Optimum Military Rifle Caliber -- 250 Savage?

[EchoFiveMike]

OK, I can live with the standard necked 260 or 6.5-08, I went back and checked some of mine and the neck was not as long as I seem to remember it. Fair enough. I have never had a problem with neck tension on new brass or even once or twice fired brass. Since all you get issued is nice virgin stuff it shouldn't be a problem. Besides AP ammo normally has a nice rolled cannelure along where the bullet joins the case neck you can crimp into that for added tension(that groove is there for tactile ID in the dark, so I am told)

As for displacing powder capacity, it depends on the length of the bullet and the diameter of the case body. On a wide case with a small diameter bullet this can be several grains and that can help for 100-150 fps depending on the powder. Of course we could go to a longer action and not worry about it, but then we may as well go to a real cartridge like 270Win.

****Unfortunately the laws of physics apply and cartridges like this are just to powerful to be controllably shot offhand in full auto from a shoulder arm that weights less than 12 lbs or so.***

This doesn't matter as we don't have full auto anyway and three round burst is worse than useless as it messes up a basically good trigger. Full auto is over rated for rifles anyway. That's what SAW's and GPMG's are for, although I guess if you have a single caliber your SAW will just be a light weight variation of the GPMG.

Anyone complaining about the M16 kicking will be sumarily thrown out of my platoon! After he has been the demonstration dummy for three or four hand to hand classes.

OK, I will throw on my class IV ceramic raid vest and take one in the chest with 5.56. If you buy the replacement panel. Runs about $400. Money up front. But joking aside this brings up a good point. Body armour is proliferating on the battlefield. Just because we are too stupid or cheap to field it does not mean that the BG's won't so we need better penetration for ammo. Sectional density and velocity are important here as is bullet design. This is partly why I recommend steel core AP as the baseline ammo, it's also cheaper than composite projectiles like M855. You can still field tungsten core stuff for special application or GPMG use.

****That is the point, much of the debate is just academic. Since most of the killing is done with supporting arms, by various accords we use rounds that are less than optimal for killing, and many hits are done by just mass, vice precision aimed fire.***

OK, supporting arms works great. I like arty and havinf air is great. However, air is high value asset that you rarely have and with planes now costing $100 million per, there are going to be less available for our support. PLus they don't like flying the the rain or snow regardless of how "all-weather" it might be. Arty is better then air, but it still has problems. For one we don't have enough. Period. CAX is unrealistic in that you have a regiment's worth of arty assigned to a Bn, and I still had to wait for rounds. If you don't have priority of fires, you're screwed. Mortars are more available but they are not going to be patrolled with, and have limited range and on target effect. If you are like me and work well past the FEBA, it's arty, air or do it yourself.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most of the killing done in an forested or jungle setting is done by ambush. Grenades and Claymores do their thing. However I have also done more than a few far ambushes with my M40A1 across clearings that I could have easily done with a scoped service rifle in a decent caliber. We are talking 250-350 yd shots here. When a trail comes out into a sudden clearing, you are going to get potential shots. After five or ten miles cross-country people are going to start taking the trails, it's just human nature to make life easy. Also with the increase in urban fighting where supporting arms is not allowed or even desired, we are going to need rounds that can punch through brick and thin concrete. 5.56 ain't it! Blue on blue through walls is over rated in actual military combat as contrasted with CQB raids that involved large numbers and often multiple points of entry as well as hostages. OK enough for now. Semper Fi....Ken

[STLRN]

Devil Dog, the reason artillery is so slow at CAX is the safety that the coyotes require the artillery to go through. Everything has to be cleared through the FSCC, the TTECG and in the FDC by grid. It almost triple the time required. In our last war in the jungle, Artillery and mortars still did more of America's killing than anything else. Last year, the FA journal did an interview with Gen. Harold Moore, USA (ret). He basically said it was the artillery firing at the rate they actually melted one tube and broke the recoil mech. of others that saved his force at LZ X-ray. You saw what happen on the march to LZ Albany, when the NVA grabbed the Americans by the belt buckle and didn't let them use fire support. What a sniper and a scoped rifle can do is not an indicator of what the average grunt can do. If we are talking about MOUT, a 7.62 has its advantages, but a lot of building structures will stop 7.62 almost as well as 5.56.
They did the no automatic weapons thing for the longest of times, but the results were most didn't fire. I know some criticize spray and pray, but you know what. I would rather have my Marines fire (preferable while apply marksmanship skills) than not shoot at all.

