Blast From The Past: The ACR Program (DTIC)
We’ve posted about the ACR Program here on TFB before, but there’s a lot of information available on the subject through DTIC. The Advanced Combat Rifle program was begun in the late 1980s as a research and development effort which would eventually lead to the next U.S. service rifle, replacing the M16. The intention was to field the new weapon, whatever it would be, before the end of the 1990s. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the ACR program withered, and the successor to the M16 in U.S. Army service became the M4 Carbine, another derivative of the Colt AR-15.
With so many documents available on DTIC, it’s difficult to single out just one. Therefore, I urge readers to follow the link and start reading!
A basic overview of the Colt ACR program can be found in the excellent video briefing posted in the link above:
Nathaniel is a history enthusiast and firearms hobbyist whose primary interest lies in military small arms technological developments beginning with the smokeless powder era. He can be reached via email at nathaniel.f@staff.thefirearmblog.com.
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The notion that ACR would replace the M16 by the 90's was preceeded by a goal of the '80s, before that the 70's, and before that the 60's. That is to say they always had to sell it as "in arms reach" for anyone to take these concepts seriously.
It's important to remember that most of the technologies cited for ACR were derived from concepts and prototypes developed originally for the late 50's early 60's SALVO program that continued through a number of on again off again programs. The M16 was born out of the need for a stop-gap while those concepts were ironed out and developed. ACR was to a degree the hope that one of those technologies would have matured in the intervening years, but there was a failure to realize that with the M16s adoption there was little R&D money from the Government and little reason for companies to whole heartedly pursue them on their own.
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