech over the past 10+ years.
If you meaning something like DJI 3 pocket size drone with x28 zoom rock solid stabilized camera, rock solid hover and 1080P video downstream then yes.
But FPV kamikaze drones that are used right fricked now are simplest FPV racing kits with analog transmitter 480P equivalent video Such things consumer grade and priced existed for 15 years
https://vimeo.com/1305639
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=7gH4b1-SfBg
3 months ago
Anonymous
Even those simple FPV rigs were notably pricier 15 years ago. Remember that, right now, they're cheap enough to be considered expendable munitions, and consumed in the thousands. That simply wasn't the case in 2009.
3 months ago
Anonymous
https://plans.modelaircraft.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/MA00876MA1.pdf
MIC boomers literally lived under the rock in new millennia.
3 months ago
Anonymous
The US military doesn't really like using unencrypted transmissions these days. Finding out that the Taliban were watching certain drone feeds with the equivalent of a TV antenna was... concerning. However, $5-10K for a guided weapon that delivers a grenade or mortar-sized warhead to any target within several km is considered reasonable given the US budget. Heck, paying $10K to eliminate one enemy soldier is reasonable: that's $10B for a million combatants serviced! Therefore, it's not a huge concern (for the US) if a Switchblade-level munition costs more than a dozen FPV drones, as long as it can reliably operate in a contested EW environment and gets the job done.
How did the fighting in iraq prove the effectiveness of rifles chambered in intermediate cartridges vs full size cartridges? Are you moronic?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Did it even do that? The pros of using intermediate cartridges over full powered ones in infantry rifles is plain to see, but I never saw a single word written about Iraq proving this. It's been known and Iraq didn't change that
one of the primary reasons CT need to go away is it would be used to crush .civ ammo production. part of why .civ ammo in the US is "cheap" is the bulk of needed support for DoD. If CT was adopted it would be DoD only and a massive drain on the supply chain. The left wants to make ammo so prohibitive that the gun is irrelevant. CT helps drive that OCA.
I guess it wasn't worth it. At the end of the LSAT was yet another technology study and not a serious attempt at replacing small arms. The telescoped geometry allowed a neat feeding and ejection action, but the weight benefit from the program came from improved propellant and the use of plastic, and you can do that independently of telescoped cartridges, and those advances weren't adopted up either.
The NGSW requirements were written in such a way that minimized any weight savings by requiring a heavy bullet moving at high velocity in order to achieve the "muh overmatch" and supposed armor-penetration goals.
No they weren't. The army has been trying to adopt a bigger bullet for awhile. They settled on 6.8 a decade or so ago and have been trying to develop a way to make it work
>The army has been trying to adopt a bigger bullet for awhile.
And their reason for all the attempts (Grendel, SPC, Sneedmoor, the latest steel-brass combo) was GWOT-era long range sharpshooting vs sandnog hillbillies, plus the overmatch meme. But we're not in 2007 anymore, and things have changed in the meantime.
No it isn't, their reason is that 5.56 is too small for a gpmg and 7.62x51 is too big for an assault rifle. It also performs poorly out of short barrels, and the army wants increasingly shorter rifles and machine guns. These two things are the expressed impetus for every attempt to replace 5.56 since the LSAT
Well, the latest incarnation of Bubba's Pissing Hot Load hasn't yielded a machine gun either, due to its lack of a field-swappable barrel. It's a Squad Support Weapon, a.k.a. an autorifle.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Stay mad homosexual
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Bubba's Pissing Hot Load
lmao, calling 6.8x51 that now.
Stay mad homosexual
That's a generic insult, not a comeback.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It wasn't meant to be a comeback because dude already admitted to being wrong. He just had to add an additional, meaningless caveat to soothe his ego hence "stay mad homosexual"
3 months ago
Anonymous
Lolno. I haven't admitted anything. None of the things you've mentioned (5.56 is weak in MGs, 7.62 is too big for ARs) are fixed by what is essentially a wildcat fullsize. This new """intermediate""" round is hotter than old fullsizes like 6.5 Arisaka or 6.5 Carcano. The new "assault rifle" is a battle rifle (with a 25-round mag, kek), and the new "machine gun" is an autorifle. This new round/weapon combo addresses none of the issues you've mentioned, except maybe the barrel length performance, while weighing more for less ammo capacity.
Accuracy is one of the problems since the projectile in telescoped ammo isn't initially seated into the leade of the barrel. In effect the condition resembles the gap of a revolver chamber but minus the lack of gas seal as the projectile will fly through the throat and then slam into the rifling leade. This places a sort of lower limit on accuracy from tolerance stack ups for the cartridge and the interaction with propellant gases before initial stabilization from the rifling.
It is being worked on but progress is slow and it has to be done with the restraints of current materials science, budgets, interest from end users (the military) and many other matters.
Fudd on the brain. It was so close, it was within our fricking grasp; but then some old boomer homosexual at Aberdeen had a nightmare about shooting between mountaintops Afghanistan and now we're stuck with overmatch bullshit. It goes without saying that carrying enough ammo to shoot from dawn til dusk is an overmatch all of its own, but we're committed now. I honestly think that long term, SOF adopting the LAMG is going to create a repeat of the M14/M16 scenario, where another branch adopting the gun that failed (i.e., the air force adopting the M16) gives it a foot in the door for every branch to adopt it.
I read the reason for the over stch (contrary to the popular opinion that it was about penetrating armor) was because they tested the suppression effects of various cartridges to arrive at the conclusion that significantly higher power cartridges at slightly reduced frequency have a greater suppressive effect than lots of small cartridges. That plus the ability to suppress from a greater range. There was a graph associated with this test but I can't find it
sorry anon but that sounds like complete fudd lore bullshit
Nah, it's based in the few and far between studies down on suppression effects. Volume of fire isn't factored because fires that aren't or can't be determined as possibly hitting a target won't suppress them. That's not to say volume of fire isn't important, it's to say that simply sending as many bullets downrange as possible won't have the intended effect if it isn't accurate enough. Higher power cartridges also have a greater psychological effect and a slightly greater area of effect. In practice, a 240 will suppress better than a 249. It's important to note that this is all pretty academic, since suppression is a nebulous phenomenon to begin with and defining and studying it's causes and effects is both difficult and of little interest to militaries
I remember reading about this. Basically a 5.56 has to pass within 30cm of a head to have a suppressive effect. 7.62 within half a meter. .50 within a meter and 20mm like within 3 meters or something.
I can't remember the exact stats but I was blown away with how close 5.56 has to be and how huge 20mm suppressive area is.
Suppressive effect according to American science is bullet noise not muzzle noise.
>Suppressive effect according to American science is bullet noise not muzzle noise.
It would make sense. Somebody randomly going 'krak-krak-krak-krak' with a machine gun on a battlefield isn't particularly relevant. It's a battlefield, after all, people shoot guns there.
Bullets going 'ptzoing!' and kicking up dirt right next to you, OTOH, is a more immediately pressing issue.
Correct, but the cartridge does effect the crack as well, velocity retention has a lot to do with that. and obviously suppression only works if it gives the impression that returning fire (or otherwise acting) would mean getting hit, so accuracy also matters.
SOF adopted the LAMG? Neat.
Overheating and case/propellant durability? Think that if someone makes brass cased CT rounds that'll fix the issues? I never read anything to support it, but something tells me that a sliding chamber would be bad for accuracy.
Interesting, but how slightly? Would it make up for lower number of cartridges brought to bear overall? Being an AB kind of sucks, and being a SAW gunner really sucks.
OP here, reason I asked this question was because while doing some autistic musing I realized that none of Textron's rifle designs take advatage of the unique geometry of CT rounds then started sketching some stuff up.
you're a gay and an egotist
fpbp. If you want to kill a guy more than half a mile away, use an HE round, preferably something guided.
The whole "every infantryman a marksman" is a dumb gwot-fudd meme, that has no actual value in a real meatgrinder-style conflict.
H'yep. Something tells me that issuing more and lighter 7.62 GPMGs would solve the whole overmatch issue better than giving everyone a ducking battle rifle.
It's a lot older than GWOT. GWOT Iraq disproved it and GWOT Afghanistan is what enabled the boomers' last hurrah.
It dates back to late 1800s meta, the aftermath of the US civil war, and the British Boer war where smokeless powder had been fielded but field cannons had barely adopted TNT in their cannonballs. Long-range shooting at the Creedmoore matches became a cultural event which had a lot of inertia. Before we called them fudds, they were called gravelbellies.
How did it disprove it? Giving more and more people optics made a huge difference in infantry effectiveness, even (or perhaps especially) in urban environments
The overmatch meme from Afghanistan didn't work in Iraq's urban environment where shots over 150 meters were almost nonexistent.
That anon said "every infantryman a marksman" though, not overmatch, which is a different thing. Enabling your infantry to more reliably hit things they're shooting at (or at least get pretty dam close more often, thus increasing the reliability of their suppressing fire) is strictly a good thing. Overmatch, or being able to outrange your enemy and with greater effect, is limited by how far engagements tend to happen at all. 300m or less was the most common in Iraq if I recall
I'm that anon. You don't need some meme snowflake round with a rent-seeking exercise camouflaged as a rifle to get accurate shots. You just need a fancy electronic gizmo.
Alright, so what does that have to do with "every infantryman a marksman" and overmatch being different things
Hitting targets is good. Small caliber high velocity rounds help hit targets in normal infantry range because they have less recoil and more shots.
OvErMatCH hurts this. There's nothing innately wrong about every infantryman a marksman in the objective sense, it's always good to have skilled infantry shooters, but in practical colloquial usage it was an anti-SCHV narrative descended from the big bore boomers vilifying 556 as inaccurate, wasting ammo etc.
here; I don't mean to speak for him, but what "every infantryman a marksman" traditionally meant was that each man was expected to hit targets at >800m (and at the time, do it with iron sights).
That's how soldiers were trained for decades: firing from prone against large black bullseyes at extreme distances. WWI came along, and there was actually research done during and after it that suggested that most infantry combat was occurring within 100m, and almost all of it within 400m. But most generals seemed to pretty much ignore that, and continued to emphasize training soldiers to shoot at long ranges against static targets. Then came WWII, with even *more* research done during and after the war, showing that combat distances were even shorter than in WWI. And then came Korea, with largely the same results. Small arms were almost entirely used within a quarter mile, with MGs finding occasional use out to half a mile. The US kept trying to ignore these results, giving us the 7.62x51 and the M-14. But Russia was spooking everybody with the 7.62x39 and the AK platform, and Project SALVO and the SPIW, which indirectly led to the acceptance of the M-16 and its emphasis on lower weight, higher ammo counts, and shorter effective ranges.
Also, at some point, the Army figured out that our troops had never in all of history come under attack by large black bullseyes against a white background. So, the static marksman targets were out and dynamic, human-shaped targets were in. What troops train against now is a lot closer to what they'd see in actual combat (but still far more visible than the glimpses that enemies usually provide).
Modern optics made troops better shots at shorter ranges under stress, but that's different than expecting troops to act like snipers or designated marksmen and hitting targets at 1500m.
err, "Project Salvo and the SPIW" *came along*.
Also, there's a set of charts floating around--I never thought to save a copy--that showed rifleman accuracy at the firing range and "under combat stress". If somebody has it, I think it'd help with the discussion. Basically, accuracy drops like a rock while under stress and firing at an enemy who is under cover and firing back. Accuracy at long ranges falls off a cliff. Not everyone can be a sniper, and snipers prefer to use concealment and cover to keep the enemy from detecting them and shooting at them in the first place... thus keeping their combat stress lower. It's very likely that even the new "smart scopes" will mostly increase accuracy within a quarter mile or so, and have far less of an effect at half a mile or more. All of which would have been perfect for the LSAT carbine, with its lightweight body and ammunition freeing up pounds for better use (say, for carrying more ammo, or lightweight guided munitions capable of dealing with targets more than half a mile away).
And that's the part that really frustrates some of us. Over a decade of effort was put into LSAT to give us a set of weapons that would reduce the soldier's burden (or at least allow them to carry *different* stuff). All of that work, all of the progress that was made, was thrown away by generals who insisted that every rifleman had to be able to place unguided bullets onto an enemy position at the better part of a mile away. There was no need for that; there were far superior options for dealing with that situation already under development. But the NGSW requirements were written to force the Army's new rifle and SAW to become essentially sniper rifles.
There are ways around and through everyone of those objections. CCLTF and CFTs exist for a reason.
