A new 6.8 cartridge replacing 5.56 for the US army

I heard they are putting sparkles and rainbows into the gun powder for the 6.8.
I heard last year they were considering the 6.5 Grendel
 
The new cartrage comes with Fairy Pixel dust for bullets powered up by Unicorn Farts.

Nothing like having a party when things are going South. Ha
 
AlexF said:
The real issue is that:
  • 5.56 does not work that well (almost always need 2 solid hits to get a quick kill)
  • 7.62 is an optimized 30-06 which was designed to stop cavalry charge ( like 303 British, 8mm Lebel, 8mm Mauser and 7.92 Mosin-Nagant but unlike 6mm Navy, 6.5 Swedish, 6.5 Carcano or 6.5 Japanese)
So there has to be a better solution between a varmint and a large game cartridge.
For all practical purpose anything from 6mm BR - type up to 270 Win - type cartridge is a significant improvement if it's well engineered.
(276 Peterson and 7mm British would have probably done a better job than 7.62 NATO as the FN FAL in 7mm British was controllable in full-auto)
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Yes, 5.56 doesn't work "That well." But it does work "well enough." Which is why it hasn't been replaced yet. It's the endless cost-benefit conundrum.

I agree its anemic, but with all the extra armor and weapons and gear the troops are carrying now, 7.62 is not really an acceptable alternative with regards to weight.

Case telescoped ammunition is the first real revolution in small arms in 50 or 60 years....at this point they can incorporate the ideal bullet diameter (in the 6.5-7mm range) as well as increase in range and lethality. All with a huge savings in weight. (In the case of the saw....half the weight.)

In my opinion this is the first real option that's arrived that would be worth the cost to change over. Other wise all that is happening is a switch from one brass cased round to another, which is pretty much what everyone has been doing since before WWI
 
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I heard that the new Lazar cartrage is going to take over.

No recoil, no ammo to load, accurate, fast and will light-up any thing the beam tags. Ha.

The smoking gun that lights the target on fire on contact.

Plus it can be used to warn up a can of beans when the trooper is hungry.
 
Lots of companies are sitting on telescoping and caseless ammunition designs, and the guns to fire them - I believe Knight's has had ready to go designs sitting for well over a decade. The problem seems to be that the improvements they offer aren't worth the cost of replacing every weapon in the inventory with a firearm/cartridge combination that doesn't significantly improve hit probability or lethality. There's no point in equipping soldiers with a difficult to shoot round, even if it's instantaneously lethal 100% of the time, because only hits count. If the new round is hard to hit with (harder than 5.56) it will go nowhere.
 
100%

The SAW/C9/Minimi is prime for a replacement though. For a 16lb gun +2lb optic + another 5 lb of ammo in the box, it doesn't offer good hit-ability, range and penetration against both steel and "stuff".

I do think replacing M249/C9/Minimi and some M240 in certain roles with a 6.5 case telescoping MG will make a hell lot of senses,

For carbine and other PDW, we probably should leave 5.56 alone. Maybe polymer cased 5.56 ammo instead. It is not just weight, but volume in the bag and the number of rounds need to do fire and movement.

enefgee said:
Lots of companies are sitting on telescoping and caseless ammunition designs, and the guns to fire them - I believe Knight's has had ready to go designs sitting for well over a decade. The problem seems to be that the improvements they offer aren't worth the cost of replacing every weapon in the inventory with a firearm/cartridge combination that doesn't significantly improve hit probability or lethality. There's no point in equipping soldiers with a difficult to shoot round, even if it's instantaneously lethal 100% of the time, because only hits count. If the new round is hard to hit with (harder than 5.56) it will go nowhere.
Click to expand...
 
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