Future weapons system?

I saw this too. As a reloader I have a lot of questions about the rounds. Interesting concept with real weight saving for our troops if this works.

Brass is not only expensive, but the copper and zinc that go into its manufacture are strategic materials, so there's a huge incentive to eliminate or replace the brass case. And research to that end has been going on steadily since WWII, but other than steel, itself a strategic material, none has offered sufficient advantages to replace the conventional brass case. This experimental round is just the latest in a long line of experiments in getting the replacement "right". If this one turns out to be "it" it will still be a generation before we see widespread adoption.

So much for reloading though...hopefully ammo prices on these will be much cheaper...

Yeah, caseless ammo small arms did not get very far

I don't see this going anywhere soon. Not only does it mean a totally new inventory of ammunition but new weapons as well. A lot of money for anyone to lay out to change over.

bnolsen wrote:
...hopefully ammo prices on these will be much cheaper...

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In time, perhaps, as the brass case is a significant part of the cost of conventional ammunition, but until the polymer case stuff receives wide enough adoption to generate economies of scale, it will probably start out much more expensive. That's why I said that even if this design turns out to be the "right" one, most us on this board will not live to see it widely adopted in the civilian marketplace - or if we're still alive we'll be so senile we will neither know nor care.

That article doesn't address the heat issue. Brass casings pull lots of heat from the firearm. I wouldn't think that plastic cases would remove anywhere near the amount of heat as brass does.

I suppose the question is does that make a significant difference in the performance of the firearm?

Seems like folks are confusing caseless and telescoped cased ammo here...caseless was/is/will be a pipe dream for many decades;
Telescoped ammo (for which there's not a whole lot of clear descriptions/explanations on Wiki/etc for some reason) basically shoves the bullet deeper into a case, onto a highly compressed powder stack --past where the ogive/neck engagement on a brass case would be (extra powder is placed where the neck taper used to go). That's why they look like shotgun shells, and why they are so short for their power level. When fired by a conventional firing pin, the primer charge 'punts' the bullet out the case and into the lands of the barrel bore, as well as stirring up that tightly-packed powder column; now that (delayed action) powder can safely burn without kaboominating.

The tricks with making this technology work are;
-Feeding, since it's basically flat-nosed like a shotgun shell (but shells feed fine in autoloading shotguns)
-Extracting, since the most prominent tech uses plastic cases (to add to the weight/cost savings, not because the tech can't use metal cases) that the typical hook-type extractor will shred. The Textron gun uses a dropping-chamber that cases can be pushed out the front of
-Safety, since there's a highly compressed nitro-load and super-magnum primer in there
-Reliability, since they want this for military guns that get really hot while being treated like garbage
-Accuracy, since the bullet has a jump distance greater than its own length before even hitting the leade, it's easy for it to come in crooked and exit the bore badly off course. I believe the current solution is a wad/sabot type thing that is pushed forward along with the bullet to guide it into the bore (I forget if it actually exits or just slams into the front of the chamber, though)

TCB

Like the guy from Quigley Down Under said, "An experimental rifle with experimental ammunition." We'll see if they work the bugs out. I like the looks of the Carbine.

Nathaniel F conducted a interview with the LSAT program officer on The Firearm Blog.

Part 1: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/...gram-history-ammunition-technical-discussion/
Part 2: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/...part-2-ammunition-technical-discussion-contd/
Part 3: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/...ficer-lsat-ctsas-part-3-development-6-5mm-ct/

Oh come on, no one caught this: "reduce by up to 40 percent the weight that the average soldier or marine carries in combat, which can easily exceed 100 pounds... "

Bovine Fecal Matter.

If your combat load if 100 pounds and you want to reduce it by 40% you have to remove.... dun dun dun... 40 pounds. Now, assuming that you are just reducing the weight of the ammunition, not making it magically weightless, logically, that means the solider must be humping more than 40 pounds of ammunition for his rifle...As in, a lot more. Lets just assume that this ammunition reduces the weight of the ammunition by half, that means that for the soldiers original 100 pound combat load, 80 pounds of it was ammunition and 20 pounds was his plates, helmet, boots, uniform, rations, water, batteries, radio, nods, batteries, med kit, batteries, that stupid mortar plate, woobie, grenades frag & smoke, spare barrel for the squad gun, a mortar round or two, more batteries etc..... that's a magical 20 pounds of stuff.

First consider I tend to question authority and am suspicious of everything deemed "an improvement" when it comes to guns, smart guns etc. Here, there may be some traction for my fears, although this would likely be some time out before it becomes reality.

The suspicious part of me sees making it more difficult for the non military person to obtain ammunition, let alone reload it. Eventually "once fired" military cases would become a thing of the past. Sort of conspiratorial I know, and as already stated this would take time and a lot of money to implement.

As others have pointed out, the weight savings overall isnt that great. While holding the ammo in your hand and feeling the weight difference may be stuff of contractors dreams, in reality it really isnt that big a deal weight wise. It would be a substantial step towards making it more difficult for the average guy to obtain/reload ammo wouldnt it? A little far fetched I admit, but combine that with doing away with lead as a "dangerous environmental problem" and who knows what else....Yes I am suspicious, overly so and for good reason. Just letting out a few thoughts is all, no need to heatup the flame throwers!

Let's just move on to plasma blasters and be done with it, lol. Just a thought...

