#Afvs

After the Wednesday round of the 2016 SHOT Show, I sat down for an evening of quiet work, to finish up a few articles I had from the day’s show-trekking. Less than an hour later, I was standing in a crowd at Battlefield Vegas, watching a Chieftain tank crush a sedan.

The period from 1945-1970 did not represent the figurative finest hour in US small arms design. From the problematic M60, to too little too late M14, to the disastrous initial fielding of the M16, US small arms design during the time seemed to simultaneously reach to far and grasp too little. One family of firearms that was a product of this period of development was a short-action armored fighting vehicle secondary machine gun design, incarnated in the M73 7.62mm and M85 .50 caliber, and later M219 7.62mm types. (EDIT: I don’t really think the M85 should be thrown in there, as it’s a substantially different design, though it shares some features with the M73 and M219. Mea culpa.)

The UK has become the first nation to embrace “cased telescoped” ammunition technology*, having announced an order for 515 40mm CTA guns to retrofit the Warrior IFV and arm the new ASCOD-derived Scout SV vehicle, which will replace the long-serving CVR(T) family, including the Scimitar. IHS Janes reports: