#7.62mm

With the soldier’s load growing beyond the bounds of reason, and the Army set to replace the M4 Carbine in some units with the new Interim Combat Service Rifle, questions have arisen about how the soldier’s burden has changed over time. In the comments section of several of my articles relating to these subjects, readers asked if I could compare the current soldier’s load with the soldier’s load from World War II, to see how they compare. As always, I am happy to oblige.

Manufacturers who are gearing up for the US Army’s Interim Combat Service Rifle competition better know where to get their ammo for testing, and the Army is ready to help. The US Army is facilitating the procurement of 7.62mm M80A1 ammunition to competitors for testing purposes, according to a new amendment to the ICSR solicitation. The amendment states that contractors can procure ammunition from either Orbital ATK (who operates Lake City Army Ammunition Plant), or Olin-Winchester. The process is described in the handy dandy flowchart below:

We are at a crossroads in small arms development. Demands for improved weapon effectiveness have reached their apex. At the same time, the soldier’s burden has grown into a crisis so pressing even the Army Chief of Staff has acknowledged it in testimony to Congress. Soon the next ammunition configuration will be decided, as new technologies open the door for a rethinking of the infantry’s most basic weapons.

Yes, the M4 Carbine will be replaced by a 7.62mm Interim Combat Service Rifle, and also no it won’t. Ah, I see I need to explain.

The US Army has released a solicitation for a new 7.62mm infantry rifle to replace the M4. The Interim Combat Service Rifle program, known to be in the works since April of this year, would replace M4 Carbines in use with combat units with a new weapon in the 7.62x51mm caliber. The new solicitation requires companies to submit 7 weapons plus ancillaries for testing, and includes the promise of up to 8 Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs, non-contract transactions), leading to the eventual selection of 1 weapon for a contract of 50,000 units.

In an era of increasingly resilient body armor, new small arms ammunition solutions are required to even the odds between the shooter and shootee. The company Stiletto Systems, based out of the UK, is advertising its new bullet as a possible solution for this problem. The round, a relatively conventional 7.62mm tungsten cored armor piercing projectile superficially similar to Nammo’s M993 round, is advertised as having considerable penetrative power: 20.5 mm of rolled homogeneous armor at 100 meters, 100% of the time.

NATO member and ally the Republic of Estonia has released a tender with up to €75 million (roughly $86 million USD) for nearly 20,000 new rifles in both the 5.56mm and 7.62mm calibers, according to reports from IHS Janes’ and other outlets. The new contract is intended to supply both brigades of the Estonian Land Forces with new weapons, replacing their aging Ak4 (license-built Swedish G3s) and Galil rifles.

The US Army’s Program Manager for Individual Weapons has issued a new Request for Information (RFI) to the industry for a new 7.62x51mm Interim Combat Service Rifle, which seeks to bring out the best battle rifles the market has to offer. The RFI, posted at FBO,gov, reads:

In recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Mark Milley, the Army Chief of Staff, admitted during questioning that the Army is looking at alternative rifle platforms to the current M4 Carbine. Milley’s comments were made primarily during a conversation with Senator Joni Ernst, transcribed below:

The German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) has announced the long-awaited program to replace the Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle in German Army service, reports the Polish gun magazine MilMag. According to the source, the BAAINBw released the tender for the new System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr on April 19, with all submissions due by May 22, 2017. Selection is expected to occur sometime in 2018, and production of whichever rifle is selected is slated for April 1, 2019, to continue through 31 March 2026. The 7-year contract is expected to have a total value of 245 million Euros, (~ USD 260 million).

According to a recent article on Soldier Systems, the US Army is considering an “interim” switch back to the 7.62mm caliber in standard infantry rifles. Eric Graves of the site lays out a reasonable overview of the situation on the ground, and what sort of weapons might be considered as the 7.62mm “interim” weapon. Follow the link to read his article over at soldiersystems.net.

Not long after SHOT Show, I got the chance to interview Mrs. Kori Phillips, former program officer for the Army’s Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) program, and current program officer for the Cased Telescoped Small Arms Systems (CTSAS) program. We talked at length about both programs, the technology they developed, and the state of lightweight ammunition today. The interview, which spans fifty-five questions, will be broken up into three sections, each covering questions about different aspects of the program, to be published monthly once each in March, April, and May-wait, hold on,

Not long after SHOT Show, I got the chance to interview Mrs. Kori Phillips, former program officer for the Army’s Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) program, and current program officer for the Cased Telescoped Small Arms Systems (CTSAS) program. We talked at length about both programs, the technology they developed, and the state of lightweight ammunition today. The interview, which spans fifty-five questions, will be broken up into three sections, each covering questions about different aspects of the program, to be published monthly once each in March, April, and May-wait, hold on,

Not long after SHOT Show, I got the chance to interview Mrs. Kori Phillips, former program officer for the Army’s Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) program, and current program officer for the Cased Telescoped Small Arms Systems (CTSAS) program. We talked at length about both programs, the technology they developed, and the state of lightweight ammunition today. The interview, which spans fifty-five questions, will be broken up into three sections, each covering questions about different aspects of the program, to be published monthly once each in March, April, and May. This first installment deals primarily with the history of the LSAT and subsequent CTSAS programs, with a little bit of the ammunition technology thrown in.

You are probably well aware that even the very best soft armor is no help against rifle ammunition. Even relatively slow cartridges like 7.62x39mm and .300 AAC can still easily slice right through level IIIA armor. But what if several panels were layered on top of each other? Would it be enough to stop a rifle bullet? That is to say, obviously if you have enough layers of Kevlar you can stop any bullet but can you do it without looking like Ralphie’s brother in “A Christmas Story”? What if the shooter was far enough away? At some distance, it certainly could. At some distance, a cotton T-shirt could stop a bullet, but is it possible for a reasonable amount of soft armor to stop a rifle bullet at a speed that we can all agree is still truly a rifle bullet? To answer that question as definitively as is feasible, we shot a stack of four armor panels with a relatively slow .300 AAC load.