Poll - Favorite Assault Rifle

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Eventually, though, I think we will skip over caseless ammunition and replace them with ETC for rifles and heavier weapons, and retain the cased ammo for pistols. (Don't hold your breath for an ETC rifle, though -- I think those will be something my nephew's grandchildren will have rather than any time soon.).

I recently read that one of the several reasons the G11 was not adopted by the German and U.S. armies is that caseless ammo has a potential issue with cooking off in the gun. If I understand correctly, conventional ammo helps with heat loss because the brass from spent rounds retains and takes some of the heat of discharge with it when it's ejected from the gun. Caseless ammo doesn't have this beneficial property. The gun, therefore, retains a lot of heat and this can, theoretically at least, lead some of the unfired caseless ammo to cook off in the gun. This could be catastrophic.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I recently read that one of the several reasons the G11 was not adopted by the German and U.S. armies is that caseless ammo has a potential issue with cooking off in the gun. If I understand correctly, conventional ammo helps with heat loss because the brass from spent rounds retains and takes some of the heat of discharge with it when it's ejected from the gun. Caseless ammo doesn't have this beneficial property. The gun, therefore, retains a lot of heat and this can, theoretically at least, lead some of the unfired caseless ammo to cook off in the gun. This could be catastrophic.

from my research that issue was solved about 2 years prior to the project being scrubbed. the solution was in three parts IIRC changing the formula for the ammo to be more heat tolerant, improving the barrels heat dissipating capability, and i believe a mechanical safety to prevent a cook-off from chambering more rounds.

[Panther Al]

Well, I appear to have spoken a bit too soon:

Jordan has decided to license build 6.8spc LWRC rifles for their royal guard, true, they say only 5000 for now, but since they have the facility to make more, I wouldn't be surprised if a few years down the road the rest of the Jordanian Army goes down the 6.8 road.

[waiting4something]

I don't see why the 6.8 is such a big deal? The round is really only made for close fighting. It's like a American made version of the 7.62x39mm. 6.8 is more a specialty round then a jack of all trades. The bullets are heavier and from what I have seen magazine capacity gets reduced also. Not dogging it, but it just seems lake a bad chose to have if you have to fight outside a built up area.

[Panther Al]

Um, yes and no. The whole 5.56 vs 6.5 vs 6.8 is half fact and half hyperbole. They each have strengths and weaknesses over each other. 5.56 doesn't hit as hard as some (including me who has used it as it was meant) but you can carry a lot of it easily. The 6.5 has the range - and the hitting power at range - that has to seen to believed, but is expensive and is optimised for long distance work (and admittedly its damn good at it). The 6.8 hits much harder than the 5.56, somewhat harder than the 6.8 under 400m, and is about the same at 400m+ as the 5.56 in accuracy and hitting power, all of which I am fine with. Downside is as mentioned, ammo capacity of a 30rd mag drops to 25. I personally don't have a problem with that. You can always have built 30rd versions that won't be much bigger so you can still use most ammo pouches out there, but I'll agree the roughly 40% increase in weight compared to 5.56 does suck.

But with harder hitting bullets you won't have to use as many (not that joe won't anyways, joe being joe) to get the same results.

As to the 6.5, if I wanted a sniper round, it would be at least a 7.62.

Or you could look at it this way:
The 5.56 was designed by varmint shooters to shoot varmints.
The 6.5 was designed by game hunters to take down game with a AR platform.
The 6.8 was designed by soldiers to kill other soldiers with the same AR platform.

[Tackleberry]

5.56, 6.5 or 6.8 doesn't really matter if your only driving it down an 11 inch barrel.

L85A1, heavy, unreliable but for front line troops came as standard with a 4x SUSAT.
L85A2, Heavy, very reliable and still has an optic on it.

21" barrel gives enough velocity to an SS109 round to penetrate CRISAT armour at 450m and still has enough punch to do some damage.

I can't hit a bus at 200m with an AK, but I can hit a man sized target at 600m with an L85.

Forget the L86 though, not worth the extra barrel length.

[HorseSoldier]

I can't hit a bus at 200m with an AK, but I can hit a man sized target at 600m with an L85.

AK's aren't great, but they're not that bad. If properly zeroed both the 47 and 74 are easily 200 meter guns (meaning minute-of-man with no problems), though that's maybe about the limits of it.