LDB415 Loc: Houston south suburb

This is the shoulder fired weapon equivalent of the aircraft change from the A10 to the F35. The SIG is available in a public consumption semi-auto variation for $7,999. Compared to a high quality AR15 for $1200-1400. But hey, it's only taxpayer money.

mikedent Loc: Florida

One problem I read about is that this new ammo is heavier and larger than current 5.56 ammo, so magazines will only hold 20-25 rounds vs 30 as now. Plus the extra weight will reduce how much ammo the soldier can carry. This was the same type of problem the Army had initially in VietNam, their 308 cal M14 rifles were too heavy for jungle warfare, not enough ammo per person vs the VC troops who had the lighter AK ammo with 30 round mags. Plus the rifle will be much harder to control on full- or semi-auto fire due to heavier recoil. Yes the new cartridge is faster and has more terminal energy than 5.56 but the system altogether seems a step backwards.

josquin1 Loc: Massachusetts

Just what the public needs another automatic rifle to butcher people with!

LDB415 Loc: Houston south suburb

You should really study more about inanimate objects and the things they are and are not capable of on their own.

edwdickinson Loc: Ardmore PA

The .308 also has about double the 5.56 effective range.

pendennis

That was the problem with the M-16/M-4 when the Army and Marines got to the sandbox. No more 25-50 meter engagements (exception - urban warfare). They were looking at aimed fire out past 500 meters. M-16/M-4 just isn't effective. Thousands of M-14's came out of armory storage, were refurbished, and in some cases restocked. A good M-14 can be effective well past 700 meters, and with the proper optics, is effective out to 1000 meters.

pendennis

The ammunition load has always been a trade-off. How many rounds can the trooper hump into combat?

The M-16 was later equipped with 30-round mags, forward assist. Not all VC had the AK-47. They carried everything from SKS, to U.S. Carbines, to Chinese bolt guns. The M-16 A1 had a selector switch which allowed 3-round bursts, a forward assist button, faster twist barrel, different hand guard, etc.

As first manufactured, the M16 operated without problems. However, the DoD, in an effort to speed up cyclic fire rates, re-specified the 5.56 round. The original round used stick powder, which is low-fouling. They insisted on going to ball powder, which would foul the barrel and chamber much more easily. The ammunition would also swell slightly if left in the chamber overnight, and would then jamb, forcing the soldier/marine to try and clear the chamber. The extraction step was so powerful, that the heads of spent ammunition cases would rip away, leaving a problem only an armorer could repair. The DoD also shipped thousands of rifles without cleaning kits, and they skimped a $5/rifle charge to have the chambers chromed.

During the Viet Nam era, the Dod had two separate weapons systems. In SE Asia, it was pretty much the M16 and 5.56mm round. However, until NATO officially adopted the 5.56mm round (1980), combat engineers were issued M-14's for use in Europe until ca. 1971. I was in the Seabees, and a couple of our battalions were designated to replace redeployed Army Corps of Engineers when the Middle East heated up in mid-1970. We turned in our M16's, for M-14's, and had to re-qualify.

After the pain and loss of life, thanks to McNamara, the M16 has been a great performer.

Michael Sabetsky Loc: Rockledge, Florida

Jerry. Give him me an M14 anyday. That's what I trained with in Basic Training in 1967. About 4 1/2 years ago I got a civilian version of the M14. More accurate at a great distance than the M16. Still being used as a sniper rifle by the military from what I understand. Can't be used automatic but it shoots just as great semi on the gun range.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

And where is "the public" going to get them?

Full auto weapons are only legal in some places and then with special licenses, inspection clauses etc. Now illegal black market or illegally converted (by a skilled smith) are something else. But the key word in those cases is illegal.

Those civilian legal weapons that "look" like the military full autos are semi-auto/self loading, they fire one shot when you pull the trigger and then reload themselves but to fire that next shot you have to pull the trigger again.

Having been there and done that (two years in Vietnam) I can tell you that except for area and suppression fire or masses of enemy at fairly close range in my unit we learned to not use full auto most of the time.* We used semi-auto with aimed shots or after rifles came along with that feature the "3 round burst" setting. The average soldier is really not a very good shot - they are taught to use quantity(full auto & burst) instead of quality(aimed shots).

A good shot can do more damage with single aimed shots that hit the target than someone with endless ammo using "spray and pray" making a lot of noise and hitting almost nothing.

*Being a HQ unit we had a lot of older NCOs and Officers who were WWII and Korean veterans who were too old or had other problems, like hearing, to continue to be combat troops. We were scheduled to run a base camp on the Cambodian border and so when we were getting ready to ship over to Vietnam they trusted that we already knew our jobs and trained us as if we were light infantry instead of HQ/support troops so we could do a better job of defending ourselves and our compound. And it must have worked because for the first year I was in Vietnam (our original people were all still there and hadn't rotated home) officers and troops from combat units would keep commenting and asking why we looked and acted more like infantry than HQ/combat troops.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I got taught by WWII and Korean vets to use the M14 in full auto effectively - trigger control to fire bursts of 2 to 3 rounds and use the sling around the off arm to hold it down. Very much like BAR equipped troops had been trained. I also got hold of a light weight clip on bipod which from prone or over a rest (foxhole) allowed me to hold the rifle down with my off arm in the sling and fire long bursts on full auto. But mostly they told me to keep it on semi and fire aimed shots. One bullet that hits is better than a magazine full that misses.

And I do own a Springfield M1A that I mounted a scope on.

WalterW Loc: Parrish FL

No, the two new Army rifles are NOT from Armalite - "The Army recently awarded a contract to manufacturer SIG Sauer for two new soldier weapons: the XM5 rifle and the XM250 automatic rifle. For soldiers involved in close-quarters combat, the XM5 will eventually replace the M4/M4A1 carbine rifle, while the XM250 will replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. "

WalterW Loc: Parrish FL

They looked at the AR-15 but rejected is since it wasn't an Army in-house design. Read this article about how the Army did it in the past. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

The basic original design was from Armalite = AR/Armalite Rifle and was designated the AR15, then the Pentagon adapted it and purchased the rights so they could have other contractors build them in quantity and redesign them as in the case of the new ones. The military designation was made M16 for the original model and Armalite and others licensed by them switched the AR15 designation to civilian legal semi-auto models.

WalterW Loc: Parrish FL

The Army's AR-15 saga is well documented here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

All it takes to convert it to full automatic is to file down the sear. Then, the problem becomes one of magazine capacity.