The "Interim Combat Service Rifle"
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imashooter
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HGH and M-60s for all.
Vern Humphrey
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The BAR was a bipod mounted weapon that weighed about 20 pounds. That's a hell of a difference compared to a standard, shoulder-fired rifle weight weapon. I have fired both the M14 and BAR in combat.So....BARs were useless, then? Oh, that's right, they were a "squad automatic weapon " I forgot. I would bet that there are more than a few combat vets out there that were very grateful for that "auto" position on their M-16s.
Go fondle your Webley Mk VI Vern.... you will feel better.....we know that you have one....
No.
You're not taking into account that there has been an on-going analysis of rounds below 7.62 and above 5.56mm going on for 30+ years. The Small Arms Caliber Study and the USASOC’s current evaluation, which will determine the caliber of the future service round are still to be delivered. Remember, this proposal is for an "interim" solution; not what the military will adopt on a go-forward basis. The 7.62 round is not under consideration for anything in the future other than a medium machine gun round.
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Yeah, pretty much.
The BAR was replaced by the M249 SAW.
Hardly anyone younger than 60 years old (unless they have a particular fascination with Bonne and Clyde) even knows what a BAR was.
The BAR is now ancient history - right there with the Prussian "needle gun" - having long ago been replaced long ago by the M249 whose replacement is near the top of the Army's FY 2018 procurement priorities.
Actually not. Since the rejection of the AR-10 by the military, the various versions of the AR-10 made by numerous civilian contractors no longer share commonality of parts.
And virtually none of the AR-10 was common with the AR-15.
Mosin Bubba
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What does IIRC mean to you?
As you noted, it would be a logistical nightmare that would end up getting people needlessly killed (unless your income taxes were raised considerably to pay to stock the plethora of additional parts and hire, train and deploy the technicians required to use the resulting stock of nearly-identical spare parts).
Would you be willing to vote to have tax rates raised by 5% to fund this suggestion?
If not, they you should probably withdrawn it; with prejudice.
A link has already been provided in previous posts to the solicitation for an RFI as well as a link to an article discussing it. I adopt the definition of IIRC used in the articles. Please read these thoroughly before replying again.
You should also note that the Army's Small Arms Caliber Study and the USASOC’s current evaluation; studies that will determine the caliber of the future service round are still to be delivered and they DO NOT include consideration of the 7.62 round.
Had you read previous posts that I have written, you would be aware that from the time I was a graduate student, I have been involved in the work to select a replacement of the 5.56x45 cartridge. After a preliminary analysis, in which I materially participated, a 6.5mm bullet was selected. Thirty years later the Army remains focused on 6.5mm as the future combat round, not 7.62.
Thus "interim" means "temporary selection" - - that is assuming the RFI ever results in the selection of even a single rifle that is ultimately procured.
Mosin Bubba
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Well ****, I was using forum-speak. IIRC = "If I remember correctly."
salt&battery
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when will they finally adopt a round in between the 5.56 and the 7.62/ 308 with a 6.5 bullet if they are looking for a new round? or do they just want a new rifle?
salt&battery
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they don't raise taxes for that or mostly anything else they just print more money borrow sell bonds etc
tark
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Curious, Vern, and all sarcasm aside....I have talked to several men, including yourself, that have seen combat. and carried a B.A.R. They told me that the rifle is most effective when left on the lower rate of fire (350 RPM I think it was ). Was this your experience as well? I have fired B.A.R.s extensively but never in anger. I was in Ordinance. It seemed to me that the gun was much easier to control, especially from prone with the bipod, when it was on low rate of fire.
I think we agree on the M-14, it is uncontrollable when fired in full auto mode. I had an M-14A1 in Nam. It had the bipod, pistol grip stock, muzzle brake and the recoil pad. There was an extra grip for your left hand. It weighed almost as much as a B.A.R. when loaded. Didn't help. Couldn't hit anything with it on auto beyond twenty or thirty yards.
I think we agree on the M-14, it is uncontrollable when fired in full auto mode. I had an M-14A1 in Nam. It had the bipod, pistol grip stock, muzzle brake and the recoil pad. There was an extra grip for your left hand. It weighed almost as much as a B.A.R. when loaded. Didn't help. Couldn't hit anything with it on auto beyond twenty or thirty yards.
Vern Humphrey
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Absolutely. When I was a BAR man (on the range, in the states), I would only use the low rate, which was between 400 and 450. In Viet Nam, a village below our battalion HQ was attacked. I looked across a road, toward another hilltop and saw three men, in uniform, with weapons, all down on one knee. Since I only had a carbine, I grabbed a sentry's BAR, put it on low, and got one before the other two scattered like a covey of quail.
If I were designing a machinegun, I'd design it for a low rate of fire -- only when engaging aerial targets do you need a high cyclic rate.
It didn't help that it had about twice the cyclic rate of the BAR -- and the Ordnance types thought that was an advantage!!
CapnMac
Member
The point has merit.
A squad automatic weapon really only ever needs a low rate of fire. Only a GMG or HMG needs a high rate, and that's to better create a beaten zone at GMG/HMG ranges of 1500-3000m. Close infantry support, what a SAW is meant to provide is really 150-800m.
Aircraft engagement (since, for infantry, there's no such thing as friendly a/c) really needs to be devoted to missiles--even a Ma Deuce needs huge lead angles that are just hard to actually execute.
tark
Member
Amen to that, Vern. When I was a Small Arms Repairman (45B20) in Germany We had an M-60 that was unfortunately ran over by a jeep. We got it running again but the receiver was slightly ....uhhhh.... pinched! The gun would reliably fire, but the constriction slowed the rate of fire to about half what it should have been. And we discovered that the thing was devastatingly effective against any targets out to several hundred yards. It was very easy to hold it on target, it just seemed to have a perfect cadence for putting rounds where you wanted them to go.
If they could have found a way to cut the M-14s cyclic rate in half, and put a proper heavy weight barrel on the thing, it MIGHT have proved to be a decent S.A.W.. The M-15 was a nice try, but it still had that ridiculous 750 RPM cyclic rate. The ordinance people seemed obsessed with a high cyclic rate of fire.
Acera
Member
Speaking of machine guns, what the chances this getting looked at? General Dynamics .338 Norma Magnum machine gun, 500 rpm.
http://www.gd-ots.com/armament_systems/ics_lwmmg.html#
http://soldiersystems.net/2017/03/20/gd/
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http://www.gd-ots.com/armament_systems/ics_lwmmg.html#
http://soldiersystems.net/2017/03/20/gd/
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BAR = get tough or die. The 20 pound weight and bipod helps with recoil. It was retired in the Vietnam era.
We already have an interim service rifle, it's called the M4 carbine and it's just about replaced the M-16 in front line service until some other radical improvement in ballistics and logistics there's no reason to scrap millions of rifles and billions of rounds.
There have been multiple attempts to make the M-16 system into a SAW, going back to at least the early 70's None has seen widespread service or long term reliability, which is why we ended up with the M249.
We already have an interim service rifle, it's called the M4 carbine and it's just about replaced the M-16 in front line service until some other radical improvement in ballistics and logistics there's no reason to scrap millions of rifles and billions of rounds.
There have been multiple attempts to make the M-16 system into a SAW, going back to at least the early 70's None has seen widespread service or long term reliability, which is why we ended up with the M249.
The SCAR 17 was tried and found wanting. Just because it was backed by FN doesn't mean it was all that great. When it came down to an actual bid and contract, LWRC won supplying 7.62 rifles to the British using an updated AR10 chassis.
If the Stoner system is the proven and demonstrated platform for the last 45 years, why then toss it when it was designed for 7.62 in the first place? And fielded, too. It saw it's share of combat in Africa in the early 60's.
Lest we focus to sharply on this, the Army already has invested time and is proposing another intermediate for the role, the .264 USA as designed by the AMU. And the solicitation ignores the years of developing the LSAT, which can offer the same firepower with 40% less ammo weight and no cases to police up or scrap.
What we are hearing is a lot of noise from Command over getting a larger bullet - but mind that these commanders were all part of the same age group who initially had to deal with the first introduction of the M4. Cutting the barrel down to 14.5" and then adopting it wholesale as the primary soldiers weapon is where the big mistake was made, the M16 should have been left at 20". That worked - and when it became necessary to upgun the squad to reach out for longer range, all the solutions involved buying and issuing longer barrels.
What we had was a special application SBR for CQB and PDW use issued wholesale to everyone, instead of in limited and MOS specific jobs. Fashion for the troops instead of firepower didn't work. It took a long and serious campaign in the Middle East to point it out and now the pendulum has swung the other way. Adopting a 7.62 wholesale across the board isn't the answer, either, as it limits the user to HALF the ammo he/she previously carried. There will be no full auto use, and getting in a firefight means running out long before the others do. Not good.
It's a look for a special application rifle which has already been met and is used by other forces. It's called the AR10, it predated the M16, and its the better gun. Not the SCAR which is a fantasy rifle for internet commandos and which got shelved in the special units it was given. There were very few in the system and all that experiment proved was that having two different rifles meant twice the training and familiarization to be good with them.
If the Stoner system is the proven and demonstrated platform for the last 45 years, why then toss it when it was designed for 7.62 in the first place? And fielded, too. It saw it's share of combat in Africa in the early 60's.
Lest we focus to sharply on this, the Army already has invested time and is proposing another intermediate for the role, the .264 USA as designed by the AMU. And the solicitation ignores the years of developing the LSAT, which can offer the same firepower with 40% less ammo weight and no cases to police up or scrap.
What we are hearing is a lot of noise from Command over getting a larger bullet - but mind that these commanders were all part of the same age group who initially had to deal with the first introduction of the M4. Cutting the barrel down to 14.5" and then adopting it wholesale as the primary soldiers weapon is where the big mistake was made, the M16 should have been left at 20". That worked - and when it became necessary to upgun the squad to reach out for longer range, all the solutions involved buying and issuing longer barrels.
What we had was a special application SBR for CQB and PDW use issued wholesale to everyone, instead of in limited and MOS specific jobs. Fashion for the troops instead of firepower didn't work. It took a long and serious campaign in the Middle East to point it out and now the pendulum has swung the other way. Adopting a 7.62 wholesale across the board isn't the answer, either, as it limits the user to HALF the ammo he/she previously carried. There will be no full auto use, and getting in a firefight means running out long before the others do. Not good.
It's a look for a special application rifle which has already been met and is used by other forces. It's called the AR10, it predated the M16, and its the better gun. Not the SCAR which is a fantasy rifle for internet commandos and which got shelved in the special units it was given. There were very few in the system and all that experiment proved was that having two different rifles meant twice the training and familiarization to be good with them.
FL-NC
Member
The SCAR 17 (SCAR heavy) IS in the system. It currently serves worldwide in SOCOM. To my knowledge, they do not exist outside of this community in the DOD. It was retained from the original project (the 5.56 having been rejected). The 17 generally serves in DD/SPR type roles. The bottom line is, the guys use them as they see fit.
zaitcev
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Well, it really depends, I imagine... PKM fires at 650 rpm and weighs about 17 pounds (e.g. less than BAR), and although not intended in SAW role originally, it was so often used that way that Russians even came up with a fixed barrel version around 2010. Reportedly, it's fairly controllable.
Jim Watson
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For all the tactical advantage of a low rate of fire, Roy Dunlap 'Ordnance Went Up Front' said that the rate reducer was the source of most of the mechanical problems with BARs in the Pacific. That there was something of a scrounging program for semi-full parts which were thought more reliable.
CoalTrain49
Member
What happened to the 6.8 x 43 SPC cartridge that we heard so much about? That was more recent than 30 years ago, it was about 15 years ago. 6.5 mm has only recently come into vogue, say 10 years ago.
Your timeline is a bit confusing.
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