If you're training for an important test, you don't work to meet the bare minimum. You go above and beyond what is required so that you are ready for anything that will come your way. Those generals understood that. By training out to greater distances, their troops are more effective at shorter distances and still able to be effective at engagements which are less common. When you're talking about people's lives at stake, it changes things. This isn't some petty matter. Those men need to come home and in order to do that, they need to be able to hit a target that they can see with their own two eyes.
If they wanted range they should have adopted a high velocity grenade launcher
The idea you can expect someone to peg someones exposed camoflaged head at 800 yards in combat is nonsense
How would you even identify a target that far out from a quick glimpse of camoflaged body armor
If you don't hit it on the first shot they will find cover and know where you are now
>The idea you can expect someone to peg someones exposed camoflaged head at 800 yards in combat is nonsense
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what a sniper is expected to do. However, that's clearly not the argument that I'm making. It doesn't matter if engagements "usually" happen out to only certain distances. What matters is being effective at the range of distances that a soldier can see. 800 yards is not very far, especially in open country. If a bunch of hobbyists can be effective marksmen at 1000 yards, then it's no stretch at all that professional military men should be expected to do the same. You are clearly missing the point. I seriously doubt any argument will change your mind.
snipers do not operate "in combat", they can only kill people when they aren't being shot at
when they are being shot at they're significantly worse off than regular infantry
>I'm pretty sure that's exactly what a sniper is expected to do
It's not. Neverserveds have a bizarre misunderstanding of what snipers actually do based on quirky exceptions. Snipers are for killing morons standing still in the open who don't know anyone is around. Actual long range shooting in peer combat, against multiple people, moving targets, people in cover or shooting back etc is a machinegun team's job.
>what "every infantryman a marksman" traditionally meant was that each man was expected to hit targets at >800m
This. In the old terminology, "marksmanship" didn't mean "proficiency at reliably repeatable accuracy" (ex. "marksmanship badge"), but rather sharpshooting (engaging targets at >600 meters).
>There was no need for that; there were far superior options for dealing with that situation already under development.
Also this. You have all sorts of far better counters. Miniature kamikaze drones, new CG rounds that can go nearly 1 km, AT4-CS ER versions that can reliably reach out to 800 m, even that upgraded FLY-K Mk.2 "knee mortar", which has a range of about 810 m with the new HE shells. Blast radius doesn't suffer from combat stress.
The issue was Afghanistan's specific operating environment. Your enemy was a bunch of literal hillbillies armed with rifles and the occasional machinegun, meaning any high-tech counter was considered wasted money by the higher-ups (though they eventually realized that taking out talib spotters reduced both the likelihood of ambushes, and their general coordination if/when they occurred, hence the Switchblade). Plus, the common mission envelope (long-range foot patrols) was not conducive to heavy support weaponry (which tend to require a mechanized infantry meta).
>, meaning any high-tech counter was considered wasted money by the higher-ups
FPV drones are like $500-1000. Its just burger boomers were behind the curve.
>muh EW
Yeah sure, goat herders would be running EW
Cheap drones are a consequence of DJI's continuous improvements to drone tech over the past 10+ years. You simply didn't have the same cost-efficiency 9 years ago. Sure, several drone models had, by and large, the same performance as today, but for 5x the cost.
>Cheap drones are a consequence of DJI's continuous improvements to drone tech over the past 10+ years.
If you meaning something like DJI 3 pocket size drone with x28 zoom rock solid stabilized camera, rock solid hover and 1080P video downstream then yes.
But FPV kamikaze drones that are used right fricked now are simplest FPV racing kits with analog transmitter 480P equivalent video Such things consumer grade and priced existed for 15 years
https://vimeo.com/1305639
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=7gH4b1-SfBg
Even those simple FPV rigs were notably pricier 15 years ago. Remember that, right now, they're cheap enough to be considered expendable munitions, and consumed in the thousands. That simply wasn't the case in 2009.
https://plans.modelaircraft.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/MA00876MA1.pdf
MIC boomers literally lived under the rock in new millennia.
