#Weapon

A warning against romanticism in military planning.

Earlier this month, the Serbian Army debuted a new 6.5 Grendel weapon system, developed by Zastava. The rifle, called M17, is a heavily modified variant of the M70 AK family that has been developed by the company for decades. It incorporates a number of significant new features and improvements detailed below. The new rifle comes as part of an infantry upgrade for the Serbian Army which includes new 7.62x54R rifles, optics, helmets, and load-bearing equipment. This development marks the first adoption of the 6.5 Grendel round as standard by a national military force. The new rifle is advertised to be half a kilogram lighter than the previous rifle, although it’s not clear whether that is supposed to be the 7.62x39mm M70 or the 5.56x45mm M21. Reportedly, the rifles and the new caliber have not yet been adopted, but are still in testing.

When the subject is the future of infantry, the conversation inevitably turns to one thing: Powered, armored exoskeletons. Since the publication of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers in 1959, the concept of an armored suit with enhanced mobility from an internal power source has fascinated military futurists, quickly solidifying as a military fiction staple, and even appearing repeatedly in official “future soldier” concepts from armies and companies around the world.

Caseless: The ammunition designer’s holy grail, and the engineer’s worst nightmare. It would obsolete the cartridge case overnight, resulting in cheaper, lighter, and more compact ammunition. Weapons would be able to carry 50, 60, or more rounds in slim, inexpensive magazines, and expel them at a rate of fire much higher than current weapons are capable of – not only because the ammunition is lighter and therefore more could be carried to feed such thirsty guns, but because the extraction and ejection cycles of the weapons themselves could be eliminated.

With Level IV armor rising in availability, calls for “overmatch”, and the increased presence of urban warfare, will designers be able to meet the requirements for future small arms? Forumgoer Poliorcetes raised this question in a discussion at the Military Guns & Ammunition forum:

If we can make a round that is significantly better than the existing 5.56mm or 7.62mm ammunition, shouldn’t the military just bite the bullet and switch, to the benefit of the servicemen and women in harm’s way? What’s stopping the powers that be from making the incremental improvements that everyone knows are possible?

The Thales EF88 assault rifle has seen its first operational deployment, and the reception is reportedly very warm. According to an article in Defence Connect, the rifles were deployed with Task Group Taji 5 (5th rotation), a battalion of Australian Defence Force advisers for Iraqi forces deployed as part of Operation Okra. The article reads:

Previously, we compared the Russian 9x39mm subsonic sniper round to its Western counterparts, including the .300 AAC Blackout and the .45 ACP. As it stands now, the 9x39mm is a subsonic round only – no supersonic loads exist for it currently. But… What if they did?

Today’s Modern Intermediate Calibers will handle something a little different. While virtually all rounds we have looked at so far were designed primarily for supersonic use, today we will be taking a gander at the Russian 9x39mm round – a dedicated suppressed caliber designed exclusively for the subsonic flight regime, with no supersonic option (yet) available. This begets a question, then: Is the 9x39mm truly an intermediate caliber? To answer this, we should consider a few facts about the 9×39: First, it was designed for carbines and rifles with cartridge overall lengths comparable to common intermediate calibers, like 5.56mm or 7.62×39. Second, it was designed to give substantially better performance than is possible with pistol rounds, including armor piercing effect above that which is normally possible with handgun rounds. Third, it is used more like an intermediate caliber than a pistol caliber, being issued with a whole host of sniper rifles, assault rifles, and other weapons comparable to any other intermediate caliber. Therefore, I would argue that it is an intermediate, albeit possibly the strangest one in common use.

Ammunition maker Federal Premium recently released its full bundle of press info on their new .224 Valkyrie round, coming on the heels of teasers released at Big 3 East. The .224 Valkyrie is a high performance .22 caliber round for the AR-15, which uses heavy, low drag bullets to dramatically improve the long range performance of the platform versus the .223 Remington and other rounds. This is the same principle that has been used in rounds like the .260 Remington and 6.5 Grendel for years, now finally applied to a factory .22 caliber round.

At the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, Korean optics maker DI Optical was showing off many of their familiar products, but also had on display an interesting looking rifle attachment from a company called Jammer Korea. The attachment, named the “DRONE SNIPER”, is a familiar multi-frequency radio jammer, but in a slick underbarrel package that weighs much less than current standalone launchers.

DefenceWeb recently released a video overview of the new Steyr / Rheinmetall RS-556 assault rifle. The rifle, a sort of hybrid between an AR-15 and a Steyr AUG, was submitted to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr trials, competing against both Heckler & Koch’s HK416 and the new HK433 assault rifles. The RS-556, mechanically, is substantially different from a basic AR-15, and therefore occupies an interesting spot in-between being an AR-15 variant and a completely different weapon. The upper receiver is a single piece forged unit, with an AUG-style fixed extension/trunnion and quick change barrel. An AUG-style short stroke tappet gas system and connecting operating rod replace the AR-15’s direct impingement system. In the upper, a steel insert, rather than the aluminum receiver itself, guides the bolt carrier group. This feature is supposed to increase upper receiver life, and improve its maintenance characteristics, although it does make the rifle significantly heavier.

In the coming decades, it is likely that one of the biggest challenges facing small arms ammunition designers will be solving the problem of how to deal with advanced body armors. The problem is already percolating to the surface, as Level IV body armor – which is immune to virtually all general issue rounds below .50 caliber – becomes more available and less expensive. Already, an individual can equip themselves with a full set of Level IV plates and a carrier for less than $1,000. As armor improves, it will only get lighter, cheaper, and more resistant to fire.

How low can the AR market go? Pretty darn low, apparently. A recent sale at Ground Zero Precision brought the price of their TAC-15M rifle down below $400 – Well below.

It is easy to forget, what with all the hubbub about SIG’s selection for M17, Glock’s protest, and SIG’s subsequent recall, that the M17 program was intended to procure a “total system package”, not just a handgun. This meant, besides the handgun, ammunition, magazines, spares, accessories, holsters, and eventually optics and suppressors as well. While much ink has been spilt, and many glam photos taken of the XM17 and M17 MHS handguns themselves, we have not yet seen or heard very much about the ammunition it is intended to fire. From second-place finisher Glock, we have already seen the Federal-engineered Enhanced Barrier Ammunition. Partnered with SIG for the competition was ammunition heavyweight Winchester/Olin, and so it was reasonable to expect their entry to be something based on Winchester’s existing product line. At the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, that expectation was confirmed: