I see why they need a new rifle (special chamber). Nothing like a new type of cartridge to ruin logistics. Seems like the M16 all over again. Bureaucrats telling the military what to do, and politicians making money on the deal.
Yes, it takes a completely different type of action. The LSAT uses a shuttling door to open and close the chamber.
It improves logistics considerably. You transport 40% MORE ammo per pound of weight, and you don't use a strategic resource at all - brass, which is a copper alloy, and hard to get. There's another side to the old saying "No Brass, No ammo" that was used on the firing line to show a weapon was cleared. In the current state of the art, if you literally have no strategic resource of copper mining in your country, you cannot sustain production of ammunition and you then lose the war.
This is one of the significant reasons we saw Germany attempting to switch to the 8mm Kurz round for their assault rifles, and why there was such a push to perfect steel cases.
There are also the after affects of shooting brass - on the range, considerable time is spent collecting it up in the military, as every pound checked out must be accounted for to prevent theft. Therefore you WILL turn in every scrap of packing and every possible case to clear the ammo point so that no one can be accused of taking any home. While the rules vary over time and from ASP to ASP, it remains a rule - for every round issued, an empty case must be returned.
We won't be digging old WWII cases out of the mud to clear anymore. Unfortunately there will likely be some other method of verification implemented and careers will still be on the line.
As for all that brass turned in, we have to manage it, package it, and then sell it for what it is at DRMO sales. That is a lot of administrative overhead. It is also a source of brass for large scale reloaders, which means it will dry up immediately. There will be no brass to reload, and the anti gun politicians immediately get a win in their column there. There won't be any subsidized surplus to support the MSR ammo needs. LSAT is right up their alley - it's an intended consequence and one they quietly support.
Tactically, with no brass case rattling down on a hard surface there will be less noise made, and in built up areas it means more sure footing. That also goes for training, and there will be fewer injuries slipping around on blank cases in built up area training centers. It also removes having to sweep those all up, too.
Here's another side affect - at the present time the auto industry is removing metals from brake pad compounds. It's been demonstrated that copper in the pads is causing a slow but steady toxic build up near roadways that endangers some life in the ecosystem. It's a known hazard - in the roofing trade some homeowners have a bare copper wire stapled on the ridgeline to kill mildew and mold buildup on shingles. Our training areas in field tactics are littered with brass cases dating back to WWII, and that toxic residue keeps building up as each training cycle progresses. With caseless ammo all that stops. I've seen the beaten zone of old ranges with thousands of rounds emerging from the ground, completely devoid of any vegetation after decades of disuse. Dropping the brass case will significantly reduce our future cleanup costs.
As for the use of a different cartridge we already manage that pretty well, considering the small arms assortment for a ground unit includes anti tank missles, automatic grenades for the MK 17, mortar rounds, hand grenades, machine gun ammo for the M2, M60, and M249, rifle ammo for 7.62 and 5.56 both green tip and OTM "hollow points," and 9mm submachine gun and pistol ammo which are NOT interchangeable. And that's the short list. The intent for LSAT is to replace one or more of those already being issued - which would mean eliminating 5.56 completely.
Goes to no more surplus ammo, no once fired cases. No supplementing the shooting public with taxpayer financed cheap ammo at all. Hows that for a logistic impact?
By the way, this has been going on for a long time, HK was working on it in the 1980's, and the Army has been field testing battalion sized units with weapons and ammo on the ground for more than a few years now. It's not being rushed into production at all, unlike the sudden ramp up for the M16 where Colt was pushed into suppling 400% of contract requirements to ship to Vietnam fighters. We haven't even got to that point yet - it remains to be seen how a fielding will turn out. I expect that there will be photos of these guns seen in the hands of special unit soldiers being used in hot spots around the world long before any single gun is type approved for general issue. As the Army well knows that no plan survives past the first minute in battle, we can also expect to see changes and a new variant out within a short duration. The A1 won't be long in coming as real world use is studied.
Nobody likes change, I would expect the grumping seen in this thread and it's been the same as others over the last ten years on the subject. It's been asked and answered dozens of times before, the only thing that changes are the ones who still are unaware of the progress made and it's reasons. Then again, ask folks about the Army Service Pistol Trials of 1954 and you get the same looks when you explain it was for a single action 9mm automatic - not .45. That was the start date for moving to 9mm, 30 years before it was finally approved and fielded. Some things we just put off because politics slows progress.