The US military doesn't really like using unencrypted transmissions these days. Finding out that the Taliban were watching certain drone feeds with the equivalent of a TV antenna was... concerning. However, $5-10K for a guided weapon that delivers a grenade or mortar-sized warhead to any target within several km is considered reasonable given the US budget. Heck, paying $10K to eliminate one enemy soldier is reasonable: that's $10B for a million combatants serviced! Therefore, it's not a huge concern (for the US) if a Switchblade-level munition costs more than a dozen FPV drones, as long as it can reliably operate in a contested EW environment and gets the job done.
How did the fighting in iraq prove the effectiveness of rifles chambered in intermediate cartridges vs full size cartridges? Are you moronic?
Did it even do that? The pros of using intermediate cartridges over full powered ones in infantry rifles is plain to see, but I never saw a single word written about Iraq proving this. It's been known and Iraq didn't change that
same reason caseless hasn't
> telescopic
> saving one half inch of space
> cost benefit ratio
can it be made to have absolutely no downsides?
>saving one half inch space
This is much less important than the main benefit of
>saving one third cartridge weight
The Textron ct also had a fair few benefits of its own. A shame we won't be getting those
it doesn't work
are you stupid or something?
one of the primary reasons CT need to go away is it would be used to crush .civ ammo production. part of why .civ ammo in the US is "cheap" is the bulk of needed support for DoD. If CT was adopted it would be DoD only and a massive drain on the supply chain. The left wants to make ammo so prohibitive that the gun is irrelevant. CT helps drive that OCA.
guns that use it would immediately hit the market
>uhmm sorry hon but your ct ammo is problematic
That's the most moronic take ever
Because it sucks.
Overtly complex, next question
I guess it wasn't worth it. At the end of the LSAT was yet another technology study and not a serious attempt at replacing small arms. The telescoped geometry allowed a neat feeding and ejection action, but the weight benefit from the program came from improved propellant and the use of plastic, and you can do that independently of telescoped cartridges, and those advances weren't adopted up either.
Yeah because SIG bribed everyone.
The NGSW requirements were written in such a way that minimized any weight savings by requiring a heavy bullet moving at high velocity in order to achieve the "muh overmatch" and supposed armor-penetration goals.
No they weren't. The army has been trying to adopt a bigger bullet for awhile. They settled on 6.8 a decade or so ago and have been trying to develop a way to make it work
>The army has been trying to adopt a bigger bullet for awhile.
And their reason for all the attempts (Grendel, SPC, Sneedmoor, the latest steel-brass combo) was GWOT-era long range sharpshooting vs sandnog hillbillies, plus the overmatch meme. But we're not in 2007 anymore, and things have changed in the meantime.
No it isn't, their reason is that 5.56 is too small for a gpmg and 7.62x51 is too big for an assault rifle. It also performs poorly out of short barrels, and the army wants increasingly shorter rifles and machine guns. These two things are the expressed impetus for every attempt to replace 5.56 since the LSAT
Well, the latest incarnation of Bubba's Pissing Hot Load hasn't yielded a machine gun either, due to its lack of a field-swappable barrel. It's a Squad Support Weapon, a.k.a. an autorifle.
Stay mad homosexual
>Bubba's Pissing Hot Load
lmao, calling 6.8x51 that now.
That's a generic insult, not a comeback.
It wasn't meant to be a comeback because dude already admitted to being wrong. He just had to add an additional, meaningless caveat to soothe his ego hence "stay mad homosexual"
Lolno. I haven't admitted anything. None of the things you've mentioned (5.56 is weak in MGs, 7.62 is too big for ARs) are fixed by what is essentially a wildcat fullsize. This new """intermediate""" round is hotter than old fullsizes like 6.5 Arisaka or 6.5 Carcano. The new "assault rifle" is a battle rifle (with a 25-round mag, kek), and the new "machine gun" is an autorifle. This new round/weapon combo addresses none of the issues you've mentioned, except maybe the barrel length performance, while weighing more for less ammo capacity.
Accuracy is one of the problems since the projectile in telescoped ammo isn't initially seated into the leade of the barrel. In effect the condition resembles the gap of a revolver chamber but minus the lack of gas seal as the projectile will fly through the throat and then slam into the rifling leade. This places a sort of lower limit on accuracy from tolerance stack ups for the cartridge and the interaction with propellant gases before initial stabilization from the rifling.
It is being worked on but progress is slow and it has to be done with the restraints of current materials science, budgets, interest from end users (the military) and many other matters.