5.45 vs 5.56 vs 6.5 vs 6.8 vs 300 B:O vs ???

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Blissified

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Whats the best intermediate cartridge?

Putting price, and availability aside.

Say you just got hired by the u.s government / canadian government to improve the infantry kit and are allowed to spend basicly unlimited ammounts of money.

Consider the fact that imo 556 did poorly in afghanistan as most of the battles happend at 1k meters (this was even addressed by the british sas who started switching to scars h's and complaining about 556). On youtube go look at the hundreads of videos of battle these guys are always shooting at tree lines, or taking cover and letting the d.m.rifleman or sniper take the guy out, or they will wait for an airstrike. A lot of the time you will see how silly the army using m4's with 14.5 inch barrels when they had a m.o.s that wouldn't be putting them in cqc combat. Maybe a m16 like the marines mainly used would have been enough? And yes i do know the army these days spends a lot of time getting in and out of vehicals while the marines will go long distances on foot, the army often uses light armored vehicals as their main transportation. (i have friends and family in the u.s military and fewer in the canadian forces)


Anyway i'm particularely interested in what you guys think of 5.56x5.45 as i have no experince with 5.45 and now that i think of it since ak's are not in canada maybe i should go ask this on a u.s forum or ring up some of my u.s friends across the bridge. As these are very similair rounds but also very different in the bullet area.

308 is not in here because its not an intermediate round and i doubt we would switch back to that any time soon, but 5.56 does not have as much range as many people would like, afterall it was fielded when we were in vietnam.

I know 300 blackout does very well for PDW style weapons because it was made to use 9 inch barrels were the loss of going down from 20 inch barrels with 556 is giving extremely diminishing returns. That also means though that 300 blackout might not be the best for an all around rifle for general purpose like the m16 / m4 are.

I think 18 inch barrels using some type of nice bullpup is the ideal barrel length because it is still shorter then a 14.5 m4... So i would learn towards 6.5spc or 6.8grendal perhaps.

Hope this thread isn't too silly, i'm just bored and am wondering if 5.56 has an all around better match, theirs not a lot on youtube about this either suprisingly.
 
7.62x39. Decent power. Cartridge tapered design promotes reliability. Very efficient - even from short barrels. Inexpensive. Readily available. .30 caliber! Out penetrates most others in this category.
 
different ammo for different jobs?

There is no bullet that fits every application, That is the beauty of mission specific load-outs.
 
The open area engagements of astan are an oddity. To switch calibers because of one conflict is as asinine as believing some wonder calibre will miraculously improve hit ratios and terminal performance at all ranges.

Tdc
 
^ What he said. If the next conflict occurs in the fields and villages of Europe or a jungle environment in Asia the 5.56 round is adequate. Alot of fighting takes place in city/fibua environments an here again the 5.56 is adequate. For the long ranges of a desert environment full size cartridges like the 7.62X51 or 7.62X54R are king.
 
Most of the SF guys I worked with in Afghanistan had 2 SCARs per ODA (12 man team). They like em, but try clearing a house with a 42" long SCAR, or carrying the equivalent amount of ammo as a M4 loadout. The SCARs, 240Bs and Mk48s took care of the long-range stuff while the M249s and M4s did their job close up. Honestly, most of the guys I worked with where happy enough with their M4, and these are Special Forces guys that had been in more firefights than I have fingers and toes.

If they were in a firefight at over a 1000 meters shooting an enemy that is in cover, any type of non-precision rifle (read sniper rifle) is probably not gonna be ideal, regardless of calibre. That's where a heavy machine gun or an A10 might be just what the doctor ordered.
 
Stephen1546 said:
Most of the SF guys I worked with in Afghanistan had 2 SCARs per ODA (12 man team). They like em, but try clearing a house with a 42" long SCAR, or carrying the equivalent amount of ammo as a M4 loadout. The SCARs, 240Bs and Mk48s took care of the long-range stuff while the M249s and M4s did their job close up. Honestly, most of the guys I worked with where happy enough with their M4, and these are Special Forces guys that had been in more firefights than I have fingers and toes.

If they were in a firefight at over a 1000 meters shooting an enemy that is in cover, any type of non-precision rifle (read sniper rifle) is probably not gonna be ideal, regardless of calibre. That's where a heavy machine gun or an A10 might be just what the doctor ordered.
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An A-10 is always what the doctor ordered :) "hey guys... lets put wings, engines, and a pilot on our new gun" - what I like to think the A-10's designers said.
 
for me it would be a 450 but I don't plan on military use although I can see the merrits of some carrying a bigger bore in battle
 
saskcop said:
7.62x39. Decent power. Cartridge tapered design promotes reliability. Very efficient - even from short barrels. Inexpensive. Readily available. .30 caliber! Out penetrates most others in this category.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that is the truth of it. All these other calibers are basically an attempt at a home-grown cartridge. If we were smart, we would adopt it for our own but feed the guns quality ammo. In a pinch we could shoot the cheap stuff our enemies make and use it against them.

Any of those calibers will ruin your day though, given decent marksmanship and close range.
 
In terms of a battle cartridge out of the ones here I would pick 6.5 Grendel. Its long range performance is superior to 7.62x51 while still being lighter. It does however require a longer barrel to work efficiently, so a bullpup rifle would be ideal. For CQB the 5.56x45 is not a terrible cartridge, but .300BLK or 6.8SPC would be superior choices as they function better out of shorter rifles, with an edge to .300BLK as it's easier to suppress.

As for the 5.56/5.45 comparison, the cartridges are functionally near identical. Both launch similar weight projectiles at similar velocities. 5.56 achieves slightly higher velocities, but 5.45 has the 7n6 projectile which gives superior terminal performance over m193 and m855.
 
Currently places like CTTC are testing several prototype configurations. There are way more things to consider that just caliber for the next Gen.
Ergos of a weapon that can be used by someone in the lower 5 foot tall to upper 6 foot tall range and the effects of constant recoil on accuracy and soldier fatigue are others. many more important issues for a completely new weapons system.

As others have said, the Astan theater is only one possible environment and it did have it's varied ranges regardless... Jungle warfare would be the polar opposite and since we aren't in Astan right now (warfighting) we don't know where to expect to go next.

Usually 5.556 with a supplement of 7.62 NATO fills the rolls required. Logistically, changing over to new Calibers would be a massive undertaking and the Army is all about cutting spending right now.

That being said I have been to Colt Canada recently and held their prototype but it's nowhere near the final production weapon it will be.

All I can say is it looks drastically different than their current stoner gun, if, that's what they even end up going with to offer...
 
Daver_II said:
An A-10 is always what the doctor ordered :) "hey guys... lets put wings, engines, and a pilot on our new gun" - what I like to think the A-10's designers said.
Click to expand...

There is nothing cooler then flying a helicopter up the Kunar valley and then seeing two A10s swoop by you at 2000', set up on a target and open up with 30mm on the side of a hill. Trust me. Although flying 50 feet while a 155mm howtizer is opening up on a mountaintop directly above you was a close second.
 
I agree with Paladin308. While nobody would belittle a 30 caliber bullet at decent velocities, the only reason it has been so entrenched is because the Americans "invented it" and from war to war never got a real chance to optimize a short to mid-range rifle cartridge. The 5.56mm was a Vietnam solution that stuck. The optimal caliber in terms of bullet performance lies between 6mm and 7mm - with 6.5mm, like 6.5mm Grendel in a 16-18" AR-15 - providing the best exterior ballistic performance. In the same light, the 6.8 SPC is in the same category.
 
The current first world crop of 5.56x45 rifles shoot way better than 95% of users.

The other 5% could use improved optics and match ammo to reach out beyond 500m.
 
Stephen1546 said:
There is nothing cooler then flying a helicopter up the Kunar valley and then seeing two A10s swoop by you at 2000', set up on a target and open up with 30mm on the side of a hill. Trust me. Although flying 50 feet while a 155mm howtizer is opening up on a mountaintop directly above you was a close second.
Click to expand...

All I ever got to see were f-18's fueling up off our flying gas station, while a Herc tit fed a couple more bellow... I'm old but still jealous!:rockOn:
 
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