I had the fortune to recently speak with COL Tamilio, PM Soldier Weapons about improvements to the current M4 carbine as well as a proposed new weapon dubbed the “Improved Carbine”. It seems that there has been some confusion over this, but there are two separate projects going on, almost simultaneously… Read More
It is interesting that despite the mantra that the M4 is just fine if cleaned and maintained, there is still interest in the army in a gas piston M4. I am not being critical, just saying that 2 different messages are coming from the army.
The Army has been dragging its heels on change for a long time. They are looking for a quantum-leap and there isn’t one on the horizon, but the politics are against the Army at the moment. Issues of reliability keep surfacing in the news and therefore in Congress. The fact that SOCOM went their own way to replace the M4 with the SCAR is a political hit against the M4.
So the Army plays a sleight-of-hand game. They’ll make some incremental improvements to the M4, and simultaneously make a big show of requesting technology demonstrators from everyone for a completely new “Improved Carbine.” They will waste millions, and then decide that the “improved” M4 is adequate.
Carlos, that is disappointing. I would presume the officer ranks would be thinking, “Do my men have a better chance of survival if they carry rifle X or rifle Y?” But I am probably naive.
I hope to be proven wrong, but I have lost count of the rifle programs the Army has developed over the past few decades. I suspect that just like with camo, they will be the last to change. Once the USMC finds a new rifle, then the Army will play catch up.
The Marine Corps doesn’t have a rifle program and the Army does. SOCOM has one and boy is it messed up.
As a taxpayer, the rifle they have is fine.
Failzero coated parts, better springs, perhaps an improved extractor and bolt along with better magazines and the current system would be fine.
We have this same discussion over at Lightfighter; Frankly, “better rifle” is bullshit.
What we need is to revamp rifle maintenance. The problem with the current Army small arms isn’t the arms themselves, it’s the “run them till they break” then “fix the part that broke and reissue the worn out weapon to some other schmuck” way the Army is treating maintenance…
A new rifle just means we get to fuck up new rifles and have the same problems, again. In fact, all this noise about new rifles just distracts from the real, systematic problem of lack of maintenance and the fact that we don’t just trash most of the rifles out there and buy new of the same thing.
Well, the best approach would be simply introducing modular uppers, and being done with it.
I guarantee that some COTS parts could enhance the M4 significantly, throw in some currently aftermarket lower parts (ambi safety, Norgon Mag Catches, BAD Lever), switch to better extractor springs and O-Rings, utilize improved coatings.
But the underlying problem of failures caused by service life of parts being long passed will go overlooked, we’ll still be doing stupid stuff like firing M855 (and it’s LFA twin), not trashing broken magazines, and so forth.
How about this.
Fail Zero Coating - Nickel Boron on upper receiver, and bolt carrier group.
Nitriting the barrel
9310 for bolt material
Cold Hammer Forged Barrel
Better trigger
Heavier barrel.
If they really HAVE to have it. Then a piston operation rod. That doesn’t bother me. I like it (more than DI) but it’s not really needed.
Now you have a better rifle.
Oh, replace M16A2 rifles with M16A3 rifles.
Auto > Burst.
Did SOCOM actually adopt the SCAR?
Why don’t they just go with the HK416? It passed their tests, I don’t see why they don’t just adopt that. Same controls as the M4, but with a piston.
All the money they’re going to spend on this should instead be used to send the Soldiers to a five day TigerSwan or Vickers class.
Now that would make waaaaaaayyyyy too much sense. You know that’s not “how we roll”.
A LAV class ??? WAY too much sense… As a taxpayer I’d rather see that than finding the magic gun, especially if it’s going to stay in 5.56.
Too many Jiborni’s and not enough Larry’s to go around.
Trust me, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Making the weapon more idiot-proof won’t hurt.
Better training won’t hurt either. The correct answer is to get both.
Spot on Kater. They’d be better served having USAMU personnel take the LAV courses, then send them out to predeployment units and in theater, to train the trigger pullers Army wide.
Good point about maintenance.
Train the trainers sounds sexy, because it is effective - until cost cutting and administrative stupidity would dilute into check-in-the-box rudimentary course for the trainers, and only minimal improvement for the average guy. Some jerkoff would cut corners on the important stuff, and it’ll be right back to lowest common denominator training with the aim of mediocrity. The right direction, and a better expenditure of money still.
Per this, if time were critical, just take the proven 416, convert it to 6.8SPC, and buy them as uppers-only. USMC should be starting to buy up UBR stocks in this time frame, just retrofit with ambi safeties and mag catches; so that’s a pretty intelligent combination. It’ll go well with the IAR.
You guys read the who article where it talked about how much it cost to stand up a new round? And this is the cost without having to build a new factory.
I don’t think a caliber is happening.