11 pounds sounds closer than theh 12/13 pounds figure being tossed around, and I'll admit, I didn't think about a light. Never cared much for pressure pads when I was in, they always broke; wonder if the issued one have been improved?Originally Posted by C-grunt
What have I shilled? My first comment said I expected this to not get adopted. Yes, I'm intrigued. I'm a fan of .308 battle rifles and prefer to shoot them, but understand a lot of people don't. What I think are ridiculous are the folks that are knee-jerking to either any change away from 5.56 (and there have been several in this thread) as well as the people knee-jerking against Sig. (particularly because of the P320/M17) People love to hate on the p320/M17, but the problems people bring up simply don't exist. 5.56 has had a great round, but is getting quite old, and why not look at replacements? I'm hardly "creaming your pants on what is essentially a large frame MCX", I have little interest in the XM5 itself, and far more interest in the cartridge and how it'll impact designs down the line. Far from thinking the Army's decision is always right, I'm the jaded vet that finds it surprising that the Army may have actually made the right decision for a change, and I'd like to see if that ends up playing out.
How does this increase lethality? Easy answer: it dumps the M249 SAW with something that looks like a good MG. Besides the reliability issues that damn near every SAW I ever had the misfortune of carrying had, 5.56 was never really effective out to the ranges expected of the SAW. I'm not even talking about the effect on target, just getting the lighter rounds to go where you aim them at 800m when fighting Kansas wind was a pain. The 240Bs and 240L never had that problem, so a round that improves on that will be nice for automatic riflemen.
The next easy answer is to simply point out the XM157 NGSW-FC, and argue that increases in optics, lasers, and technological assists have made the battle rifle concept more valid than ever. This is especially true with a high-velocity round that gives the much-vaunted longer point blanc range. If one of the main reasons for the use of intermediate cartridges is the tendency of soldiers not to actually use their weapons at ranges beyond 300 meters, giving them more ability to do so is definitely a step in the right direction.
In the XM5, the "questionable physics" do give me pause, but mostly because of how much we don't know about the cartridge and the loadings adopted by the Army. We really haven't seen how the carbines handle, and other than a few media-day type shooting events, I've not seen how the recoil is in the XM5, and almost certainly not with the Army's loading. If the recoil impulse is in the 7.62 NATO realm, I think it'll be fine. Higher than 5.56, certainly, but manageable. If it's noticeably worse than 7.62 NATO, I think the Army might have a problem. Just got to wait and see how things shake out. The M855A1 had a lot of questionable attributes when it was first rolled out, but most people these days treat it as a solid round and a good step forward. Until we know more and give some time for end-user adjustments to the XM5 and the XM-whatever cartridges, I tend to give the cartridge more of a benefit of doubt than a lot of knee-jerkers on here.
More training will absolutely be required, but that's always the case with every weapon in the military. Not sure how adopting the XM5 will result in a weapon "that you will train with less"? Training time will likely be more or less the same as it is with the M4, as it was with the M16, as it was with the M14, etc. What that training consists of will likely change, but I don't see the connection between "new rifle, less training." The reduction of 1/3 of rounds carried may be a problem, or it could a non-issue. Ammo and mags carried seems to be trending down, from guys in Vietnam carrying over 1000 rounds on their person to 10 mags being common in my time in Iraq, to now guys sticking to 7 mags or less. Again, something we'll have to see how it plays out.
If you don't complain who will? Half of the internet clearly. I've seen a lot of really bad hot takes, that assume all sorts of things to make their points. A lot of folks who clearly have never fired a carbine in anything other than 5.56 assume that the recoil of anything bigger is completely uncontrollable. Articles like this one, which seems to assume that the Army's solution to Small arms problems is an increased reliance on the Air Force, and assumes that infantry combat is a thing of the past, all the while acknowledging that 5.56 has issues, and likely needed to be replaced. There are certain areas of this program that I think are worthy of critique, namely I would have split the cartridge and weapon competitions into two, that way Sigs cartridge could have been adopted in a different companies rifle for instance, but we've tried similar before with no result. The Army finally pick something, and right or wrong, now we get to find out if they'll carry out their plans, or dump them.
The 20% weight savings were over a cartridge with similar ballistics, ie, something like .270 WSM. Even if the same goal had been achieved with a 5.56-type cartridge, I can see the complaints over "wasting millions of dollars for very small weight gains" if the Army had adopted a 5.56 replacement that stuck with those ballistics.
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