[Badger Arms]

There are six distinctive categories of weapon that should be addressed here:

<OL TYPE=1>
<LI> Rifle -- issued to most soldiers.
<LI> Carbine -- issued to mounted, airborne, and light infantry. Also used by support personnel.
<LI> LMG -- squad support and mobile firepower.
<LI> GPMG -- point defense for sustained firepower.
<LI> Sniper Rifle -- harassment and high-value target control.
</OL>

A single caliber CAN satisfy all of these requirements. That caliber currently is NOT the .223. The .223 is NOT a sniper caliber or even a long-rang marksman caliber in any respect. It never will be. For LMG work it is adequate but for GPMG work it lacks range. The M-60 is twice the weapon it is for point defense.
Similarly, the .308 is NOT a carbine caliber and never will be. For carrying around 6 poind rifles, charging ambushes, or simply keeping heads down, you get three times the bang for your buck with the .223.
Might be a little off subject here, but I am of the opinion that every squad should be equiped with a grenadier. The OICW weapon is crap as it's being designed, but the philosophy is right. I think the concept of a semi-automatic grenade launcher is useful enough to field at the squad level. Air-Burst projectiles are an outstanding concept which scares the crap out of me. I don't want to be on the other end of one.

------------------
God made us in his own image.
Thomas Jefferson made us free.
John Browning made us equal.

[mussi]

In the 70s, the Swiss Army started experimenting with a 6.5mm bullet,
sent out at 3100 feet/s v0. Seems a bit much, I know, but that was
their stance. The rifle that was planned around that bullet
(basically, a lighter SIG 510 - the real SIG 510 weighs some 7.5 kg),
and that rifle had a target weight of 4.5 kg empty. Yet the Swiss
soldier would retain his ability to hurt a target at 600m with a high
probability that the target would be history and yet have to carry
3kg less. The weight he could carry in ammo, which was the second
point of that rifle. However, the rifle came from the Waffenfabrik
Bern and not from SIG and thus the whole project was canned. Too bad,
it would have provided a great hitter. Also, the controllability of
the prototype rifle in full-auto was reported to be excellent, at
least many times better than that of the SIG 510 in 7.5mm.

At any rate, we now have the SIG 550, which is a precise rifle, but
the round lacks punch. So we still have the 7.5x55mm rifles to shoot
in competitions - the bullet is more stable.

[Kernel]

Another photographic comparison and a link to THE .256" BRITISH: A LOST OPPORTUNITY. More food for thought. -- Kernel

[EchoFiveMike]

Last year, the FA journal did an interview with Gen. Harold Moore, USA (ret). He basically said it was the artillery firing at the rate they actually melted one tube and broke the recoil mech. of others that saved his force at LZ X-ray. You saw what happen on the march to LZ Albany, when the NVA grabbed the Americans by the belt buckle and didn't let them use fire support.

Sir,this is the gentleman who wrote the book "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young", correct? Pleiku '65? I'll have to dig it out and reread it, I remember something about this being the first time B52 strikes were used for tactical targets. Just trying to provide some context for everyone else. I am well aware of the unrealistic limitations placed upon all personel taking place in the CAX, and I understand that artillery can fire much more rapidly than it is allowed to by the book, but target priority is still a big factor in who is going to the the support, right? Also the USMC does not have enough guns to fire enough missions to support every Bn in the regiment(or even just two Bn's) at the same time? Your opinion as an artilleryman could shed some light on this, since I'm looking at it from the 03 perspective.

****What a sniper and a scoped rifle can do is not an indicator of what the average grunt can do.****

I believe that every rifle issued today should have optical sights. Every rifle! Even if it is just as simple as a Aimpoint or Reflex II(which I like) it would improve hit/shot ratio immensely. Most of the 03's I know do OK, they are not snipers, but they still do OK, marksmanship wise.(I recruit from infantry platoons for our Scout-sniper platoon) We are not all black-winged angels of death, either BTW. Some of the guys in platoon are better than others, to be sure, but we have a long way to go to the point I want to be. I am taking steps to get there, but we have a ways to go. Limited by available training and, mainly, ammo allocations. We could take other steps to increase effectiveness, like increase the sense of professionalism and self discipline among the infantry enlisted man, but that is for another thread.

*** If we are talking about MOUT, a 7.62 has its advantages, but a lot of building structures will stop 7.62 almost as well as 5.56.****

Most of the buildings that I have worked on were houses and housing units(I worked construction out the back gate of Lejuene when Bertha and Fran went through) They had no structures, with the possible exception of the fridge and bathtubs, that would stop 7.62 AP or my proposed monobloc 6.5 steel core. Drywall and structural lumber will normally cause M855 to fragment at close range which is why everyone is going to it for CQB. As for major commercial buildings, only structural steel and reinforced concrete will stop steel core projectiles, and concrete can be destroyed by GPMG fire at close range. This is normally not important, as such targets are better dealt with by bunker busters/engineers or AT weapons but it can be done. The primary problem with all projectile defeat is core hardness. All lead core stuff is going to splash and not do any damage when it strikes a hard enough target. That is why I endorse steel cores. 7.62 ball is no better than 5.56 M855 at penetrating hard targets for this reason. AP is a different story. Enough for now. Semper Fi...Ken

[EchoFiveMike]

****I think the concept of a semi-automatic grenade launcher is useful enough to field at the squad level. Air-Burst projectiles are an outstanding concept which scares the crap out of me. I don't want to be on the other end of one.****

naval weapons development center at Crane has built a 40mm four shot pump action greande launcher that fires a modified 40x53 Mk 19 grenade. Range 1500m. They say it kicks like a shotgun shooting slugs and weighes about as much as a SAW. They should be able to cut the weight by 2-4 pounds, as this is early development. I think that it would be more profitable to cut the velocity(reduce range) and increase payload to the point where recoil forces are still tolerable yet maintain a range of perhaps 800-1000m. I think the revolution counting/airburst idea is good if you have a large enough payload to make it worth the effort. Current HEDP is rated to penetrate 50mm RHA(Roll Hardened Armour) but I have seen 75mm stacks comprised of three 25mm plates penetrated by Mk19 rounds, so sometimes performance is better than the baseline. With the larger warhead for this launcher that I advocate, penetration should be on the order of 100mm RHA or you can add a fragmentation jacket of tungsten or DU pellets to punch through body armour. Just my thoughts. Semper Fi...Ken

[Kevinw]

I think the .270, while great, is to large for modern Warfare. Like it or not we have gone away from the big bullet. There is just no need for them. the 30/06, .303, 8mm, etc, etc were made to take down Cavalry charges.. Now when is the last time you faced a wall of chargeing men on horseback? I like the .223. But to be honest I would like to see the the 22-250 in military use.. Yeah it is still only a .224 calliber bullet but it is also going at well over 4000FPS The damage that it would cause makes me shiver.

[Ruben Nasser]

Very interesting topic. Some things go round and round... the UK had 7x40 (initially a .270 cal) as their candidate for the "intermediate power" cartridge (specially for assault weapons) in the '50s, launching a very aerodinamic 140gr SBT at about 2450 fps out of a 24" barrel, the Czechs had their 7.62x45, and there was the US SAW program in the '60s. I'll vote for the 6mm SAW, wich could have very good performance if refined with state of the art technology. Ballistically the 250 Savage or something similar would of course beat it, but at the expense of more recoil/size; nothing is free, and this has to be a "compromise cartridge".

[Art Eatman]

We're bytin' off more than Rich wants to chew; and so, kiddies, it's time for Part Deux. Pictures are nice, but it's better to give a URL and save bandwidth.

, Art