Ideal Assault Rifle

Taking current state-of-the-art, and mostly off-the-shelf small arms technology, I'd have to say my ideal assault rifle for the next 25 years would be something like the new XM-8, but with a metal receiver, and, of course, chambered in the 6.5 Grendel.

An assault rifle should be:

1. Modular. Interchangeable buttstocks, pistol grips, trigger groups, mag wells, bolts and barrels, and optics.

2. Reliable. To me that says gas-piston, not direct gas impingement.

3. Ergonomic. Controls should be ambidextrous, not only for left-handers, but for righties shooting from cover on the weak side. This means the charging handle, the safety/selector, the bolt catch/release, and the magazine release. The firing controls should all be operated by the trigger finger; I think thumb operated ones are slightly more clumsy, but I wouldn't die if I had to have one.

4. Optics. A modular rail, picatinny or other, that allows for quick optics swapping with returns to zero is needed for short- and long-range scopes, backup iron sights, night vision, and laser spots and illuminators.

5. Buttstock, pistol grip, forestock grip: All should be interchangeable to mission, body fit, and personal taste.

6. Right side eject, for convenience of majority of righthanders firing mostly from the right shoulder.

7. Charging handle should be able to be used as bolt closing device.

8. Easy to field strip and reassemble.

9. Economic to mass produce in full-scale war-time.

10. Chambered in the 6.5 Grendel for use from point-blank to 1000 yards!

Almost any current assault rifle can be greatly improved by chambering in the Grendel, but, as I mentioned, I think the XM-8 is the culmination of almost everything the world's militaries have learned in the last 50 years. My only caveat is that the plastic frame and magazines be just as or more durable than metal. I'd rather have a heavy gun than a broken one.

John

Yeah, and notice what the H&K people say about the XM-8...of course they have the .264 Grendel in mind:

"A unique feature of the XM8 modular weapon system is the ability to easily and quickly reconfigure the weapon from one variant to the other to meet changing mission requirements, to include caliber conversion.

"This modularity includes the exchange of interchangeable assembly groups such as the barrel, handguard, lower receiver, buttstock modules and
sighting system with removable carrying handle."

Everyone senses the presence of Grendel...and shudders!

Make mine a FN F2000 with a 20" barrel, but with a little shorter LOP for handling and balance. I like good velocity with my short rifle. Shoots flat and makes a mess of things.

Grendelizer, I'm a totally armchair reader about arms, though I've used a few. My concerns lie solely with the safety and lethality of our brave soldiers--I myself will likely not fire a gun again. I have absolutely no military or LE experience, so please forgive a few questions here:

1) I heard a legend that stubby cases have a greater reputation for malfunctions in semiauto and auto fire. Is this at all true or significantly severe in the case of the Grendel vs. the 6.8 SPC? I have heard that proper feed ramps can solve this completely, but are we sure?
2) Do you agree that accuracy and terminal effect are about of equal importance for most combat situations? That is, is the accuracy (and quick repoint time) for low-recoil rounds roughly as important as the wounding ability of the cartridge? It would appear that the two heavier Grendels, with their much higher sectional densities, while slower up to about 100 yards, ought to fragment reliably at lower velocities than the 6.8. Also, the 123 gr. Scenar should have about the same recoil as the SPC.
3) Looking at one chart, I've seen great ballistic performance for the Grendel for three bullet weights in 20" barrels, though the SPC data appeared too low (MV = 2700f/s; more like 2800 from a 20" bbl), and it seems that the 123 grain Scenar is the best multipurpose round, with its lower recoil and cartridge weight vs. the 144 gr. Scenar. Do you agree?
4) I would ideally wish to see this showdown: 6.5x39 @ 123gr. vs. 6.8x40 @123gr. (with the shorter, fatter Grendel case) vs. standard 6.8 SPC @ 115 gr. vs. lighter Grendel, such as 6.5x39 or 6.5x40 at 115gr. A PPC-width case for the 6.8 might have been a better choice in the initial SPC testing. Sure, all this means making thousands more custom cartridges and many rifles, but the stakes are worth the effort, don't you think?
5) *If* the Grendel loads and extracts reliably in both SMG and CQB rifle versions, has good performance with low flash from 12" barrels, and fragments more often than the 6.8 at similar ranges, would that not end the discussion? Of course, the 9% greater cross-sectional area of the 6.8 must be considered in the analysis.
Finally, thanks for your gentlemanly and thorough responses in this and other forums, which has encouraged me to post this.

Regards, Sam Lord

1) I heard a legend that stubby cases have a greater reputation for malfunctions in semiauto and auto fire. Is this at all true or significantly severe in the case of the Grendel vs. the 6.8 SPC? I have heard that proper feed ramps can solve this completely, but are we sure?

The feeding issue of any cartridge has to do with the relationship of body diameter to neck / bullet diameter. Some "naysayers" have tried to relate the 6.5 Grendel to the short magnums like the .223 WSSM or .243 WSSM so lets look at those.

Typically, the magnums have a case head diameter around .532. In a .224 caliber with a .250 neck, that would equate to a .282 difference. In a .243 caliber with a .270 neck, a .262 difference. Now, lets look at the 6.5 Grendel with a .445 case head against a .295 neck, a difference of .150 - significantly less then any magnum. Even a .338 caliber magnum has a larger shoulder area then a 6.5 Grendel. Now, lets look at the battle proven 7.62 NATO with a .473 case head and .343 neck for a difference of .130 or .020" of less difference then the 6.5 Grendel.

In a nutshell, the magnums have a large shoulder area that can lead to problems in feeding that some call "stove piping". The math of Grendel does not show a shoulder area anywhere even close to that of magnums and so any performance problem relationship is not applicable.

As well, part of the engineering that went into the 6.5 Grendel was designing and testing proper magazine and feed ramps for the cartridge. The 6.5 Grendel has been tested in burst and full auto mode and performed like a clock (Alexander Arms is a licensed manufacturer of NFA weapons).

2) Do you agree that accuracy and terminal effect are about of equal importance for most combat situations? That is, is the accuracy (and quick repoint time) for low-recoil rounds roughly as important as the wounding ability of the cartridge? It would appear that the two heavier Grendels, with their much higher sectional densities, while slower up to about 100 yards, ought to fragment reliably at lower velocities than the 6.8. Also, the 123 gr. Scenar should have about the same recoil as the SPC.

The first criteria of any military cartridge is hit probability because if you don't make a hit, terminal performance does not exist and is meaningless. Hit probability is so important that it is the premise behind the OICW with air burst projectiles.

Looking at it in detail, provided that the person squeezing the trigger places the sight on the target, what factors influence their ability to make a hit?

1. Consistancy- The more consistant the muzzle velocity, the more consistant the downrange performance because any difference at muzzle only grows as range increases. That is why competitive shooters seek low extreme velocity spreads and standard deviations. So far, the 6.8 SPC pre-production ammo has shown what many would consider obsence ES and SD consistancy.

2. The influence of nature - The greater the ability of a projectile to resist the forces of nature, the higher the probablity of making a hit. While higher ballistic coefficient bullets are known to retain velocity better then low ballistic coefficient bullets, the more important impact of ballistic coefficient is reduction in wind deflection.

The 6.8 SPC 115 OTM with .340 BC at MV of 2600 fps (16 inch barrel) in a 5 mph crosswind will have 5.36" @ 300 yards, 10.08" @ 400 yards and 16.68" @ 500 yards of deflection.

The 6.5 Grendel 123 OTM at a MV of 2500 fps (16 inch barrel) in a 5 mph crosswind will have 3.32"@ 300 yards, 6.11"@400 yards and 9.88"@500 yards of deflection. For every 5 mph increase in wind, increase the deflection by the amount shown.

How important is the wind deflection, For the 6.8 SPC 115 OTM at 400 yards if the shooter factors in a 5 mph crosswind and the wind is really 10 mph, the bullet will strike 10.08" left or right of point of aim. If you are aiming center of mass on say a 18 inch wide target, you miss by 1".

Now on the 6.5 Grendel 123 OTM, if the shooter factors in a 5 mph crosswind and the wind is really 10 mph, the bullet will strike 6.11" left or right of point of aim. If you are aiming center of mass on say a 18 inch wide target, you HIT.

How many people can accurately read 5 mph wind changes or how often is wind constant and not variable (5-10 mph)?

In summary, when faced with a mild wind change or variable wind, the 6.5 Grendel has greater probability to make a hit.

3) Looking at one chart, I've seen great ballistic performance for the Grendel for three bullet weights in 20" barrels, though the SPC data appeared too low (MV = 2700f/s; more like 2800 from a 20" bbl), and it seems that the 123 grain Scenar is the best multipurpose round, with its lower recoil and cartridge weight vs. the 144 gr. Scenar. Do you agree?

Remington lists 2800 fps from a 24 inch barrel. Gun writers show 2600 fps from a 16 inch barrel. Barrett has posted on tacticalforums.com 2400 fps from a 12 inch barrel. Of course, the substance of this performance shows high extreme spreads and standards deviations with 4-5 MOA accuracy.

4) I would ideally wish to see this showdown: 6.5x39 @ 123gr. vs. 6.8x40 @123gr. (with the shorter, fatter Grendel case) vs. standard 6.8 SPC @ 115 gr. vs. lighter Grendel, such as 6.5x39 or 6.5x40 at 115gr. A PPC-width case for the 6.8 might have been a better choice in the initial SPC testing. Sure, all this means making thousands more custom cartridges and many rifles, but the stakes are worth the effort, don't you think?

When faced with the opportunity for a showdown at Blackwater in May 2004, Barrett with Remington standing by them declined to compete even when the audiance was military and law enforcement personnel who actually would be the end users of the product.

As far as expanded testing, the development of 6.5mm loads continues (I have 114, 118 and 119 bullets in 6.5mm ready to go). Load development of 107 grain and 108 grain 6.5mm bullets has already been done.


5) *If* the Grendel loads and extracts reliably in both SMG and CQB rifle versions, has good performance with low flash from 12" barrels, and fragments more often than the 6.8 at similar ranges, would that not end the discussion? Of course, the 9% greater cross-sectional area of the 6.8 must be considered in the analysis.

Finally, thanks for your gentlemanly and thorough responses in this and other forums, which has encouraged me to post this.

Regards, Sam Lord

Larger cross-sectional area has a downside when shooting at a target wearing body armor / flak vests like most soliders wear. That is why there has been research for years into flechettes and high velocity small caliber rounds like the .224 BOZ because smaller diameter projectiles have the ability to penetrate the weave of kevlar and similar woven protective gear.

Sam, let me add just one item to what Arne has said. You wrote, "Of course, the 9% greater cross-sectional area of the 6.8 must be considered in the analysis."

I always say, once you decide on your recoil level, overall cartridge size, and external ballistics, use the biggest caliber you can get away with. Having balanced all the competing demands, I think 6.5mm is the ideal military caliber.

While the 6.8 has 9% greater frontal area, that statistic must be analyzed. If you're talking 9% relative to a 6.5mm caliber, it seems significant. But realize that what we're really talking about is both of these bullets relative to a target. Is 9% bullet frontal area significant relative to the size of the target? I think not. Could you somehow statistically factor it in over the long run? Over the VERY long run perhaps you could, but in the real world the target will never know the difference.

If someone is really hung up on the 9% difference, I counter that a 123-grain 6.5 bullet has 7% greater total MASS (which gives you that much more fragments inside the target) than a 115gr 6.8, and a 144gr 6.5 has 25% greater total mass (which gives it almost as much fragmenting mass as the 7.62 NATO 147gr M80!).

Given the compromises that inevitably need to be made with any cartridge, I still say the 6.5 Grendel is a magnificent compromise.

John

Arne and Grendelizer:
Thank you both for such considerate and thorough replies. I'll be studying them for a while! Regards, Sam Lord

Let me first start things off by saying that I a .308 man.

I do try to stay abreast of any firearms news and trends, as I wish to design rifles for a living. After hearing about the 6.8 SPC I was mildly interested, but frankly it didn't really impress me. Performance was not bad, but still wasn't really holding much of a candle to the .308.

Some people in the threads about the remmy round mentioned the 6.5 grendel. Did some research, came across here. After downloading the chart directly comparing the .223, 6.5, 6.8, and 7.62 I was very impressed by the 6.5. In similar weights the 6.5 actually has more K/E at the longer ranges, still does very respectably at the shorter ranges.

I was orginally thinking about getting a DSA arms .223 FAL and having it modified to talke the 6.5 Grendel. The direct gas system really bothers me, besides if any of you have ever heard of the tale of "ol' Dirty" on the FAL files you'd understand how reliable the FAL can really be (7k+ rounds without cleaning, only failures related to the gun oil gumming up at low temps...)

But with all the money being kicked around in the AR market by every level of firearms buyer the real new cutting line products are comming out first for that platform, and then spilling out to the other platforms.

Thankfully there are some people out there that are some companies that are, and some that are going to soon, producing gas piston AR uppers. I contacted one and hopefully when they are ready to go I will get a 6.5 grendel upper converted to use a gas piston.

This definately goes a long way towards making the AR even better.

Make sure you let us know when you find new manufacturers of 6.5mm Grendel uppers with a gas piston system!!!!

Kurt's Kustom Firearms is working on a gas piston system for the AR, called the M9 Evo (or something like that.) I imagine it would work fine with the Grendel. this kit can be retrofitted to existing uppers.

Much of my descision will be made on Sept 13th on wheather or not to invest in the 6.5mm grendel. Being limited to neutured 10 rounders is fine for a .338, but for a battle/assault rifle you need full capacity.

Nimbo,

Well, theroretically, a Beta-C mag might work with Grendel rounds, because the feed tower is straight. Anybody tried out the C-Mags?

From what I hear the C-mags aren't really all that good. Lack of reliability is totally unacceptable, and for me doubly so.

Why get a "mere" Leupold when US Optics is out there is my point of view about reliability. Though from what I hear the chinese 120 rd. .223 drums work great after you clean up the rough machining (needs some file work).

Well, if you want reliability, why not get an AK? I've been looking at Grendelizing a mutant RPK and based on my research, it's doable.

Because asetics are are important to me. Though I could get a Krebs 90 degree gas block, TAPCO AK SAW grip, an ace stock, etc. etc.

But I would also like to have an AR-10 in .260 Remmy..... but then again there are Saiga .308 rifles that could EASILY get converted to .260 Remmy.

But then again the inherint range of the Grendel behooves one to get an accurate rifle. While AK's can get accurate, but not really accurate enough to go out far enough.

Make mine a FN F2000 with a 20" barrel, but with a little shorter LOP for handling and balance. I like good velocity with my short rifle. Shoots flat and makes a mess of things.

http://www.fnhusa.com/contents/tw_f2000.htm

The F2000 design allows accessories or "modules" to be added or interchanged on the gun without interfering with the overall ergonomics, balance or lines of the gun. These modules are not mere bolt-on accessories but integrated modules considered in the original design of the gun. These include:
• Integrated fire control system that uses a laser to determine range and calculates elevation required to reach target
• Day or night sight
• Ergonomic forearm grip
• 1-shot 40mm grenade launcher
• 40mm / 20mm airburst!!! grenade launcher
• Integrated laser pointer / tactical light
• Detachable 12 gauge shotgun
• Detachable less-lethal launcher

ERGONOMICS
The F2000 is truly ambidextrous and includes forward eject. The bullpup design makes the F2000 very compact for a rifle with a full-length barrel. It is light with the center of balance directly over the strong hand.

The F2000 rocks!

If it was still available, I'd like to see the performance of the Barnes 100 grain x bullet. The 120 grain is nice, but I wonder if the 100 would have been a better fit.


The feeding issue of any cartridge has to do with the relationship of body diameter to neck / bullet diameter. Some "naysayers" have tried to relate the 6.5 Grendel to the short magnums like the .223 WSSM or .243 WSSM so lets look at those.

Typically, the magnums have a case head diameter around .532. In a .224 caliber with a .250 neck, that would equate to a .282 difference. In a .243 caliber with a .270 neck, a .262 difference. Now, lets look at the 6.5 Grendel with a .445 case head against a .295 neck, a difference of .150 - significantly less then any magnum. Even a .338 caliber magnum has a larger shoulder area then a 6.5 Grendel. Now, lets look at the battle proven 7.62 NATO with a .473 case head and .343 neck for a difference of .130 or .020" of less difference then the 6.5 Grendel.

In a nutshell, the magnums have a large shoulder area that can lead to problems in feeding that some call "stove piping". The math of Grendel does not show a shoulder area anywhere even close to that of magnums and so any performance problem relationship is not applicable.

As well, part of the engineering that went into the 6.5 Grendel was designing and testing proper magazine and feed ramps for the cartridge. The 6.5 Grendel has been tested in burst and full auto mode and performed like a clock (Alexander Arms is a licensed manufacturer of NFA weapons).



The first criteria of any military cartridge is hit probability because if you don't make a hit, terminal performance does not exist and is meaningless. Hit probability is so important that it is the premise behind the OICW with air burst projectiles.

Looking at it in detail, provided that the person squeezing the trigger places the sight on the target, what factors influence their ability to make a hit?

1. Consistancy- The more consistant the muzzle velocity, the more consistant the downrange performance because any difference at muzzle only grows as range increases. That is why competitive shooters seek low extreme velocity spreads and standard deviations. So far, the 6.8 SPC pre-production ammo has shown what many would consider obsence ES and SD consistancy.

2. The influence of nature - The greater the ability of a projectile to resist the forces of nature, the higher the probablity of making a hit. While higher ballistic coefficient bullets are known to retain velocity better then low ballistic coefficient bullets, the more important impact of ballistic coefficient is reduction in wind deflection.

The 6.8 SPC 115 OTM with .340 BC at MV of 2600 fps (16 inch barrel) in a 5 mph crosswind will have 5.36" @ 300 yards, 10.08" @ 400 yards and 16.68" @ 500 yards of deflection.

The 6.5 Grendel 123 OTM at a MV of 2500 fps (16 inch barrel) in a 5 mph crosswind will have 3.32"@ 300 yards, 6.11"@400 yards and 9.88"@500 yards of deflection. For every 5 mph increase in wind, increase the deflection by the amount shown.

How important is the wind deflection, For the 6.8 SPC 115 OTM at 400 yards if the shooter factors in a 5 mph crosswind and the wind is really 10 mph, the bullet will strike 10.08" left or right of point of aim. If you are aiming center of mass on say a 18 inch wide target, you miss by 1".

Now on the 6.5 Grendel 123 OTM, if the shooter factors in a 5 mph crosswind and the wind is really 10 mph, the bullet will strike 6.11" left or right of point of aim. If you are aiming center of mass on say a 18 inch wide target, you HIT.

How many people can accurately read 5 mph wind changes or how often is wind constant and not variable (5-10 mph)?

In summary, when faced with a mild wind change or variable wind, the 6.5 Grendel has greater probability to make a hit.



Remington lists 2800 fps from a 24 inch barrel. Gun writers show 2600 fps from a 16 inch barrel. Barrett has posted on tacticalforums.com 2400 fps from a 12 inch barrel. Of course, the substance of this performance shows high extreme spreads and standards deviations with 4-5 MOA accuracy.



When faced with the opportunity for a showdown at Blackwater in May 2004, Barrett with Remington standing by them declined to compete even when the audiance was military and law enforcement personnel who actually would be the end users of the product.

As far as expanded testing, the development of 6.5mm loads continues (I have 114, 118 and 119 bullets in 6.5mm ready to go). Load development of 107 grain and 108 grain 6.5mm bullets has already been done.



Larger cross-sectional area has a downside when shooting at a target wearing body armor / flak vests like most soliders wear. That is why there has been research for years into flechettes and high velocity small caliber rounds like the .224 BOZ because smaller diameter projectiles have the ability to penetrate the weave of kevlar and similar woven protective gear.

iirc, it has an 18 inch barrel. That may be full length compared to the old trombone, but an M-16 has a 20inch and longer is better for some things.

look at the support weapon barrel for the AUG. Now that would be a fun conversion.

F2000 felt more like a bulky submachine gun to me. It sounds good, but will it be the best? who knows.

http://www.fnhusa.com/contents/tw_f2000.htm

The F2000 design allows accessories or "modules" to be added or interchanged on the gun without interfering with the overall ergonomics, balance or lines of the gun. These modules are not mere bolt-on accessories but integrated modules considered in the original design of the gun. These include:
• Integrated fire control system that uses a laser to determine range and calculates elevation required to reach target
• Day or night sight
• Ergonomic forearm grip
• 1-shot 40mm grenade launcher
• 40mm / 20mm airburst!!! grenade launcher
• Integrated laser pointer / tactical light
• Detachable 12 gauge shotgun
• Detachable less-lethal launcher

ERGONOMICS
The F2000 is truly ambidextrous and includes forward eject. The bullpup design makes the F2000 very compact for a rifle with a full-length barrel. It is light with the center of balance directly over the strong hand.

The F2000 rocks!

iirc, it has an 18 inch barrel. That may be full length compared to the old trombone, but an M-16 has a 20inch and longer is better for some things.

look at the support weapon barrel for the AUG. Now that would be a fun conversion.

F2000 felt more like a bulky submachine gun to me. It sounds good, but will it be the best? who knows.

You can't disregard the advantages of bullpup guns. That's good barrel length in a small package. It should excell as a grunt's basic tool (loaded with 6.5 grendell,of course).

However, I can't see how a bullpup rifle can be used as a support weapon. How would you fit a good amount of ammo (>100) in that gun? The 42 round magazines for the HBAR are too little. I'd leave that role to the more conventional Ultimax 100 light machine gun.

Okay, new to the list so don't laugh too hard.

Basically the ideal would be an oversized P90 using a gas piston operation instead of blowback. Basically it would be like crossing the P90, F2000, and the Tavor Assault rifle.
Using the position of the top feed, you have interchangable feed modules. A simple one for a P90 style "90 degree turn" stick or a helical feed cyclindar similar to the calico m900 series or the Russian Bizon. For SAW use, either a "Beta C" drum mounted up top, or a belt feed.
Addressing barrel lenghts, you use different lengths for different jobs, and make the components interchangable. 10 inch for CQB/PDW, 16 inch for CAR/minimum civilian, 18-20 inch for standard AR, and longer for SAW/Designated Marksman.
With the bullpup design, You get controllability and compactness with longer barrel lengths than are available in a conventional rifle configuration. With the top feed and bottom eject you get the ambidexterity and ease of brass collection/containment. After that its just a matter of the right feeds for the right jobs, and the right barrel lengths for the right jobs.

Well, thats my idea. Working on the sketch and photoshop still :D . Hope you like it.

CH77, I've been very intrigued by a helical feed located on the buttstock and ejecting straight downwards, a la P90, for ambidexterity. I've thought there should be a gear worked by the reciprocating motion of the bolt carrier that rotates the helical magazine.

I'll be interested in seeing what you come up with!

John

...However, I can't see how a bullpup rifle can be used as a support weapon. How would you fit a good amount of ammo (>100) in that gun? The 42 round magazines for the HBAR are too little. I'd leave that role to the more conventional Ultimax 100 light machine gun.

Actually the Ultimax would lend itself verywell to "bullpupping" because of its modular design. The only problem would be the ejection port on the right side (making shooting around a left handed corner dangerous. Just flipping the Ultimax "on its side" so it ejects down would solve this without too many modifications to the action.
All a bullpup stock really does is put the receiver right against your shoulder for better control and shorter length.

... I've thought there should be a gear worked by the reciprocating motion of the bolt carrier that rotates the helical magazine.

John

I don't know of any design that successfully used the "gear actuated magazine" feed system. If you have any information on it, such as weapons that used it or a diagram of how its supposed to work I would appreciate it. I personally like the idea myself, but for some reason I just can't wrap my head around the timing of ejection, and feeding to make it work reliably.

My current idea for the design of the "Bullpup Grendel" would be based on an inverted Mini-30 action. I am familiar with it (owned one) and the design lends itself to the inversion better than any of the bottom feed/side ejection weapons out there.

I wish I still had the Mini-30 to reverse engineer and draw up a design pattern of in 3D AutoCAD or the appropriate blueprints.

I can't see how a bullpup rifle can be used as a support weapon. How would you fit a good amount of ammo (>100) in that gun? The 42 round magazines for the HBAR are too little.
While it's certainly nice to have 100 rds (or more), history shows that it is clearly not necessary. The U.S. fought WWII and the Korean War with a squad auto (the M1918A2 BAR) that held a mere 20 rds in its magazine. In the present day, a number of countries use automatic rifles fed by box mags, such as the RPK and RPK74. In bullpups, the AUG has a 42-rd box mag, the Brits use the L87 (I think), and the Chinese adopted a 5.8mm SAW that feeds from box or drum mags.

Stan

Anyone know if the FN SCAR will be sold to civilians any time soon? Are they considering it?

Not the most attractive rifle ever made, but apparently it's very reliable, totally ambidextrous, quick change bbl, side folding AND telescoping stock with a vertically adjustable cheek-piece.

Other than the vastly different stocks, it's general layout concept seems similar to the Robinson Arms XCR... and I'd like to see both the XCR and SCAR have Grendel components available! :D

I don't know of any design that successfully used the "gear actuated magazine" feed system. If you have any information on it, such as weapons that used it or a diagram of how its supposed to work I would appreciate it.
Hiram Maxim developed and patented in 1884 a gear-driven drum magazine for his machine gun. It looks as if it would be adaptable to John's helical magazine concept. British Patent Office drawing of the mechanism is on p. 24 of Dolf Goldsmith's The Devils Paintbrush.

Stan

Hiram Maxim developed and patented in 1884 a gear-driven drum magazine for his machine gun. It looks as if it would be adaptable to John's helical magazine concept. British Patent Office drawing of the mechanism is on p. 24 of Dolf Goldsmith's The Devils Paintbrush.


Thanks Stan, gonna have to look that up. Its really starting to fall together well. If anyone knows the how the Mini-14/30 and the M1 Carbine are constructed, part of the "Slide assembly" is in perfect position to cycle the gear driven magazine (obviously with a few modifications), if you invert the feed system so that it feeds from the top and ejects out the bottom. Another advantage of the Mini14/30 and M1 Carbine is the gas system might be adapted to an ajustable gas plug like the FN FAL family or the Robinson M96, so that it can be tuned for different ammunition and barrel lengths.

I am currently sketching up a rough profile of the rifle (using the F2000 as a baseline and incorporating a roughed-in top/rear mounted helical mag) in CAD. I'll try to have something to post in the next week or so.

And yes, the base line will be civie legal with a 16.5 inch barrel.

I need some opinion information from ya'll (yah, I'm Texan :rolleyes: ). What would be an optimal load of ammunition for one magazine (trade off between ammo capacity vs. weight, size, and "quickness" of the assault rifle).

I know the bullpup stock and the top mounted position of the magazine offsets some of the imbalance and sluggishness caused by a large capacity magazine, but there must be a theoretical limit between a SAW load, a PDW/CQB load, and a standard AR load as carried IN the rifle. I'm trying to extrapolate the cylindrical reprisentation of an appropriate helical feed magazine for our little project and figure out if forward or rear mounted is the best position for cheek weld and sight position purposes.

Having not done the studies myself, I was hoping someone out there might have that data. Is 50 rds of 6.5G too much to have in a handy AR? Is 30 too few? Enquiring minds want to know :D

Depends on several factors I think. If you want a single wpn to do the job of both SAW and rifle, with just ONE size of magazine, then 50 rounds of Grendel should be darn good. Especially if it's not bulky.

Thing is, now you gotta design an ultra-reliable spiral mag... :eek:

Actually I don't see any problem with having a "standard issue" magazine and a Hi-cap "SAW" Magazine/Drum/Belt feed for the same weapon as long as they are in some way interchangeable between the versions of the weapon.

I think thats why the XM8 development team was looking at the "SAW" version of the XM8 with a drum/Beta-C mag instead of a conventional belt feed. That way his buddy with the shorty carbine could use the same mags, or the guy with the SAW could use the regular mags if he emptied all his drums.

Personally I like the idea of the standard issue being a 50 rd "stick" or Helical, with the SAW gunner having either something like a dual feed drum/helical or a belt feed module.

Just wondering, weren't the Calico mags pretty reliable? Be neat to get them into this and give them a jump back into the market place.

CH77, I've been very intrigued by a helical feed located on the buttstock and ejecting straight downwards, a la P90, for ambidexterity. I've thought there should be a gear worked by the reciprocating motion of the bolt carrier that rotates the helical magazine...

John
Only problem with the mag over the back of the gun is you are limited by the length of the mechinism. It wouldn't be so bad with a conventional rifle, but that really limits you badly with a bullpup. It also would raise the cheek weld pretty high for use with a conventional sight rail. Still working on that configuration though, as well as a mag that extends forward of the loading port.

>>“Just wondering, weren't the Calico mags pretty reliable?”

I think so, but the 9mm is a very different shape from a rifle.

We must also remember that Calico had ALWAYS intended to make a 5.56 version…and never even showed a prototype. I always wondered if the helical mag wasn’t well adapted to rifle round shape?

Personally, I think if you can make everyone have nothing but 50 round mags for every rifle, particularly if it’s not bulky, then I’d even argue you wouldn’t need a dedicated SAW type. Particularly if mag changes were easy and fast. In a Grendel, it would be great.

But yea, I think there may be a significant problem with helical mags with a rifle cartridge...one thing which occured to me is that the rounds may rattle in it while walking about...

Rattling is a possiblity, won't know till we build a prototype for sure, but if I remeber correctly, the combination of spiral grooves on the interior spindle and a spiral "wall" on the inside of the mag kept the 9mm from doing that. The grendel shouldn't be to hard to design around because the main body of the case is almost cylindrical. Also if its designed right, tension should keep all the rounds firmly situated in the magazine.
Still working on the "Timing" of the gear operated magazine rotating the new round into place to strip it off the magazine without using spring tension to keep it there. Without the springs in the magazine, you could minimize the size of it or maxamize the ammo capacity for the size.
just need to figure out how to do that.

I think if you can make everyone have nothing but 50 round mags for every rifle, particularly if it's not bulky, then I'd even argue you wouldn't need a dedicated SAW type.
I'd been thinking along this line, also. I envisioned a rifle configured like an MG34 with the linkless, 75-rd saddle drum. (The Beta C-Mag is essentially an MG34 saddle drum turned upside down.) I estimate such a dual drum would hold approx 80 rds of 6.5 Grendel.

Stan

Actually, I think you were thinking of the MG15, the MG34, like its replacement, the MG42, was belt fed. The drum on the side was actually a belt holder for its use as a SAW type weapon.
The MG15 was the one with the saddle drum, wish I knew how it operated, because it doesn't look like the standard drum. Is it spring loaded or mechanically operated like the prototype helical we are thinking of?

>>“The drum on the side was actually a belt holder for its use as a SAW type weapon.”

I think everything you said is completely right…except I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that apparently some of the early MG-34’s were able to feed from the MG-15 drum. This came as a surprise to me, knowing that nearly all of the MG34 drums were actually just belt containers…I think this was only very early on, and not well known.

I am very sure that this was never the case with the ’42 at all though.

>>“The MG15 was the one with the saddle drum, wish I knew how it operated, because it doesn't look like the standard drum. Is it spring loaded or mechanically operated like the prototype helical we are thinking of?”

Is there a difference? I mean, aren’t they all “spring loaded”? I know that every drum I’m aware of has to have it’s spring wound, including the RPK and Calico.

But anyway, I know the MG15 drum looks to likely have nearly identical mechanism to the Beta Cmag, which there’s a picture in Janes showing the internal mechanism. If I've got a copy of it, I'll scan and post it...

Actually, I think you were thinking of the MG15, the MG34, like its replacement, the MG42, was belt fed. The drum on the side was actually a belt holder for its use as a SAW type weapon.
Nope. I meant MG34. And I wasn't talking about the single drum (which held a 50-rd belt) mounted on the left side.

Although the MG34 was usually operated with belt feed, the standard top cover could be replaced by a special top cover so that the weapon could be loaded using the saddle drum. I think the dual drum was indeed originally designed for the MG15, but it could also be used with the MG34.

Stan

Hmm, didn't know that, thanks Stan.

All of the current drum/helicals are spring loaded, but Grendalizer mentioned (and I had heard of elsewhere) an idea where the spring was done away with and the magazine was indexed similar by the firing of the weapon, kind of like the old semi-auto revolvers (not double action) or the prototypes of the Pancor Jackhammer. Instead of indexing a cylindar, you would be indexing the helical feed.

First place I heard of it was here. http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/blast.html

"That helical mag (we'll try for 40 rds capacity) will differ from others in being driven not by a spring but by a lug on the bolt carrier, which strikes a matching tooth on a disc on the end of the helix, driving it around one increment to index the next round. Mags can be stored loaded for years and still be instantly usable.
With plastic construction (and only one moving part), these mags can be cheap: - reloadable in peacetime, expendable in war.
A top-mounted mag allows downward ejection, so that AT LAST the infantry can field a truly ambidextrous rifle -- and no brass flying into the air to reveal your position. All controls will of course be duplicated for right- or left-handed operation; there: that's why I specified two thumb triggers."


basically you would be simplifying the magazine and removing one of the parts prone to wear and tear, the spring.

ignoring that, anyone know how much space the central shaft of a calico drum takes up? I have a psudo grendel round modeled in CAD, and the simplist way would be to use a shaft the same diameter as the max diameter of the round (hexogonal configuration), but I was also assuming the mechanical mag instead of the spring loaded. I figure the Calico shaft would probably be minimum diameter for one.

I think the best magazine design would use the concept of the old lever action with a new twist.....

Have all the rounds pointing upward (or downward) in a line below the barrel (incorporate into handguard). Sort of like a conventional magazine with the base tilted 90deg forward toward the tip of the barrel.

You could have a huge stack of rounds without increasing the overall footprint of the weapon (like with large vertical mags).

The key is designing the feed mechanism for the rounds when they arrive in the vertical position below the chamber - maybe a rolling mechanism?...the recoil strips one round from the magazine into the hold position and moves a round from the hold position into the chamber.... :)

I think the best magazine design would use the concept of the old lever action with a new twist.....

Have all the rounds pointing upward (or downward) in a line below the barrel (incorporate into handguard). Sort of like a conventional magazine with the base tilted 90deg forward toward the tip of the barrel.
.... :)

Good idea, except that doens't solve our ambidexterity problem in a bullpup design. The weapon would still eject up or too the side. However, an idea (from HALO 2 of all places) would be to mount the ammo feed on the side opposite the charging handle (in the case of most conventional rifles this would be the right side since in most cases the charging handle ins on the left) where the ejection port normally is, and have it eject where the Mag well usually is. Then you could use something like the P90 stick mag or for High capacity a large drum or heilical feed.

It would also avoid the mass of the ammo load being where you would normally want to mount your sites.

Another idea is to replace the conventional drums (too wide) on a Beta C with Calico style Helicals pointing forward on either side of the gun at the 1:30 and 10:30 positions between the mounting rails for accessories.

I'd still like to squeeze 50 rds or so out of it, or maybe 48 so we have 24 two shot bursts and 16 three shot bursts for the select fire weapons.

Part of the beauty of using a spring loaded mag though, is that if there’s a problem with the spring, you just change mags and ditch the old one (or replace the springs/body/follower if not on the battlefield). While with such a system as you describe, if the mag isn’t feeding…changing the mag won’t help.

Second, the spring makes the rest of the system very simple, the mag operating all on it’s own. However, introducing the feed be done by the gas or mechanical system, introduces all sorts of extra unneeded complications. For instance, it would cause another point to be taken off the barrel, preventing a true free float. It also introduces parts on the gun that wear, and are put under extra stress. That means extra engineering costs, test costs…it all adds up. And essentially you are left with a revolver that you can carry extra cylinders for.

Springs aren’t a problem, they are a benefit. A decent spring will last for a very long time, just look at all the surplus guns from WW1 and 2 that still work fine, most not needing new springs. But if you make an exceptional spring…it should outlast the magazine lips and body!

However, introducing the feed be done by the gas or mechanical system, introduces all sorts of extra unneeded complications. For instance, it would cause another point to be taken off the barrel, preventing a true free float.
Not sure how this would prevent barrel free float if the magazine mechanisim worked off the rifle's mechanisim and was mounted on something like a free floating rail over the barrel or towards the stock.

It also introduces parts on the gun that wear, and are put under extra stress. That means extra engineering costs, test costs…it all adds up. And essentially you are left with a revolver that you can carry extra cylinders for.
Actually I was thinking of using an already exising feature on a particular rifle mechanism to "trip" the mechanical gear on the helical cylindar. If you look at the part of the operating rod/charging handle on an M1 Carbine or Mini 14 that has the track for the lug on the bolt, an extension or slight modification of the shape would allow it to be used almost as is. then all you have to do is attach the mounting points for the magazine to the chamber attachement ring (the part of the receiver that accepts the chamber end of the barrel and affixes it to the rest of the gun).

>>“Not sure how this would prevent barrel free float if the magazine mechanism worked off the rifle's mechanism and was mounted on something like a free floating rail over the barrel or towards the stock.”

Ok, fair enough, I was just throwing that out there. So it’s a mechanical trip device. Ok, now you are having to deal with the magazine take the fairly jarring impacts some 50 times per magazine. That means the magazine body is going to have to be extra strong from normal, to handle this extra strain, the impacts. Everything gets beefed up. It also needs to “wear” very long term, meaning certain components will likely need to be steel.

Look I’m sure you can do it, and I’m sure it can be made to work reliably. The questions are (among others) is it going to be cheap to engineer? Is it going to be cheap to manufacture? Will the “conservative” gun operator take a liking to it, or reject it? Will it work extraordinarily well even in the most adverse of conditions…like high arctic, swamps, and desert storms? If you can accomplish that, then you will likely have a possible success to enjoy.

All good points. My actual design idea would accept both mechanically opereated and spring operated mags. I like to "hedge my bets" so to speak.

Thanks for your input. I'm still trying to figure out what the dimensions of a 50 rd helical for 6.5g would be.

[QUOTE=Coolhand77]Another advantage of the Mini14/30 and M1 Carbine is the gas system might be adapted to an ajustable gas plug like the FN FAL family or the Robinson M96, so that it can be tuned for different ammunition and barrel lengths.QUOTE]


About halfway down the Mini-14/30 accessories page. http://ruger-mini-14-firearms.com/

Thanks Bigfoot. Didn't know they actually had one. One problem I have always had with the Mini-14 gas system is that the gas port block is an integral part of the stock mounting system. Have to machine off those mounting brackets if I ever get the money to continue this project so that the barrel can be freefloating.

Oh, just a point for all you F2000 fans out there. FN had a Civilian Legal version at the SHOT show in Vegas according to some reports. Right next to thier civilian legal length p90 prototype.

I'm still trying to figure out what the dimensions of a 50 rd helical for 6.5g would be.
Roughly speaking, I'd say you can figure on it being a bit fatter and longer than a 100-rd Calico 9mm mag, considering the difference in length and diameter of 9 Para and 6.5 Grendel cartridges. But I can't tell you the what the actual mag dimensions are, so please don't ask. :o

I got to put a full magazine through a Calico SMG about 10 years ago. Fun shooting, to be sure. :D

Stan

Here is a teaser of what I am working on. The lump behind the sight rail is the magazine. It doesn't look as big as it should because only half of it is sticking out of the top of the gun. Yes I know its mostly FN F2000, but you will also see details from a Robinson Arms XCR, and an HK G36K if you look closely.

And I left the grenade launcher on just cause it looks cool ;)

In case it'll be of any help, here is a pic of the Calico 9mm carbine w/100-rd mag. Overall length is given as 28.75 inches, with a 50-rd mag and stock retracted as shown. It looks as if the 100-rd mag extends a small fraction of an inch behind the butt.

Stan

According to a link I found on the Murdoc Online site, FN had civilian legal versions of the P90 and F2000 at the shot show. They apparently were behind the scenes. Hope someone can confirm this or deny this...be neat to get one of the 2000s and see if I could get a barrel in 6.5G

Edit: Oooops, I lied...its not Murdoc's site, its Defense Review
http://www.defensereview.com/index.php

Yeah, supposedly out this fall. The price isn't as bad as you might think either.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=122999

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=118&t=221779

Yea, I've seen pics of the civilian P-90 and 2000 that were shown at SHOT show.

Think it's possible to Grendelize a FN2000? If it is then you could have a rifle short enough for use in Close Combat, but with a full length barrel (and 6.5 Grendel) would still be good for 800+ meter shooting.

Grendelise a '2000?

Well...there would be one MAJOR problem for the third party tinkerer like you or I: the FN2000's ejection port feeds through a narow tube going forward...

...and the Grendel case is way too big for that mechanism and path.

FN could easily design it all to handle it better. Maybe they are already doing so, who knows...

Maybe, just maybe, you might figure out an easy way to make such a conversion yourself. Or, alternatively, you could rip out that part of the ejection system, and have just a conventional port, by cutting away the plastic, and removing the ram rod and it's other parts.

PS: while I loathe the P-90's micro-cartridge, I think it's a neat gun, and the civilian prototype example had light grey plastic furniture (think just like an SL-8 from HK), and the barrel was significantly extended to meet civilian 16 inch requirements (i think the stock police barrel is about 9.5 inch or something).

... Or, alternatively, you could rip out that part of the ejection system, and have just a conventional port, by cutting away the plastic, and removing the ram rod and it's other parts.

Only problem with this is it gets rid of the benifits of an F2000 over a bullpupped Mini-14. The whole advantage to the forward ejection is it makes what would normally be a "righty only" gun into an ambidexterous gun.

One of the reasons I am looking at the Mini-xx platform is that the ejection port is "on top" and the feed port is directly opposite, making for a simpler time reversing it to a top feed/bottom eject. Basically an "oversized P90".

update to my "design"
Again, this is the "rough sketch model" so comments and critiques are welcome. I'm looking for the best mix of ergonomics, functionality, and capability while trying to keep it simple for "stupid".

There is a "Steyr Scout" style integral bipod, a HUD style or XM8 sight in the optional "rail/carry handle", flip up sights in said carry handle, a helical feed magazine in the cheek weld position (I'm guestimating about 40 or 50 with a 14/1 double stack helical), ambidexterous charging handle, and a muzzle blast suppressor for toning down the report of the rifle and hiding the flash.

Yes, I have "Swiss-Army-Knife-itis" :o

Again, comments and suggestions are welcome and encouraged...just don't be TOO insulting ;)

Lets hear it for the short sighted bueracrats.
I remebered this and looked it up...then nearly fell over backwards after smacking my forhead.
We could have had it all along, though we might have to thank the brits. :rolleyes:

excerpt from http://world.guns.ru/assault/as59-e.htm :
...The research and experience clearly showed that it is entirely possible to replace both of these weapons with single new weapon, with effective range of fire of no more than 1000 yards and with selective-fire capability. This weapon, of cause, required a new cartridge, which was developed after extensive research and development. This cartridge, an "ideal" from British point of view, was of .280 caliber (7mm) and had a bottlenecked case 43 mm long. The pointed bullet weighted 9.08 g (140 grains) and had muzzle velocity of about 745 m/s (2445 fps). ...

:weeps for progress foiled by aformentioned short sighted bueracraps:
:Then smiles cause the Grendel performs better and was credited to Americans ;):

Gads, I feel like I am monopolizing this thread. Anyway, here is the update. I think I pushed the envelope of the "Assault rifle" concept about as far as I can with the mechinisms I had in mind. In case any one is wondering, the "Carry handle" area under the sight rail is actually for mounting more sensitive equipment like "gun cameras" and the like. Its basically a protective enclosure with a "sight port" in the front of it. Its got that one sub rail and the regular quad rails (long top, short sides, medium underbarrel). Also, this is meant as "competition" for the M4/XM8 class rifles. Barrel length would be about 12 to 14 inches.

This version I decided to mount the magazine over the grip instead of back towards the stock. With the "short" bolt of the M1/M14/Mini-14 design, I was able to compress the design as far as possible. Comes out about the size of an M4/XM8 with the stock collapsed, but ready to fire (no pulling out the stock to shoulder the weapon. Another benifit is that with the magazine over the grip, the center of mass doesn't shift so far forward as you empty the magazine.

Questions, comments and constructive critisizm are welcome. :D

Questions, comments and constructive critisizm are welcome. :D

Looks like the barrel is under 6 inches long....
:)

the ejection port is behind the grip, where the magazine well would be on an F2000. I have reposted the picture with some labels to help identify various features.

I like the concept, especially since im a fan of optimized size and performace in a weapon, epitomized by the F2000 bullpup rifle. However its not clear to me now the reloading of the magazines is solved here.

Then smiles cause the Grendel performs better and was credited to Americans
Uhh, what Americans? I thought Bill was from Britain, and Arne from Texas. :eek:

(Sorry...just couldn't resist.) :D

Stan

I like the concept, especially since im a fan of optimized size and performace in a weapon, epitomized by the F2000 bullpup rifle. However its not clear to me now the reloading of the magazines is solved here.

Havent worked out all the bugs, but I envisioned it as an ambidexterous side load. You kind of roll the cylindar into place, or push front end in and then pivot it into place...like I said...still working out the bugs.
:o

>>"No point in holding the bullet hostage to a 35 year old design."

I'm in complete agreement. :)

I'm also in complete agreement.

However, by removing the constraints of the AR-15
magazine well, I'm not sure Bill Alexander/Arne would
end up with the same cartridge design.

COOL:
A nice gun. You need Trijicon’s Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight on it though...lol

Thats why I left the attachement rail empty, so you could mount what you wanted, weather it be Trijicon, EOTech, Aimpoint or something we haven't seen yet ;)

Just an observation... guns have gotten boiled down to the barest essentials with very simple square-edged, rectangular and round shapes.
I tried to make the surfaces that would mount the rails relitively flat by using existing monolithic systems and adapting it to the design. The underbarral mounts are just covers that can be removed with the handle. The only one I kept odd shaped was the grip and thats because the ergonomics and stock design of the F2000 are just a bigger and more refined version of the P90 which is very comfrotable to begin with...and quick pointing to boot

This suggests that - and reference our discussion about being able to add secondary weapons here - a good gun should be like a good airframe. It should be tremendously strong, light, and have lots of hardpoints that new weapons systems can be added to over the years. I would therefore lobby for an all-metal stock with some kind of rubber-ish butt pad. I also think ALL receivers should have hard metal extensions for mounting scopes directly to them - or failing that - an "over & under" rail system that attaches to both the reciever and the barrel and reinforces that critical junction point.
Oh I agree, I was just using the "polymer rifle" as a design base. I prefer metal and except for certain parts what would benifit from not being metal, I would perfer aluminum, steel and titanium. Heck, my last battle rifle was 1978 build HK91A2.

I think the whole gun industry is missing an important development - linear electric motor driven actions...
Ah to quote Captain Scott "The more complicated you make the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain". I think one of the reasons they are avoiding "electrically fired guns" is because of all the trouble you would have sealing the weapon against the harmful effects of shorting out your electrical system. Would really suck to be out in the bush, under fire, dive for cover and land in a puddle and then have your check battery light flash on, and then off because you just shorted out a system with worn out seals from a week of hard combat. That and batteries/fuses/etc. become just one more type of "ammo" you need to pack around to keep your gun running.

I'm not familiar with the helical ammo clip... how do you "slap one in"???
I was envisioning something similar to how they load the P90 only from either side of the gun. It sounds akward, but with practice you can be as fast as with a standard bottom loading mag. The magazine eject would release the catch on the side that the operators trigger finger is on, allowing the mag to be dumped while another one is pushed into place.

COOL:

...electric gun could be made more reliable than current designs and would be virtually maintenance free....

To clarify one point, the action I have in mind works like a magneto ignition system.
...converts linear mechanical energy into a low voltage current, stored by a capacitor, when acting as a brake to arrest the bolt’s backward thrust. At around 5/10,000th of a second later it converts some fraction of that same electrical energy back into mechanical linear motion to move the bolt forward again...

An interesting possibility would be to employ a thermister - thermally sensitive resister - to govern the rate of fire based on barrel temperature in full cyclical mode...

…and all of this is happening with no gas system, springs or firing pin.
solidpoint

With that kind of set up you would be able to go with truely caseless ammo or a binary system (magazine has a fuel canister mounted behind the bullet "stack") or "propellant encased" (like the 4.5.mm they were going to use in the G11 but with an actually effective bullet) and maybe even an electrically driven ammo feed (like the linkless system for the M61 series 20mm or the GAU 30mm system in the warthog).

And your end result is the smartgun and pulse rifle from Aliens made "flesh" as it were :D

"Lets ROOOOOCK"

I would keep a firing pin in the design for the use of more conventional cartridges like the 6.5 Grendel. Personally I would like to straight wall the grendel case and use saboted ammo. Use the 6.5 in sabots for general purpose/armor piercing and .44 cal/11mm for CQB type situations.

Hmm, 10mm explosive tip caseless light armor piercing round.

Actually, if you have any idea what the basic dimensions of that kind of action would be, I would be interested in sketching up a design based on it just for the sake of argument. Basically I need extreem rear of action to chamber throat length, and height and width of the "block" for the action. basically the dimensions that it would occupy inside the stock.

Edit: Oh yah, talked to two Engineers today...they both said,"Way too complicated, might as well field railguns"

one benifit to spent cases is if your chamber is designed right (fluted) they act as disposable heat sinks. They contain most of the heat from ignition of the propellent long enough. The G3 and family have this (I know cause we reload and picking up those cases is a pain cause their frakkin HOT)

Thier basic argument is that you would lose energy no matter what. That being the case they didn't think you would be able to "scavange" enough energy from firing, and they didn't see how your linear magnito would be feasable (in one case) or be efficiant enough to do the job...and be rugged enough for the environment inside what is essentially a hand held internal combustion engine.

Once it gets patented I would love to see the design (wouldn't want you to think I was going to steal it) and have you prove us wrong. In fact I would also love trying to fit it in a man portable system.

Wondering if you can get Grendel ammo with electric primers

Guess I just believe in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" too much

Doesn't Bose have a shock absorber (automotive) based on linear motor technology? Thought I read something about it in Automotive magazine or Car and Driver.

Edit: You know I really need to look crap up before I make a statement
http://waw.wardsauto.com/ar/auto_bose_knows_shocks/

"...The Bose setup consists of four bulky shocks at each corner. Inside each of the towers is a linear electromagnetic motor acting on the strut connected to the wheel hub.

When power is applied to the coils, the motor retracts and extends the shock's strut, absorbing or generating motion between the wheel and car body. The motor responds in milliseconds to control the strut, negating bumps. Apart from absorbing bumps and other road irregularities, energy can be applied to the strut to keep the vehicle from rolling or pitching when cornering, accelerating and braking.

Power amplifiers, using switching technologies invented by Bose, magnify and deliver electrical power to the motor as instructed by an electronic control unit.

This contemporary version uses regenerative power amplifiers that not only deliver energy to the motor but also store energy when road forces act on the strut.

When a wheel drops into a pothole, the motors extend the struts to isolate the vehicle body from the bump. On the “far” side of the pothole — as the strut must retract to allow the wheel to absorb the rising impact — the motor works as a generator and sends power back through the amplifier.

Helped by its innovative energy-capturing capability, engineers say Bose's semi-active suspension uses less than one-third the power required by a conventional vehicle air conditioner. The system's responses are generated from mathematical algorithms created during the research project..."

Hmm, thought of one other problem. How would your system respond to Electro-Magnetic Pulse, and Neutron radiation? A pure mechanical/gas operated weapon will not be effected by these but unless you harden electronics (something my father knows a bit about since he used to work Naval Ordinance Labs while they were experimenting with it) then they are susceptable to EMP...and large amounts of neutrons tend to blow chunks out of your transistorized components (microchips are just super small transistor matricies in all reality).

Guess it comes back to the KISS principle.

You also need to store the energy (capacitors and batteries) and regulate the storage and application of the energy....more components and more bulk.

I think he was planning on offsetting that with the lack of weight in the mechanism facilitated byt the linear shock/motor arrangement.

Hmm, anyone here know the effect of directed microwaves (like that new crowd control weapon) on electronics? Think metal in a microwave.

There is nothing KISS about the action of an M240 or M249 ... Gas actions are such a kludge that if anyone had bothered to look at them in a critical way they would have gotten rid of them long ago. Well, the Germans did look, and did get rid of theirs, Kudos!


I wasn't referencing the M240/249 actually I was referencing the FAL, and Kalishnikov AK family. They are simple, and reliable (even if the AKs arn't the most accurate) and have been in use for longer than I have been alive. As for the Germans getting rid of the gas systems, part of that was political. The G3 replaced basically the FAL in german inventory because the (If I remeber corrctly) the Belgians wouldn't sell them licensing rights to the design, so they copied the CETME design from South/Central America and improved it.
I am intimately familiar with the G3/HK91 family (I could field strip and reassemble mine with my eyes shut) and agree that it is a great weapon, but it also has some draw backs. You talk of small components? Lemme tell you, the G3 has its share too. Reliability? In germany and europe for the most part yah, but when they get gritted up with sand (like in the middle east) the rollers tend to stick in the bold closed position and jam the rifle...or cause catastrophic failure the next time you pull the trigger. Why do you think the germans went back to a gas system with the G36...and its direct descendant the XM8.

Also, the gas systems, when tuned right, don't beat you up near as bad as that roller delayed blowback.

Oh and I wasn't talking about EMP frying primers, I was talking about EMP frying the electronics and needed to regulate your power in the design. if you have ONE transistorized circuit then its gonna fry
sure, your ammo is good, but guess what, the gun won't fire.

Okay, to effectively "harden" something against EMP you double the cost of the electronics. Heres the basics of it (please bear with me, its a long explanation). A faraday cage only works if your cage is grounded...and by grounded I mean you have a spike of metal attached to a ground wire which is in turn attached to your faraday cage. And by in the ground I mean IN it, at least a couple of feet (I work in the electrical industry). Outside of using a faraday cage, the only other effective way that I know of to harden against EMP is the "mirror circuit". This is what my dad worked on at Naval Ordinance. Basically you use a mirror of the circuit to channel an equal but opposite charge that cancels out the EMP in the circuits. It effectively neutralizes it. This is how warheads (yes, like the ones in nuclear missles, and such) and military electronics are hardened against EMP. I know its classified, but I would love to see how many mobile systems are actually hardened.

The EMP is less likely, since it doesn't look like anyone is going to be lobbing nukes any time soon (my lips to god's ears, I know). However, there are things that might simulate the effect of an EMP on electronics. A friend of mine and I theorized (after having to put up with too much loud music from the neighbors across the street) that if you take a microwave emitter (like from your house hold microwave oven) and put a parabolic dish on it to focus it in a general direction, and then "fired" it at an electrical or electronic device, the excitement of the electrons in the metal of the conductors in the object (read: ANY unshielded wire) would cause random electrical fluctuations and possibly burn out any unshielded micro processors or transistors. In effect you would have a directed electromagnetic pulse.

About the time we thought this up, the US military came out with data on a crowd control device that used specifically tuned microwaves to cause surface pain in humans. It would only penetrate as far as the pain receptors on your body, but I couldn't help think about what would happen if they upped the wattage, or changed the frequencies...and about the effect it might have on electrical devices.

Oh, and even if your "red dot" sight is electronic (the Trijicon ACOG isnt) thats why you always have backup Iron sights.

As for the recoil operation, if I remeber correctly, short operation uses a buffer spring to slow the bolt down so that it only "taps" the rear of the receiver instead of slamming into it (it still slams against it pretty hard, which is why there is a rubber pad that can be retrofitted to the G3 family around the recoil buffer spring and why most well equipped privately owned ones have buffer pads on the stocks...and that recoil impulse is one of the reasons I am selling my HK91 and getting something different). Long recoil is like the Ultimax LMG design. The bolt never comes into contact with the back of the receiver but instead slows to a stop and then starts moving forward by spring pressure alone. Makes it alot more controllable on full auto (you arn't getting punched in the shoulder each shot) and less wear and tear on the components.

Oh, by the by, don't take these comments personally. I think your idea has merit and I would love to see you succeed (and help if it came down to it). I just don't think our materials technology or electronics are up for the task just yet.

I for one though would want to put it through "hell week" with the marines, army, navy, airforce, coast guard, local police, ranchers, hunters, and crazy south Texas gun nuts (hey, that sounds like me) before it got finalized and issued to anyone for battle field trials.

I always wanted a pulse rifle and a smartgun (see the movie "Aliens" if you don't get the reference.

Wasn't questioning your credentials either. I'm just saying that unless and untill we get away from chemically launched projectiles or figure out a way to seal electrical systems so they are 99.999% reliable under all environmental and combat conditions, the totally mechanical rifle is probably the way to go as far as balancing reliability, weight, ruggedness, and simplicity.

The Soviets EMP proofed their combat vehicles early during the cold war.
Simple shielding of electronics works as long as you remove any exterior antennae or wires.

One indicator we used to be taught for a possible Soviet nuke strike on the battlefield was Soviet troops removing antennae from vehicles.

Okay, looks like you have worked out the EM problems. The next thing that comes to mind is how would the mechanism and electronics take to being submurged in water, cold water, salt water, mud and other conductive, semi conductive, and non conductive fluid mediums. Case in point, as "reliable" as the AR15 is with proper maintinence, you HAVE to drain the water from the gun before you fire or you run the risk of catastrophic failure. Other weapons like the AK family and similar don't have this problem because of thier design.
Will you have to drain the mechanism or run the risk of shorting it out on the first shot? What about grit in the linear motor? One of the problems that even modern weapons have to deal with is sand in the mechanicals (like the M16 failures in Iraq). Other weapons (like the aforementioned AK) don't have this problem. What kind of power supply are we looking at? Is it something that under high temp (like intense firefights where the gun gets HOT) will it fail or even explode (like cell phone batteries have been known to). Will the gun function without batteries? Ammo is usually eaiser to come by in combat situations than batteries, especially if you are using something like the 7.62x39.

Just some thoughts for your brainstorming. Love too see what you have so far...it really does sound like a "quantum leap" in personal firearms if we can find a way to make it work.

oh, and as mechanically sound as it might be, floating it in mercury would never get past OSHA and the EPA and all the environmental dorks like that. :D

I agree that "red dot" type sights should be SOP from now on, but unfortunately the different branches can't seem to agree on which one they like the most. The Marines seem to be enamored of the Trijicon ACOG, specops likes the EOTech, and the army seems to be using the Aimpoint tube. I personally think a combination of all the best features of each would be best. For instance, the HUD style EOTech reticle window, a choice of reticles (different strokes for different folks), the battery life of the Aimpoint or the non battery dependence of the Trijicon. After that you are just tacking on more bells and wistles.

Oh and I don't care how tough your optics/electronics are, back up iron sights are a MUST. Any operator worth his salt will tell you that and so will anybody with a modicum of survival training. Electronics have a bad habit of failing at the worst times.

Once again, thats where keeping things simple is best. As someone familiar with GUIs you know the problems with every incarnation of the windows operating system. No while I myself use it, its mostly because I haven't taken the time to learn Linux, I don't want to purchase new software (all my currnet stuff is Windows based and some of it is expensive to the point of being irreplacable at this time), and what can I say, I love my games :rolleyes: .

Besides that, most operators don't have time to fiddle with stuff more complicated than a selector switch or a trigger. :D

This aside I think there are some pieces of equipment that could possibly be attached to the rifle for improved effectiveness for different units. We already use laser sights and laser designators, why not combine these into one unit for directed missile strikes, giving ground units the ability to designate heavy weapons fire from a varaity of sources.

Back on track though, the ideal assault rifle must be simple, reliable, easy to operate, easy to dissasemble, clean, and reassemble, and both powerful and accurate enough to get the job done in a variaty of barrel lengths and job descriptions. There is an old adage from a game called "Shadowrun" that applies in the real world "All the Chrome (electronic gadgets) in the world won't save your life if the weapon doesn't fire when the trigger is pulled".

A good example of what we should be trying for is the more modern incarnations of the AK family. They are reliable and relitively accurate. if you can "Take a dump in the mechanism, bury it in the sand for a week, then dig it up, tap out the crap, slap in a mag, and rock and roll" then its is an improvement on the AR15 and worth considering. Thats why I haven't bought and XCR yet, I want to see if it IS as reliable as they claim (AK level of reliability) and as accurate as they claim (AR level of ergonomics and accuracy...and modularity) before I drop my hard earned cash on it. If I don't get one of those it (in 7.62x39 so all I need is a barrel swap to use Grendel or Beowulf), I will either be an FAL (7.62 NATO, from DSA probably) or a piston version of the AR15 in Grendal. :D

No matter how advanced a rifle you build, you are still vulnerable to some illiterate uneducated guy spraying you with his AKM.

As for electric powered action on an infantry gun, there are a lot of issues to solve before the troops would have confidence in it. And you then have to ask yourself: what will this do, that a gas-powered gun can't? If the answer is nothing, then you've just spent big bucks and lots of time for nothing.

With Chain guns and gatling guns, it makes sense. But for a personal protection wpn, or general infantry wpn, I'll take gas power any day. But I do like the red dots! :D

Solid, admittedly the SAW is alot more complex than the musket, however your example would have been better served by the Sharps or other breach loader. Muskets and muzzle loaders of that era in general were not as reliable as a modern machine gun for the simple reason that if it starts raining, you dive in a puddle, etc. the gun won't work. The first major advance in reliability was the use of the preloaded metallic cartridge. No powder getting wet or over/under charged, no separate primers, no separate balls, just pop the cartridge into the chamber, close the breach, cock the hammer and BAM, there you go. The next innovation made the rifle/pistol much more complex. Tube magazines and revolvers are very complex clockwork machines, especially compared to modern blowback firearms like a 1911 and the like.
But I digress, yes the modern weapon is much more complicated than the musket, but to say it is more reliable does not take into account battlefield conditions.

You also pointed out that the modern soldier depends on his unit. Frankly your logic is backwards. The Unit depends on the individual soldier to be able to do his job. When the defication hits the rotory occilator, it all comes down to having your buddy's back and him having yours, and if you can't defend yourself or attack the enemy because your gun failed, then you are a casualty/liability because you can't do your job and you must be escorted by those who can OFF the battle field. A unit is a machine made of indivitual parts/soliders that MUST to thier jobs to accomplish a mission. The job of the individual soldier may vary, but for those that carry rifles, that is thier primary tool, and unlike those of us with nice cushy desk jobs they don't get a new tool or time off for getting a new tool in (or demoted or fired if it failed because they didn't take care of it and keep it in shiney new condition) when thier tool fails them at a critical moment. They and possibly thier team mates get killed.

Just ask Jessica Lynch's unit about reliable weapons (yes I know there is contraversy). The fact of the matter is, if thier weapons had been more reliable, then they might not have been killed/captured by the enemy. That is at the HEART of this discussion. Ideas on how to give our troops (and civilians) the best weapon to protect themselves and thier "teams/families" with.

Just keep in mind the kind of environment that these weapons will have to face too. Think, mud, rain, salt water, ice, extreme heat, talcum powder grit, and constant firing without having an opportunity to clean the weapon (breaking out the cleaning kit in the middle of a fire fight cause you hit your 5000 round limit is SOOOOO rude ;)). Frankly you need a weapon that functions reliably untill the barrel wears out because you put so many bullets down range. The short and long stroke gas pistons have proven the capability of enduring this kind of tourture, and with a quick change barrel, and a squirt or two of lube and maybe a quick wipe down of the bolt and reciever, you are back in action. No batteries, no cleaning fouling from direct gas impingement, not jamming rollers from sand, no draining the weapon because you had to swim to the target, no shorting from same. Only thing more reliable is direct blowback and thats not acceptable for rifle cartridges (ouchies). Anyway, call me a stick in the mud but thats my opinion and I am stickin to it :D

Oh, and I would have said Assault rifle, not SAW. The musket was the assault rifle of its day, especially with bayonet affixed. The Rifled muzzle loader would have been the battle rifle or designated marksman rifle. There really wasn't an equivalent for the SAW back then.

Guess I'm just nit picky today :D

just trying to keep focus on the project at hand. I personally don't have a problem with the idea, I just want to make sure that the end result is as reliable, or more reliable than proven technologies. One other thing that came to mind is field maintience. How easy would it be to fix problems in the field with what the soldier carries on him? How much electronics knowledge would he need...and whats the practical life span of the equipment? Also, how adaptable would it be to civilian use? After all, why should the military have all the fun ;)
I'd love to put one through its paces :D

Hey, I had a thought for all of you out there following this thread, actually more of a question.

What would you feel is the best action (barring new technologies like electrically driven mechanisms...sorry solid, nothing personal, just trying to work with what we have now) for a common assault rifle? What I am looking for is something AK reliable, and as simple to manufacture and maintain as possible. The simplest design for a semi-automatic/automatic action that I know of is straight blowback, which is impractical for rifle cartriges due to the recoil impulse imparted to the operator. I'd like to get input from all of you out there.

Thanks

Update on my design progress...big setback. Either I got hacked or wormed, but either way, my partition on my drive died the day before I was going to back it up. On the bright side though, I get to start almost from scratch and I had a better idea come to mind. Instead of using the Mini-14 style action, I am looking at the Steyr AUG for inspration.

There are various reasons for this, but I won't go into them now...hey, does anyone know if the AUG could be rechambered for 6.5G?

>>“Ignoring the fact that you couldn't have gotten into the battle without most of these, how long do you think you would last if the enemy had air-superiority and could bring heavy weapons to bear at will because you had no counter-battery capability... etc, etc?”

With conventional rifles? The same length of time as your enemy, or same length of time as the Canadian Army (we have no true fire support on the scale of US military).

With electric rifles? Minutes if not seconds. Because while my rifle doesn’t work, my fire support and radio doesn’t work, my enemy’s RPG-7’s and AKM’s will in fact work just as reliably as they did before.

>>“(I'm reading Transformation Under Fire and it appears at least some of the Army brass is painfully aware of this)”

“Transformation” is that all-encompassing buzzword that the Pentagon currently loves. It promotes the bad with the good, but it makes it harder to see which is which. Be VERY careful about what lesson you learn from it, because there is a lot of defense dollars at stake on that long word. Motives aren’t always jiving with what’s being said about a system.

>>>“…but I am arguing that in a combined-arms world, interchangeability has to mean more than my rifle's parts will work in your rifle.”

Interchangeability means NOTHING without dependability.


>>“It also has to mean that my rifle can support other critical tactical systems that the infantry rifleman is relying on whether he is aware of it at any given moment or not.”

None of which has anything to do with the final endgame for an infantry rifle/LMG: when you pull the trigger, it MUST go bang, each and every bloody time. There are so many different conditions conspiring to prevent it from happening, that introducing electrical power to actually make the gun’s mechanism function, is giving us no benefit, but introduces an additional layer of complexity to fail.

I mean, seriously, just what benefit does an electrical powered action give you, that gas or recoil power can’t? If you can answer that, then maybe you are onto something.

>>“I would also contend that to the extent that an "electric" gun can keep critical electronic systems provided with battery power it represents an important improvement in the infantry's total system capability, and that this gives the infantry a better chance for survival than fighting alone, even with an infinitely reliable weapon.”

You can have all your computer systems and onboard aiming devices powered by electrics, without the need to power the rifle’s action using additional battery power. I fail to see any benefit, while seeing many negatives to going with electric rifle actions. Even with red dot sights, onboard GPS antennae, laser devices and so on.


I have to tell you that I first thought of this type of electric action myself, back in 1990. My own idea was inspired by the Hughes Chaingun, the idea being to eliminate the gas tube, for the purpose of increased independence of the barrel for free floating. But then I joined the infantry, did some shooting competitions, and realised all I would be doing is carrying around a heavy battery that I didn’t need to, that I would then have to test for power strength every time I’d go on patrol, and may not have enough “juice” to power the action when in sub-zero or adverse conditions.

It’s bad enough that soldiers now have to make sure that their NVG’s, red dots, radios, IR laser aimers all have fresh batteries. New designs will simplify this a bit, to have one common battery for the rifle’s accessories. And yet while I agree with that concept, I don’t see the point anymore to actually replace gas power for the action to go to batteries.

You see, to do so, you now have to prove that your battery and electric motor/solenoid gun has superior (otherwise if it’s the same, why change?) dependability in adverse conditions to that of the AK-47. You have to prove this in the real world, where soldiers may forget to change to fresh batteries. If the red dot fails, you have back up sights. If your laser aimer fails, that’s ok, because your enemy certainly won’t be using anything that nice. If your radio fails, that really sucks, but you have a second one in your patrol, plus two to four extra batteries for it. If your NVG’s fail, you have spare batteries, and failing that, your enemy doesn’t likely have them either so you are now equal, though your squadmates still have theirs working.

But…if your rifle’s action fails…you likely will have a spare battery, but it may not be the battery, you can no longer cover an arc, you are now a liability to the squad, ineffective. This can happen with gas powered mechanical actions too…but before the troops will accept it, you have to prove it’s more reliable than your enemy’s AK-47’s. It’s worth remembering that batteries do not operate very well when cold, which is often when the system requires more power than normal to operate the action.

Just because larger weapons systems use electrical systems to operate, doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to introduce a rifle that’s dependant on same. In fact, I’d argue that the increased dependance on battery power alone works strongly against that, if you consider the extra logistical tail this would now demand. After all, it’s one thing to have a red dot battery, compared to a battery that’s going to cycle a motor through a couple thousand rounds of ammo before expiring.

Think it’s no big deal? Well, the troops in Iraq have taken to wiring up their Humvees to have battery chargers in them, to keep GPS, radio and sight batteries up to snuff. During the rush to Baghdad, the army basically didn’t have enough supplies to keep the batteries in stock. If we consider an electric action, that’s a lot of tax money, truck and airplane transportation just to bring extra batteries to do what the cartridge’s gun powder could do…

Had an idea. Why not use the rifle like a diesel engine? The mechanical compression of a diesel is what causes the fuel to combust and run the engine...and the attached alternator and electrical systems.

Keep the rifle itself mechanical, operated by the combustion of the cartridges alone (gas operated, delayed blowback, whatever) but add the "alternator" and battery pack to the stock. Battery power, just like the 12 volt system in a car is DC. Add a DC charging port to all of your attachements (like on a cell phone) with batteries as the back up/constant supply. Every time you fire the weapon, it recharges the main power system, which in turn trickle charges the individual systems. This reduces your dependability on batteries or at least minimizes it to where supply isn't so pressed to keep your lasers, GPS, targeting computers, etc. supplied with fresh batteries. One other design consideration might be to set up the battery packs like a quick release magazine. Something like the universal packs used by the Nokia brand cell phones would be perfect. Just set them up to be ejected like a spent magazine in the event of needing a replacement (with rubber seals of course).

As a side note, I notice that the new Trijicon ACOG that the Marines adopted uses NO BATTERIES. Some of the anticdotal information form Iraq has stated that since they started using them, the Marines have been generating so many in combat head shots (as opposed to sniping) that they had to investigate to make sure our marines wern't executing prisoners. It gets around the need for batteries by using tritium for night illumination of the reticle and fiberoptics to illuminate the reticle during the day. Not sure how I feel about the reticle (I like the 1 MOA dot surrounded by the circle on the EOTech and the HUD style system, but it takes batteries and they don't last very long) but if its good enough for our front line heavy combat troops, then its good enough for me.

In Stan's defense, I think he is just pointing out that the electrical action, while a good idea for places with a constant power supplies (vehicles and emplacements) it can't be made reliable enough for the common infantryman.

As a gun nut, the energy waste has always bugged me...though more because it translates into bruises on my shoulders :D

Seriously though, some times efficiancy must take a back seat to reliabilty. Case in point, only recently have Hybrid gas/electric engines become reliable enough for common use. one other thing, look at all the uses for the diesel type engine cycle...which doesn't depend on generated electricity for anything except the initial start up.

one thing you might want to do with your prototype is build it into a reliable gas operating design with a gas cut off (like an FAL). That way you could tinker with the efficiancy and reliability.

Oh, and you don't eject the piston every second cycle...thats the bolt of the gun, you are ejecting the head and head gasket every return cycle.

Hmm, heres an interesting idea for you...keep it like standard gas operation, include a manual charging handle, but attach a trip to the system so that if it doesn't fire .000000x seconds after the pin drops, it auto cycles the mechanism. Another addition would be an auto load cycle where as soon as you slap in the new mag, it loads the first cartridge. After you get those working in all combat conditions with the "Diesel" gun, then maybe you can work on going all electric or something....kinda like the "XM29/SABR" where they decided to perfect the two portioins separately to recombine them at a later date.

>>“In a conventional MG if you get a "dud" bullet that doesn't fire, the gun stops.”

True, but only for one second or less: you just cock the wpn and continue. I might also point out that military grade ammo is VERY reliable. Significantly more reliable than the M-16 system is capable of. In fact, I don’t recall a single time when I was let down by Canadian military issue 5.56 or 7.62 ammo. It was always the wpn system, and even that was mostly related to worn or damaged magazines.

While that is a good advantage to have, I still say that a simple mechanical gas operation trumps the solenoid powered action.

However, you guys are onto something: using the action’s movement to recharge the wpn accessories, that’s an excellent idea. As long as it doesn’t weigh more than two ounces or so: in combat zones, the weapons are fired so little, that you are still in nearly as much chance of still running out of battery power. But still, it’s a good idea to look into, and if it can be refined and kept lightweight so much the better. That it won’t compromise the dependable function of the wpn is the true beauty of it.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>“I will take one where every other guy carries a broomstick BUT I get all the CAS/Firesupport I want. I think I win every time. - and I think you think so too.”

In a sterile wargame environment, sure.

In the real world of combat, NO. Hell no.

THAT right there is the problem with “TRANSFORMATION”: it takes too much from the text book, and not enough from the real world. It doesn’t take into account Murphy’s Law. It doesn’t take into account a smart, learning, flexible and adaptable enemy. Many advocates of Transformation are too blinded by the fancy weapons and computers, to remember that when an enemy gets hammered hard, he CHANGES what he does. And in so doing, becomes far more difficult to win against.

That’s what happens in insurgencies: early on, the guerrillas are dumb, make tons of mistakes and get themselves killed all over the place. Later on, they learn how to hide effectively, they train their new recruits well, and they discard tactics that didn’t work, for those that are effective.

A few examples of where “Transformation” thinking has failed:

Bombing Kosovo/Serbia:
The USAF was ordered to destroy as many Serb tanks and fighters as they could. By the end of it, the reported number of tanks and planes destroyed was actually higher than what Serbia had purchased. And within weeks after hostilities, it was revealed that their tanks and planes had miraculously survived nearly completely unscathed. Why? Because they hid their tanks and jets inside barns, and made decoy “targets” for the USAF to blow up.


OIF March 23-
“In the western desert, fast-moving 5th Army troops are advancing towards four Republican Guard divisions -- perhaps 40,000 men hidden in the countryside south of Baghdad . Thirty-two Apache helicopters are ordered forward this night to search out and destroy the Guard. The Iraqis spring an ambush and intense small arms fire brings down one Apache. The rest are forced to turn back with almost every helicopter damaged. The Republican Guard is largely unscathed. Apache pilots' faith in U.S. intelligence is badly shaken.”

Now, what really happened here is that this particular raid was supposed to be a demonstration of what “Transformation” can do. Instead, it became the biggest embarrassment to them. Fortunately I don’t believe any Americans had to pay for this mistake with their lives, thanks to great engineering for aircrew survival by McDonald Douglas Helicopters. But it highlighted that even if the crews are kept alive, the most stone-age enemy, shooting blindly at shadows can result in a mission-kill. Worse, it kept a fair portion of the Apache fleet grounded for a significant portion of the war, which severely limited the command’s options for CAS support afterward.

Basically, they wanted to get thirty birds up there to intercept and destroy the enemy. But they seem to have used poor tactics, with was inevitable considering that the command wanted such a large group of helis to fly in formation at night. That made the group vulnerable. Hovering in the target area made them MUCH more vulnerable, a byproduct of training that came from tactics intended for Europe, not the desert. The Longbow Radar suggested to the pilots that they’d be able to see any enemy tank before they could see you, but that did not happen, did it?

That is NOT a failure of the Apache, either in concept or execution. That is not a failure of the pilots, who were asked to do a mission type they’d never done before. That’s a failure of the Pentagon’s desire to demonstrate “Transformation”, without thought to vulnerabilities that the real world presents.

Anyway, back to “Transformation”: if you have that fire support, that’s great, but the fastest you could get a single kill from that support, would be from artillery just a few miles away, which would mean at least 30 seconds if it’s all automated using a data link with a super-sci-fi fire support sensor. If you have to use voice comms to direct the gunners, it’s gonna be minutes. Your best fire support is if you can have an Apache or A-10 where the pilot can be told where the target is, and just dive towards it shooting, that could possibly take as little as ten seconds…IF the pilot can see the target clearly. If not, well, you won’t have his firepower right then.

One last example of how “Transformation” and your support can be thwarted: the enemy insurgents in Iraq have already adapted to the reality of UAV’s, by not walking down the streets, but instead taking the smallest alleys, and staying indoors, under visual cover. I’m not passing on valuable info, I’m just passing on to you what they have already been doing for the last 6 months.

>>“Communications and information are more important than reliability - assuming anyone is asking that the tradeoff is required.”

I disagree. Neither is more important than the other. An unreliable radio illustrates this perfectly. In the real world, even a reliable and perfectly functioning radio will often not be able to contact anyone, due to lign of sight issues, short antenna, stratospheric environmental issues and so on. And when that happens, I bet you’d want your rifle/MG to be the most reliable in the world.

As valuable as a radio is, the help you call for, will not arrive that second: there is a delay in the response that your comrades in arms at the other end can bring that help to you. If you are bleeding to death, the helicopter is going to be AT LEAST ten minutes from picking you up, and then you have a hour long ride to the MASH unit (actually this is changing to bring the MASH unit to the battle, much better, but I’m trying to make a point here!). But while waiting for the helicopter, with a slow leak in your chest, an enemy pops up from a hedge row and sprays MG fire at you: which is more important, your radio or your rifle? Look, I’m not saying radios aren’t useful, I’m just saying that neither trumps the other, they are equally useful and necessary.

Thankyou Zipper, you said it so much better than I ever could.
Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever considered a "slant" stick mag? I know we like nice neat rows of bullets in our magazines, but what if you were to take the same concept as a "slanted" double stack magazine for a handgun, and apply it to a top mounted high cap mag for a rifle? The rounds at the feed lips wouldn't have to be turned 90 degrees like the FN P90, and you could maintain a somewhat narrow profile. If I had my CAD machine running right now I would try doodling it up, but I've been juggling a two year old and my girlfriend so I haven't had time to fix it. Maybe tonight :D

Admittedly the overall worth of the individual infantry person on the battlefield is small when compared to the scheme of things, but look at it this way. There are times and places where an individual, with no fire support (radio out, no athority, etc.), gets separated from his unit. His weapon is his life. If it fails he is either dead, or captured (with our current enemy capture usually means beheading). All the electronics and "efficiancy" of new age warfare mean nothing if the other guy's gun is firing when yours is jammed, needs cleaning, or otherwise out of action.

Just out of curiosity, but does anyone have an opinion on the optimal/maximum rifle width? I personally think it would be somewhat dictated by the width of the human fist wrapped around the grip of the rifle. As long as its comfortable, does it make much of a differnce? Examples of wider recievers would be the Steyr AUG, FN F2000, and the HK G11.

I'd be a slight bit concerned if it was REALLY wide, as you might not be able to grab it properly to do drill moves, and also do CQB bayonette combat drills, butt stroke moves.

Basically that means that the receiver isn't really a factor, but the handguard and the butt should have points where your hand can pretty much wrap around it to grasp strongly.

would you consider the aformentioned too wide for drill/bayonet? I don't know about the F2000, but I do know the G11 and AUG were either designed with Bayonet in mind or retrofitted after.

The AUG, yea, probably awkward, but that's because it's also a bullpup too. I'm not sure if the width is gonna be a problem though, as it's been a very long time since I held an AUG and I don't remember it that well. But if you used the AUG's action on a conventional pattern rifle, say a non-bullpup, it would likely be fine.

The G11 looks like it would be too wide to grasp well, any which way you slice it.

Well, since I am once again designing from the "ground up" (since the loss of my primary hard drive), I can design around the concept that the rifle will be used for buttstrokes and conventional bayonetting (sp?). Just for pattern purposes (since I AM attempting to make this an "inverted bullpup") what in-line stock battle rifle or assault rifle has the best "hand holds" for this kind of combat? I know this is an opinion thing, but its nice to have some ideas to look at when I go to the next gunshow. :D

On that same note, what pistol grip pattern seems to work best for all of you? As someone pointed out recently (I think it was Fortier in SGN) the M16A2 pistol grip was designed to fit everyone...and subsiquently fits Noone. I tend to agree (picked one up at a shop today and it just did not feel "right"). I tried out a Houge today, and while it was better than the A2 it still didn't quite feel right in my hand. I am also familiar with the HK91A2 grips (1978 era) and have found them quite comfortable. One other style that seems to be popular is the Tango Down. I'd like to know what yall think. ;)

Okay, quick mish mash and flip job using the Steyr AUG, M900, and AR15/XRC components. Yah, I know the sights are going to be a bit high, but this is just the first stab at it, and I wanted to know what yall thought. I also know it would be a pain to use as a "conventional" bayonet rifle, still working on ideas for that, but its taking a back burner to the universal carbine/rifle/saw concept at the moment.

Heh, funny, kinda looks like the brits prototype bullpup that was going to chamber a .280 cartridge. Go figure

thanks, but I have XP Pro (which comes with office) and another hard drive, which it turns out had some of my older stuff on it. Not too much lost except game progress :D even if I can't recover the data on the fragged drive. that and I had some of my research backed up on this laptop (which I am using right now till I get my desk top back up to full capacity).

Yah, initially I had thought of using the "Bren" configuration M96 as a base line too. Even thought of using a beta C so that you wouldn't need to offset the sights. One option I was looking at was a "dual" feed...so that it could feed from either side from side mounted helicals or drums. This would solve a few problems as well as allowing the operator to use battlefield "pickups" without having the mag sticking up like a sore thumb (kinda like the old "sten" or the German paratrooper battlerifle with the side mounted mag over the pistol grip...which I can't remeber the name of right now, I think it was either the FG34 or FG42). Not only that, but the magazine might act as a partial "shield" or armor plate for the operator, making it harder to hit him fatally. Case in point, the marine that was saved by his ACOG when Jimmy Jihad actually got in what would have been a fatal headshot if the scope hadn't been there.

Another side benifit of having the mag on the top or side is making it easier to eyeball your ammo...lets you know when you are close to running dry.

Oh, just thought of another side benifit of dual ammo feeds. If you are running the rifle as a SAW, your helper can swap out the empty on one side while you are emptying the mag on the other side. Kinda iffy I know, but hey, I'm trying to think outside the box :D

>>“Just for pattern purposes (since I AM attempting to make this an "inverted bullpup") what in-line stock battle rifle or assault rifle has the best "hand holds" for this kind of combat?”

Well…despite it’s seeming to be fragile, I must say that the M-16 pattern is nice for that, thanks to the buttstock being somewhat narrow and small, easy to wrap one’s hand around the butt right where the cocking handle is: so when you go to buttstroke your enemy, you still have a good 8 inches or so of extension. It also lends to having a good ‘balance’ for swinging it around. This would likely still apply even with wpns with Telestocks…and if the plastic is strong enough, you could still do a straight tap to their head with it.

The problem with the AR-15 in general, when talking about doing this kind of move, is that you have a fair risk of bending the buffer tube, risking a fail on your weapon. I never liked that at all…but if I needed to, I’d still smack the guy anyway. You can always follow it up with the straight tap (use the rifle almost as a spear, but with the butt hitting your enemy’s head or chest, as if it were an elephant gun recoiling). Any rifle has more strength that way anyhow.

Another good one would be the AR-15 custom stock by ACE, the one with the nice neopreme cover, and the reinforcement underneath…should be plenty strong enough to really knock your enemy on his butt.

By contrast, the FN SCAR’s stock would be an example of something NOT good for this. Why? Because that big cheek piece is located right where your right hand should be grasping. But the SCAR is likely to be such an outstanding infantry rifle for everything else, I’ll forgive that design compromise.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>“On that same note, what pistol grip pattern seems to work best for all of you?”

Well…you might be surprised, but I actually like the M-16A2 grip, the stock one. It’s not bad. But more to the point, it still gives you a comfortable grip even with winter or tactical gloves on, you can still get a proper reach on the trigger. So if you have bare hands and you are doing precision shooting? When in the prone, all you have to do is don’t grip it the normal way: just snake your hand rotated downward a bit, so that your trigger finger is stretched out more straightly. As long as you still do the rest correctly, that has worked very well for me in competitions and infantry work.

But when I don’t have to wear gloves, I do also like the SAW’s grip, it feels right, somehow, and because of this many are finding it a nice replacement. It’s not huge problem with gloves, but you aren’t likely to shoot as nicely or as confidently with them on and this thicker grip.

Great feedback Zipper, thats exactly what I was looking for.
You know, I was laying there in bed after posting last night and the "glove" thing you just pointed out occured to me. I don't usually shoot with gloves on, so I tried it out barehanded (used to HK grips and wide handgun grips) while I was at the store.

There is a simple solution for the enemy seeing your ammo. First of all, its alot easier to tell in stick mags than in helicals...one of the reasons I tend to like helicals. The guy behind the gun can count ammo, while the guy up front just sees the butt end of it. Second, you use a trick that (admittedly) I saw in a video game. The BACK of the magazine has holes (like a pistol magazine) or is clear plastic while the rest is metal (the game was Republic commando and they had little LEDs in the back of the Sten type blaster magazine). The concept may have been from a blaster, but I can see how it would work with real bullets (and no LEDs ;))

Thought of an additional benifit to the "Sten" style dual magazine feed. While the CQB guys and basic infantry would probably mount one or two 50 round helicals, if you put the mounting points at the 1:30 and 10:30 positions (between the rails at the 9, 12, and 3 o'clock postions) then you could use extended 100 round cylindars for your SAW gunners. One complitcating factor would be how to feed it. A simple indexing switch which could be locked in either left or right postions, or left to alternate between magazines would work. There is something similar on a unique bullpup shotgun from South Africa which has two 6 round tube magazines mounted above the barrel. Admitedly its a pump, but I don't see any reason that the idea cannot be applied to an AR family. This would also allow ANY rifle of the same family to act as a SAW in an emergency, or feed from standard box mags or Beta C mags or smaller helicals if your SAW gunner runs out of 100rd magazines.

Okay, had a thought, and if Mr. Alexander is listening, hes welcome too it. I'd love to see it work. Had a couple of concepts running around in my head all day and figured I would throw them at yall for feed back.

Someone once suggested switching over to a "straight walled" 7.62x39 in our combat rifles. This would in effect allow us to use battlefield pickups while denying the enemy the same benifit (normal 7.62x39R would fireform in the chamber while the 7.62x39US would be too big for a 7.62x39R chamber). At the same time, I was thinking about the old "Accellerator" sabots used in the 30-06 and adapted to the .30 carbine (allowing your straight chambered carbine to fire 5.7 Johnson performance ammunition) and how those would work together.

Basically what I thought of was using a sabot in a 7.62x39US case, wrapped around a 123-140 grain 6.5 slug. In effect you would have 6.5 Grendel performance out of your standard ammo, but still be able to pick up 7.62x39 ammo off dead Tangos during a running firefight. I know there are rumors that the sabot separation may cause stability issues, but frankly, till you try it out, you won't know how it will respond. One other side benifit is you get a really good seal against the bore, and can have harder bullets without taring it up. Longer barrel life too. Just a few thoughts. Would love to test it out too ;) if only I had the time, money, and facilites to actually prototype it.

By the way, from what I heard, the reason the Acellerator ammo didn't catch on was because it offered no performance benifits over just switching over to a .25-06 rifle and the saboted ammo was more expensive.

I also heard that there were no problems with the gas system handling the sabots on the M1 Carbine. (Read it somewhere in an article, can't recall where though).

Heh, wish I had an XCR with the 7.62x39 bolt...be a good gun to run the sabot tests in.

Okay, had a little bit of an epiphany. Instead of just slapping guns together and hoping I got the scale right, I rearranged that Calico 100rd carbine pic, and stretched the mechanism by 200 percent (about the length a grendal action would be). Mind you, the calico is a roller delayed blowback, so recoil might get a little brutal, but then again, its only a grendal...its not like is M80 ball ammo in an HK91 ;)

Another line of thought just occured to me. What is the minimum peramiter envelope that the weapon would have to fill? For instance, what is the minimum length of pull that could be extrapolated (short arms and wearing body armor)? What is the maximum and minimum comfortable "line of sight" for the sights above rifle bore? What is the maximum overall width (not including designed in hand holds for bayonett/buttstroke manuvers)? What is the optimum postion for the hands for b bayonett/buttstroke CQB?

Basically I am trying to develop a 3D envelope of minimums and maxiums that the weapon would be required to fit in. Then I could "chip away" anything that isn't "gun" like a sculptor chipping away anything that isn't his sculpture.

Just to help explain my reasoning, the reason I asked for minimum length of pull, is that if I design around the smallest perameter, even a bullpup can be fitted with an adjustable stock that can me customized for bigger operators. Its easier to lengthen a gun than it is to shorten it.

Hmm, seems like nobody wanted to answer my perameters question. Well, just thought of another one. As much as I currently detest the French and thier politics, I have been reading up on the GIAT FAMAS G2 rifles. Anyone have any experiance with this type of rifle and its lever delayed blowback system? I am looking for information on reliability, simplicity, and ease of manufacture. One of the things that turned me off to the roller delay system (G3/HK91) is the fact that the rollers tend to get stuck in the out position if you get to much grit built up...does the FAMAS have the same problem?

If it works...maybe I can get rid of the gas tube all together..makes for a simpler system, and maybe more reliable.

I dunno about their version 2, but I remember hearing that the FAMAS can't use brass cased ammo: the French Army uses steel case ammo. It's because the chamber has flutes in it to ease extraction, and because the chamber isn't fully "locked" at the time of ignition...what with it being a delayed blowback and all.

Reliable with steel cases, it's tempermental and even dangerous with brass...meaning not exactly mass appeal, nor a precision tool. I hear that's a major reason why the FAMAS never was very popular in the rest of the world, despite being reliable.

Then there is the excessively heavy breach block carrier (compared to gas operated rotating bolt guns), which also travels at higher velocity to ensure cycling, which also means greatly increased recoil over competing designs.

No, I think there would be too many compromises by going that route. I think the FN SCAR is going to be a VERY hard goal to surpass!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

As for the parameters...um...wow. That's a bit too abstract for anyone not in a position to collect research data, and honestly, it would be too constraining on your creativity anyway.

Just create what you think is interesting or good, and we'll pick it appart for you! (Oops, I meant to say, offer our not-so-expert opinions! :D )

I don't see how the fluted chamber would be a problem..the G3 and its derivatives were all fluted chamber using various cartridges, including the 7.62x51 NATO, and they functioned flawlessly, not to mention the "roller locking" was really roller delayed blow back on the G3 (I OWN an HK91, the civilian version).

The FAMAS F1 and G1 had a straight 25 round mag, but the G2 used the standard NATO style "M16" (I belive its called STANG or some such) magazines. I would assume they made sure it could use brass cases...would suck to borrow a mag from another NATO trooper only to have it jam your gun, you know?

What is your opinion of the HK roller delay system in comparison to the lever delay blowback and gas operated? I know it has flaws, but it might be a good place for me to start, considering my familiarity.

Oh, and the reason I was looking for individual opinions on perameters was so I could kinda talor it for a wide veriaty of people...kinda like taking a 2x6 and whittling it down to the bare minimum.

Hmmm, I might just have to get out the wood working gear again ;)

...what is the minimum length of pull that could be extrapolated (short arms and wearing body armor)?
I think that length of pull for the M16A2 is about 12 inches, so figure maybe 9-10 inches as a guesstimate of minimum figure.
What is the maximum and minimum comfortable "line of sight" for the sights above rifle bore?
Not sure where comfort enters into it. Minimum height of sight above bore line is determined by maximum diameter of barrel and the receiver thickness. Max height is whatever the designer makes it -- the Calico is probably an example of the practical maximum, however.
What is the maximum overall width (not including designed in hand holds for bayonett/buttstroke manuvers)?
Don't know of any set maximum dimension for width, but narrower is undoubtedly better than wider.
What is the optimum postion for the hands for b bayonett/buttstroke CQB?
See the M14 rifle for an example of a design that's about optimum in configuration and balance for bayonet fighting. One soldier described the M14 -- when wielded by a strong man -- as being "as fast as a striking snake." One drawback to bullpups is that it may be impossible to build one that's well-configured for bayonet drill.

Stan

I agree that the bullpup doesn't seem to be a good platform for conventional bayonett combat, but "conventional" bayonett combat was developed back when you had one shot, and then had to use your rifle as a club or spear if the enemy was too close for you to have a chance to reload. In modern combat the bayonett is a backup weapon like your handgun. If you are in the middle of a reload and someone comes around your corner, you just do a straight jab or use the pistol grip and forstock the way you would with an old school stock to whip the butt around for a strike. Thats why I like FN's "thumbhole stock", makes the "thumb pivot" alot more feasable than a conventional pistol grip, and doesnt require you to change where grip to buttstroke the opposition (unlike the M16, which really wasn't designed for bayonetting anyway).

>>>“I don't see how the fluted chamber would be a problem..the G3 and its derivatives were all fluted chamber using various cartridges, including the 7.62x51 NATO, and they functioned flawlessly,…”


Right, but the G3 and FAMAS do NOT share the same breach delay mechanism. Which means the geometry may be different. Also the flutes may be a different shape, and may be deeper than the other. But regardless, as I understand it, the steel case requirement is a necessity for the FAMAS.

>>“I would assume they made sure it could use brass cases...would suck to borrow a mag from another NATO trooper only to have it jam your gun, you know?”

And you are assuming that France cares! LOL!

Sorry, but France follows no one. As they’d say “C’est la vie”, that’s life!

>>“What is your opinion of the HK roller delay system in comparison to the lever delay blowback and gas operated?”

Well, HK thought it was too expensive to manufacture, to compete, so they decided to join the gas/rotatingBolt club with the G36 and XM-8.

My opinion?

Not exactly ideal for many little reasons. Had more recoil than it needed. Light moving parts, means less excess energy to cycle in adverse conditions.

Not bad I guess, but having extra recoil, and extra cost, and extra manufacturing steps…kinda defeats any advantage we could think it would bring us…

I mean seriously, as good as it’s reputation is, does the roller lock’s reputation come even close to the AK’s piston/rotate system? I think not, and yet that’s the standard which you’d have to surpass, to beat the Sig550, FN SCAR, AKM, AK-101, Valmet and so on.

But onward and upward to your specs:

>>>“..what is the minimum length of pull that could be extrapolated (short arms and wearing body armor)?

Adjustable pull on the stock, it’s the only way.

>>>“What is the maximum and minimum comfortable "line of sight" for the sights above rifle bore?”

This is going to be a problem, since so many operators are using red dot sights from different competing manufacturers, each with their own height. Consider the ACOG, the Aimpoint, and the EOTech, plus the iron backup sights.

>>>“What is the maximum overall width (not including designed in hand holds for bayonett/buttstroke manuvers)?”

other than bayonet drills, …there shouldn’t be any width requirements. Unless you want to include requirements for bodyguard concealed close protection…which would make a popular product if it works as advertised.

The reason I was looking at minimum pull was to develop the bullpup with an adjustable stock/cheek rest similar to the Troy SOPMOD M14 stock. It wonldn't need to adjust as much, but each individual could use simple tools to adjust thier stock to fit them...or even have it like some of the adjustable M16/AR15 stocks I have seen with a "geared track" adjustment system. That way you could have absolute minimum length (storage, CQB, short arms with body armor, etc.) while being able to fit the gun to those of us with long arms that don't wear body armor on a regular basis.

I agree that the bullpup doesn't seem to be a good platform for conventional bayonett combat, but "conventional" bayonett combat was developed back when you had one shot, and then had to use your rifle as a club or spear if the enemy was too close for you to have a chance to reload. In modern combat the bayonett is a backup weapon like your handgun.
Bullpups are not only not good for bayonet fighting, they are downright worthless. I used to have a video showing British troops engaging in bayonet drill with their L85 bullpup. Totally ludicrous. The short length is easily overmatched by even an AK47, and leverage for a buttstroke is nil. Even a simple thrust cannot be done with much force.

But it's pretty much irrelevant, anyway. Unlike a handgun, the bayonet is of little value as a backup weapon. It is probably only used for such tasks as opening cases of MREs. There are scores of photos on DoD, US Army, and USMC web sites that show M14 and M16 rifles (and M4 carbines, too) in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I have yet to see so much as a single photo showing a fixed bayonet.

Stan

True 'nuf Stan, but I would still like to have that pig sticker on the end of my rifle, "just in case". Besides, the L85 wasn't exactly the most...impressive example of an assault rifle OR a bullpup...and the stock had about all the ergonomics of a 2x4.

Even the G11 was developed to use a bayonett, and (aside from the rotating chamber and top mounted magazine) was a bull pup design. I see more advanced designs as having the bayonett mainly as point defense, and I think the designers had it in mind that your hand should NEVER leave the pistol grip. I know the FAMAS was designed with a bayonett in mind (again, thats the french), don't know about the F2000, TAVOR, or any of the current crop of bullpup rifles.

