Either the Army is adamant about really changing, or if the M4 comes in dead last, or not first, there will be no egg on face and need to back pedal like the “dust test”
I am skeptical about the prospect of the Army adopting a new carbine, and all participants will be wasting their time. Even so, wager on this being the biggest political and corrupt mess seen in a long time. This is going to make the M9 trials seem like paradise in comparison
Bank on M4 with “improvements”, not a new weapon system.
Tough test for companies in carbine competition
By Lance M. Bacon - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Sep 25, 2010 12:54:12 EDT
The M4 will not compete in the forthcoming carbine competition, according to the colonel in charge. But, he adds, the winner will have to score “a knockout” if it expects to replace the Army’s primary weapon for the past 20 years…
If the Handgun trials were any indication, this will not end well.
Not sure how you all feel about the M9 but a friend of mine that got back a short time ago was telling me that his unit figures the M9 is more useful to throw at an enemy to distract them while you reload your Primary than it is as a handgun.
KWELS - That was both an uniformed and unitelligent comment. The M9 when properly maintained and fed through quality magazines is a very reliable weapon and has ended the lives of many enemy combatants.
Variable - I cant help but wonder if they made that decision as a fallback so that nobody themselves included has objective data one way or the other. This way they can make the decision they want to to. If they prove the SCAR, ACR, HK416, etc perform exceptionally better than the M4 in this direct head to head competition then they have no grounds for recourse politically to protect them if they decide on the cost/benefit analysis that its not enought of an improvement for them to upgrade. Just a theory.
Medik, if you read my post I said I am going off of a friends experience while in Iraq.
It is far from the first time I have heard complaints about the M9. Mainly they revolve around the short overall life of the gun and the frailty of them in general.
I highly doubt that the army is going to get funding for new rifles during the current administration, so the test may simply be an academic exercise. As for not letting the M4 compete, I think if the M4 did poorly, the criticism of it would get much louder, to the embarrassment of the Army. So better to not let it compete.
Regardless, the level of bureaucratic cover-ass is astronomical. The ‘improvement’ will likely not even be quantified in significant ways, which dims even the possibility of just purchasing improved modular uppers (regardless of source).
The M4 and M9 are both better weapon systems if you make more intelligent training and ammunition selections for COIN use (at least we’re getting Mk318).
It’s not as though the funding isn’t possible. It’s just getting frittered away on crap like iPhones for recruits.
The M4 should be the control group…everything else is the experiment. Not including the M4 in the testing is an absolute asinine idea.
This may be the only way the US military can avoid some lawsuits. Excluding the current weapon system from the competition to avoid getting bogged down in lawsuits and appeals may be the only way to get a new infantry weapon adopted. They may have to exclude Beretta from a new handgun competition too.
Let’s keep in mind that the M4 is excluded, but Colt is not.
Colt could easily submit a highly modified M4 to compete. While I don’t claim to have first hand knowledge, I think the Army means the M4 as it is issued will be denied entry.
I would bet that the majority of entries will be AR15 variants.
A potential list of companies and products that I imagine will participate
FN SCAR
Beretta ARX160
Robarm XCR
HK 416
Remington ACR
CZ 805 BREN A1
LWRC M6XX
LMT MRP Piston
Barret Rec7
Colt ???
Daniel Defense ??? Probably a middy
SIG 516 or 556
The bragging rights that will go to the winner will be unmatched, except by the 40 Watt Plasma rifle
Colt CM901 (7.62mm Battle Rifle) confirmed
David Crane of DefenseReview has confirmed the existence of the Colt CM901 (7.62mm Battle Rifle) whose existence was first revealed by Solider Systems a few days ago.
The problem with the M9 trials is they were held in the early 80s and they insisted on a double strike capacity. It’s not that the M9 is a bad weapon (especially if you use reliable mags), it’s just so many better ones exist.
For them to require contenders to “knockout” M4 without having M4 actually compete, they’d have to specify some sort of performance parameters (attributable to M4) to be beat. I don’t expect any of this to be a public data, but those performance parameters and definition of “knockout” may be able to say how objective this competition is before it even starts. That is, provided they set those definitions before the testing begins; would be the only fair way to do it. Somehow, I am skeptical that they’ll pre-specify endpoints…
Also, the end ot that article caught my attention:
If the challenger scores a knockout, the winner will be required to sell its technical data rights soon after. Tamilio said the victor will get the bulk of the contract, but get two other manufacturers to join in production.
It just kills me sometimes that for the cost of about 1 of these new fangled next gen fighters we could equip the entirety of our ground forces with the best equipment that its possible to make at this time. I dont just mean a new rifle/carbine, I mean all equipment, rifle/carbine, sidearm, LMG, GPMG, HMG, body armor, comms, uniform, load bearing gear, boots, socks, drawers, eyepro, helmet, all of it.
Would it really hurt the air force that much to have one or two less f22’s to make that happen?