NGSW Rifle (M4 Replacement) and Machine Gun

[Cordy]

Preliminary assessment of the NGSW system by the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation 2024 report issued January, not favorable.

• The 6.8mm GP ammunitionprovides increased lethalityover the M855A1 (i.e., the GPammunition for the legacyM4A1 weapon) against the tested targets,
• Soldiers assessed the usabilityof the XM157 as below average/failing, and
• The XM7 with mounted XM157demonstrated a low probabilityof completing one 72-hourwartime mission without incurring a critical failure.

https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2024/other/2024Annual-Report.pdf?ver=WLJFmx7nkeDHIuvrtKyfGQ%3d%3d

 

[Kiltonge]

Might be an opportune time to gracefully terminate the program.

The XM250 in 7.62 looks like the best thing to emerge from this whole escapade. Perhaps renegotiate the contract value to that weapon?

 

[TomS]

Might be an opportune time to gracefully terminate the program.

The XM250 in 7.62 looks like the best thing to emerge from this whole escapade.

Seems like the main failure point is the scope. Not surprising given how sophisticated it is.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I know this post is years old at this point, but putting a can on a carbine remains shorter than putting a can on a full length rifle…that’s the point.

I know such a carbine length is desirable, I'm just saying I think such requirements were unrealistic considering the lofty ballistic performance desired from NGSW. It has technically been achieved, but resulted in questionable compromises as did many NGSW requirements. A lot like the way the Army wanted the M14 to do everything but replacing carbines and submachine guns with a full rifle-caliber service is impossible while keeping the characteristics desired out of the latter two weapons.

Might be an opportune time to gracefully terminate the program.

The XM250 in 7.62 looks like the best thing to emerge from this whole escapade. Perhaps renegotiate the contract value to that weapon?

I think some things could be salvaged from the whole effort. Perhaps the XM7 could be re-tuned into a squad-level DMR while the XM250 with some modifications like a quick-change barrel could be adopted. I like what I heard about that steel alloy case Federal is promoting so maybe the high performance 6.8x51mm could still be feasible as an eventual replacement for 7.62x51mm.

If the scope doesn't work well enough, then the whole basis of this idea that NGSW will allow the average infantryman to be outranging the opposition and taking them out before they're within effective range falls apart.

 

[Moose]

Seems like the main failure point is the scope. Not surprising given how sophisticated it is.

Blows too much gas and the suppressor overheats too. RUMINT is the weight is not much loved by troops either

 

[johnpjones1775]

Blows too much gas and the suppressor overheats too. RUMINT is the weight is not much loved by troops either

It’ll do them good, make ‘em strong.

 

[Scott Kenny]

And this is about what I expected.

NGSW was M14 all over again. It'll probably stay as the DMR, but I see the majority of troops continuing to carry M4s or even full length M16s. You'd have one XM7 per squad, maybe two, a pair of M250s instead of the SAWs, a pair of M4/M320s, and three or four plain M4s (Squad Leader, two team leaders, and maybe one dude who is the Antitank gunner).

Unless of course the Army pulls head out of ass and enlarges the infantry squad to 15.

 

[GK Dundas]

What an incredible waste of money.
I guess Elon and his feral band of flying monkeys are too busy terrorising civil servants to actually do the job supposedly they've been hired to do.

 

[GK Dundas]

My guess is that that most of the people who are involved in this project have no understanding whatsoever of the various projects that came before them stretching back as far as the late 1940's.
History may not always repeat it self but it often rhymes.
Btw way Canadian Army currently has a research project developing a truly fugly bullpup some of it's developers honestly think it has chance of being turned into a service rifle.
Anyone who has ever been an end-user...not so much.
Turns out that when asked about the Ross Rifle they hadn't heard of it......

 

[Cjc]

Have we gotten any good data out of Ukraine at this point? I would imagine that's telling the dod that ranges for gun fights are actually like and wether the ngsw is the right requirement.

 

[TomS]

Have we gotten any good data out of Ukraine at this point? I would imagine that's telling the dod that ranges for gun fights are actually like and wether the ngsw is the right requirement.

Remember that neither side has a lot of long-service professional infantry.

Anecdotal reporting seems to be that there is a lot of spray-and-pray shooting, often at rather short range, because much of the fighting is essentially trench warfare with occasional spurts of mobile combat.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Remember that neither side has a lot of long-service professional infantry.

Point of order!

There's no small number of former US soldiers "volunteering" into Ukrainian service. US troops abilities to find IEDs has been called outright supernatural, for example. And I don't mean Azov Battalion [expletives deleted], I mean people signing contracts with Ukrainian Armed Forces directly.

Anecdotal reporting seems to be that there is a lot of spray-and-pray shooting, often at rather short range, because much of the fighting is essentially trench warfare with occasional spurts of mobile combat.

I expect that even with mobile combat, we're going to see that 90+% of infantry combat happens within 300m.

 

[TomS]

There's no small number of former US soldiers "volunteering" into Ukrainian service. US troops abilities to find IEDs has been called outright supernatural, for example.

I stand by that characterization. At most there are a few thousand total ex-US service members, not all of whom were infantry soldiers before Ukraine (and many who are still not, I would expect). Out of nearly a million people under arms in the Ukraine military, that's not a lot.