Russellc

From the interview: "With CT, we saw we were looking at an immediate 33% weight reduction..." So, in reality it reduces the ammo weight by 1/3. Which is not bad, but it's not 40% out of 100 pounds either. And then comes this, from the program officer itself: "The 6.5mm system may increase weight slightly over the M4 if it is carried with the same number of rounds of ammunition, but if the ammunition proves to be more capable, some decisions could be made to change the standard combat load from 210 rounds (current) to something less (notionally enough to balance the weight between the two systems)."
I really suggest you to read on the interview (Kozak6's post #12) - it answers most of the questions raised here.

hdwhit said:

In time, perhaps, as the brass case is a significant part of the cost of conventional ammunition, but until the polymer case stuff receives wide enough adoption to generate economies of scale, it will probably start out much more expensive. That's why I said that even if this design turns out to be the "right" one, most us on this board will not live to see it widely adopted in the civilian marketplace - or if we're still alive we'll be so senile we will neither know nor care.

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Agreed...but just because I might not live to see it, I dont like the idea of future Americans plight in all this...and remember, a hundred years ago we were fling biplanes and using telegraphs. Technology moves faster and faster. I remember thinking how cool it was when Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise used a flip phone! Look at the advances in semiconductor size and ability in the last 10 years.

Russellc

Agreed, the writer missed an important point, it's a 40% savings in ammo weight. They are making a bit of noise about it, what will happen in the real world is the soldier will carry 40% more of it.

The issue of the soldier's load was addressed a long time ago - and the problem isn't getting better. The American soldier in combat carries double what his opponent does, add body armor, electronics gear etc, and we are approaching the need to have an exoskeleton to hump all the gear.

What we do for the MOST effective soldiers is train them more, strip the gear, and then send them into combat without it. Those guys are typically in special units and behind the lines. The rest are usually stationed in Green Zones and they sally forth on patrols. Not the average duty someone with a bedroll and semi auto rifle was doing living in a foxhole during the Battle of the Bulge. That warfare is rare, now. Much more of our fighting is in urban built up zones where it's door to door and more ammo is becoming critical. Urban combat requires a much higher expenditure of rounds (and grenades, etc.) to breach buildings to clear them, and body armor is much more necessary to protect the highly skilled soldier we can't replace overnight.

They can and will. Different rules for each side.

In the big picture sweeping up plastic cases to send to be recycled is an internal logistics victory for us. We go to huge efforts to police up brass, turn it in to be counted to prevent theft, and the sell it as scrap to recover the costs. It's also an incremental tactical issue, brass underfoot or being ejected to bang off the surroundings adds to the revealing a location. With a suppressor in use it adds to the noise signal, and bright brass getting ejected adds to the visual signal. No brass does aid the soldier, it's a little thing but it adds up.

For the weapon it requires some other method of sealing the chamber, brass expands and cuts off gas well. Once the brass contracts back to normal, however, it's helping push the now unlocked bolt open. Because of the way the new chambers have to seal without brass and the relatively softer material, the polymer cases are best pushed forward by the new round to eject. This isn't bad as there isn't an old case to jam in the feed system being extracted and ejected thru the action, it's a linear flow. It does mean that the shuttling chamber has to be larger - but that aids in heat management and also air flow as it's separate from the barrel - which heats up about 6 inches or more down the rifling far more where the flame front is pushed. Colt once had an M4 test video where they pushed the weapon with continuous firing and the first thing to overheat was the gas tube, then directly under it about 6" forward setting the handguards on fire. Cookoffs with an attached chamber are a known subject but it's the barrel warming back to the larger mass, not the chamber forward. Barrels droop forward when overheated, which is exactly what happened in the Colt video when a bullet perforates the barrel.

While there are advantages to the separate chamber it does add to the complication and weight, and the propensity to be piston driven adds it's increment. Add larger diameter bullet, the cased round is larger and heavier, which then diminishes the amount of ammo carried. There are concerns it would be an even tradeoff to go LSAT with all that.

I don't see the soldier getting much benefit from it all looking the big picture, perhaps a few hours less on a range fire policing brass vs a final loadout weight in the field just as bad as before. That big picture view is actually the more common problem discussed in posts on military oriented forums and blogs. LSAT is great in the narrow focus of cartridge weight, add in the more complex rifle, then the soldiers loadout, and last but actually more important, the changes in the overall logistics, and we are entertaining a small improvement at best, for a lot of money.

As for reloading look to what has happened in the black powder hunting rifle, it's all about sabot rounds and pressed pills loaded simultaneously. Not much different from the LSAT in terms of components. We are already seeing the tech being used.

Anytime the government finds a way to lighten the load, it ends up being 20% heavier.

armoredman said:

Anytime the government finds a way to lighten the load, it ends up being 20% heavier.

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Yes and no.

The word of the decade (or two or three or four or five) is "overmatch". As far as small arms go, for some reason rifle-caliber rifles and LMG's offer more range than intermediate caliber carbines. This is apparently an issue in Afghanistan, which is why things appear be shoved in a heavy and lower capacity 6.5mm direction.

Rather than some ordinary DMR nonsense, it seems like they are hoping for a 1200m wonder-carbine (and a medium MG). I suspect that may not be practical.

As Tirod pointed out, history has shown that when such advances in ammo weight savings become available, soldiers will simply carry more ammo, "standard loadout" notwithstanding.

bnolsen said:

So much for reloading though...hopefully ammo prices on these will be much cheaper...

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Would reloading necessarily become a problem? We're able to reload shotgun shell hulls, which are also plastic.