Anyone know what kind of rifle was used by that Scottish unit that got ambushed and pulled a bayonett charge to burst the trap?

...the L85 wasn't exactly the most...impressive example of an assault rifle OR a bullpup...and the stock had about all the ergonomics of a 2x4.
I agree. But, the overall length, balance, and basic configuration are pretty much the same as other bullpups currently in service, so the bayonet fighting capability would be little or no different.
Even the G11 was developed to use a bayonett...[and] the FAMAS was designed with a bayonett in mind...
Yes, but that's because of military tradition, not because the bayonet is truly usable on a bullpup. If I recall correctly, even the UZI submachine gun has a bayonet lug. :rolleyes:
I see more advanced designs as having the bayonett mainly as point defense...
Very punny. :)

i personally think bayonetts are worthless, but i have read on lightfighter that people in iraq are useing them to move crowds that otherwise wern't moving along fast enough. for some reason a sharp pointy thing on the end of a gun tends to get folks attention.

it would be interesting if you could make a folding locking bayonett, just to keep size down

Yah, having a big metal "goad" comes in handy

I was actually thinking of a flip out, or slide out, "spring loaded" bayonett. It was kindof a box office flop, but Kurt Russel's movie "Soldier" featured a dual bladed design that slid out of the "heat shield" style guard around the muzzle. Another example would be the "switch blade" design from Macross Plus (an anime...though that was for giant robots to use on...giants."

Another popular design might be similar to the design on the SKS which could be used as a monopod in a pinch. Maybe a dual system that could double as a Bipod? Sounds like overdoing it, but hey, thinkin outside the box.

no i mean like a big pocket knife. people could use it as a utility knife 99.9% of the time and keep it stowed away until they need it. might not cut down on wieght but would cut down on space. i think a permanatly attatched bayonette would add wieght to the rifle that would be pretty much useless except under very specific cercumstances. maybe if you could make a duel purpose cleaning rod/spike bayonette, you might be able to justify keeping it on the rifle permanatly. just a thought.

unfortunately, as has been stated elsewhere, bayontts that have been designed as "utility knives" rarely do either well. One of the best "modern" designs for a rifle stowed bayonett, has been the pivot mount on the sks. It CAN be detached for use as a pick, or hand blade, but it is primarily used to turn a rifle into an adhoc spear. and with a sharp, hard point it would be capable of punching through cloth body armor.
Also it can be used as a monopod.

Okay, while not quite what I had in mind, the current incarnation of the ARES Shrike, has alot of things going for it.
Belt feed AND magazine feed.
Capability to be configured in a variaty of roles from CAR to SAW.
7 and a half lbs in SAW/AMG configuration (compared to the M249/Minimi at 16.5 lbs).
Capable of accepting all current and future M16 add ons including the M203 Picitinny mount (Hmm, the new HK side loader would look good there too) and uses unmodified (and ARES special designed) AR15/M16 lowers.

Only one thing would make it better...bull pup with a bottom eject to keep the length even shorter...but thats my personal preference. It even uses gas tappet system instead of the direct impingement system so its more reliable for "waterborne" ops.

Hmmm, maybe if I can figure out a way to get rid of the buffer tube and cant the mechanism about 45 to 90 degrees clockwise. Only problem is, it would put the belt feed near your face...thoughts thoughts thoughts :D

Is the Ares closed bolt, or open bolt design? I can't remember...not sure if I ever knew...though I suspect it's a closed bolt due to the lower receiver. Anyone know for sure?

Either way, have you guys seen the second version of the FN SCAR? It's now in tan color plastic and aluminum, the lower receiver seems to be a forged aluminum bit, it now has a redesigned buttstock (not much change, but there is a change for your support hand when in prone with bipod) and the biggest thing of all, is the pistol grip is now the same as that of the M-16/AR-15. I'm guessing this last change is an operator request due to the fact that they usually wear gloves, and when you add the thickness of the gloves to a thick grip...you no longer have a good purchase on a wpn.

They have a closed AND an open bolt versions as per the SOF article. Personally, with reliable closed bolt systems, I don't see why anyone would want open bolt anymore...but thats just me.

The SCAR is a nice rig...but I would rather have something american made if it will do the same thing. The SCAR also doesn't have a belt feed option or the quick change barrel system if I am not mistaken. Also, most if not all soldiers are used to the ergonomics of the AR15/M16. I'm really suprised that the SCAR doesn't maintain the control ergonomics of the safty/selector and other controlls (besides the charging handle of course).

I would still rather have a bullpup system that ejected out the bottom...maybe something with a magazine feed from one side, and a belt from the other with a catch bag or "chute" underneath to controll brass dumping a little more. Hmmmm, do bad the weight of a linkless feed system would be prohibative, have it recover the spent shells in the same space as the live ones took up kinda like the Warthog's cannon magazine does. No brass left to slip on, and for covert ops, minimizes the phyisical evidence and still gives you full auto capability.

>>“The SCAR is a nice rig...but I would rather have something american made if it will do the same thing.”

Huh?

Um, the SCAR is at LEAST as American as the XM-8 is, and I’d argue it’s MORE American. It was designed in America, for American troops, for production in EXISTING American factories that already make American FN parts.

Due to my personal experiences, I have far more faith in FN putting together a quality wpn an infantryman can depend on, than I do in HK. So HK made the MP-5, G-3 and G-36? Big deal I say: FN made the outstanding FAL, MAG-58 (you know it as the M-240G, others as the L7A1 or C-6), the M-249 SAW, Browning 50cal M2 and M3, the Browning Hipower, had licence to manufacture UZI’s for the European market when no one else could make them (today that’s changed). With a pedigree like that, HK is facing some stiff competition, despite it’s “reputation”.

But then I have to factor in the perhaps 100 thousand rounds of ammo that I’ve shot through FN products over my decade in the Canadian military…and then for me it’s simply no contest at all. HK makes a good product, there’s no question of that. But IMO FN is much more oriented to the demands of war, the demands that are placed on weapons of war.







>>“The SCAR also doesn't have a belt feed option or the quick change barrel system if I am not mistaken.”

I’d love the belt feed, but I’m not yet convinced the Ares will be dependable enough…making a belt feed mechanism operate reliably to military standards…is not an easy thing at the best of times, but it’s even more so with such an unusual mechanism. Colt tried such a belt feed with a very similar mechanism, and they abandoned it despite the call for more firepower from the M-16 during the Vietnam war…and thus far no big military contractor has tried to duplicate such efforts since.




>>“Also, most if not all soldiers are used to the ergonomics of the AR15/M16. I'm really suprised that the SCAR doesn't maintain the control ergonomics of the safty/selector and other controlls (besides the charging handle of course).”

What? It’s nearly the same, only improved quite a lot!

Heck, even the pistol grip is the same! But the fact that this one will be 100% ambidextrous in the middle of a firefight, that’s BIG, that’s very important to ‘operators’ due to CQB needs for cutting the pie.

Moveable cheekpiece great. Telescoping stock for kevlar vests, awsome. Side folding for vehicles and ultra CQB…WITH the kevlar vest?!! Can’t ask for better IMO.

AK-47 style bolt carrier and bolt, out frikken standing. Both sides cocking handle good. Bolt hold open, good but common on western weapons…but this is arguably a first for an AK-47 style of action. Free float barrel, quick change barrel.

Honestly, I think in the end the FN SCAR will be worth it’s weight in gold, though the proof will have to wait...

Got a link for the latest SCAR incarnations?

Just this:

http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=751

Z, the FN SCAR, though similar to the FNC, does not use an "AK-47 style bolt carrier and bolt." They've modified it to use a short-stroke system and an AR-style bolt.

I like the placement of the charging handle better than the XM8, although, unlike the XM8, it's not completely ambidextrous. You can set it up for right or left, but I don't think they intend to have charging handles on both left and right sides of the receiver at the same time.

And because I consider the XM8 magazine and bolt release controls to be ideally ambidextrous and operable by either a left or right trigger finger, I'm a little disappointed that the SCAR follows the "old" AR layout. [EDIT TO CORRECT: The mag release is ambidextrous, though it's still in the same position as the AR. Determined by the use of existing magazines, of course.]

I am very excited to see whether all these new developments truly deliver increased reliability under field conditions in all seasons. If not, I will consider all the various programs to have been pointless. (Well, OK, there is that other issue I have about switching to an ideal assault rifle cartridge. ;))

John

Thats one of the reasons I like the XCR. It keeps the placement of the controlls (except for the bolt release and the charging handle) in all the same places as the AR, but also gives you the ambidexterous option on most of them as well. Only the charging handle is not Ambidexterous capable, but they also moved the bolt release to forward to the trigger guard where it can be actuated by the trigger finger while the other hand is moving back into position on the forestock/foregrip.

>>“Z, the FN SCAR, though similar to the FNC, does not use an "AK-47 style bolt carrier and bolt." They've modified it to use a short-stroke system and an AR-style bolt.”

Short stroke yes…but this business of an AR type of bolt, I’ve never heard of that before. Have you confirmed this?

I ask because the SCAR is basically a much modified FNC…and the FNC I’ve handled, well when I took it apart it reminded me right away of the AK-47 and M-249 SAW bolts (the ‘249 being specifically designed by FN as a direct copy of the AK-47, on purpose).

The second reason I ask, is because FN has a very tight lid on specifics about it.

The Small Arms Review (http://www.smallarmsreview.com/) article on the SCAR was done with the full blessing of FN. They even allowed photos of the rifle's component parts. The bolt is definitely not from a FNC.

For additional viewing pleasure check out the recent briefing from NDIA's 2005 International Infantry & Joint Services Small Arms Systems Annual Symposium, Exhibition and Firing Demonstration.

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2005smallarms/thursday/smith.pdf

BTW: There are several other briefings worth reading from the same conference:

Be warned, most of the briefings are not dial-up friendly.

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2005smallarms/2005smallarms.html

Thanks DW! Very nice presentation.

Cool,

Notice on pg 9 how the system is modular so that the M79 part can be fired by itself? Remember us discussing this like 4-5 months ago? Hey, we ain't so dumb after all ! :D

Great minds think alike....or at least know a good enough idea to copy ;)

Have a suggestion/brain storm. Instead of trying to get the 25mm part of the OICW to work with an AR style lower as is, take your standard AR and replace the stock with a Milkor MGL-140 with the barrel running long the top of the AR like the 25mm gun was supposed to. The ammo "cylindar" would take up the "dead space" of the stock. Of course it would have to be an AR without a buffer tube, but the SCAR, XCR and XM8 all fit that description, then add the fire control systems that FN and others have been playing with. It gets you an OICW with proven technology alot faster. Then you start scaling the rounds down.
Only problem is that the total weight would be somewhere around 20 to 25 lbs. Hmmm, maybe use a 3 round removable cylindar, and some of those light weight barrel tubes being developed for the "light" morters to cut the weight down.
Anyway, just throwing it out there. I think Grenadeers would love it. Especially with a full power grendel shorty mounted under it.

Why not just keep it simple, and the grenadiers can carry their own M-4's slung, but have the full size MGL at the ready? :D

We could improve upon the existing "buckshot" rounds for it, for urban combat, imagine a semi-auto combat shotgun of 40mm that shoots 6 shots rapidly? :eek:

And when the enemy hides behind a wall, haul out the "hellfire" rounds to punch through! :D

Heck, after that AA12 demo vid I saw, might want one of those instead. Especially for close quarters. 40mm will still be king of portable grenade launchers, because no matter how effective and small you make the grenades, you can still apply the same technology to the 40mm and get more bang for your buck. Mind you, I would still like to see a 25 or 30mm stream lined projectile with a rotating band and the same or similar internal volume as a standard 40mm HEDP round. Get a flatter trajectory and better range maybe?

Has anyone got any of the reliability information on the FN F2000's ejection system? If its as reliable as most FN gear, it would solve the bullpup ejection problem.

Then all we need to do is rechamber it for grendel ;)

But the 40mm can't be fired on full-auto, so if you miss with the first "bloop" UR screwed! Kind of like that scene in BlackHawk Down. For the MK19 I agree, but for handheld, the 12 gauge is great.


That FN2000 is sweet, and definitely needs to get itself Grendelized. I still think for MOUT the pill squirter should just be fed from a 2-3 wide stagger clip from the top and mounted atop the AA12.
The FRAG-12 has a 200 meter range... and with a 20box mag who needs a pill-squirter? :D

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_AA12,,00.html
http://www.defensereview.com/1_31_2004/FRAG%2012.pdf

... now if they can just get that HellHound shrunk down to this size... :cool: This is everything the M203 ever hoped it could be, but in full auto. Just one in a squad would make a huge difference in MOUT...or holding off a charge... like Charlie comming through the wire.

Oh yah, along the F2000 vein, is there anyone I could send one too to get it rechambered for grendel? Thinking about getting one of the FS2000's when it comes out instead of an XCR or AR variant.

Wonder how much of the F2000's guts are related to the SCAR... :D

Oh, and How about attaching one of those neat LSS Straight pull shotguns instead of the 40mm...with the HEAP rounds or something like them...hmmmmmmmmm :D

>>"But the 40mm can't be fired on full-auto, so if you miss with the first "bloop" UR screwed! Kind of like that scene in BlackHawk Down. For the MK19 I agree, but for handheld, the 12 gauge is great."<<

What?

The MGL from South Africa, is a 6 shot 40mm grenade launcher. It fires in semi-auto, and you can fire all six shots easily in about 4 seconds. The latest version includes ability to fire longer than standard length 40mm loads, so that the new "hellfire" rounds can be used.

http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=749

Frankly, I'd rather use an MGL than a shotgun.

Look at the weight comparison. If you can get the weight down to around the LSS (not counting the ammo of course) then I can see the MGL being a possibility (especially Milkor's version). The problem is you are slapping two 8 lbs devices together. Thats 16 lbs EMPTY. Thats a leeeeettle on the heavy side. Of course its lighter than the "Oink" (OICW) but hey, whos counting ;)

Its pretty bulky for something that only gives you 6 shots. It doesn't have the range of the MK-19, so other than as HellHound launcher what RU going to do with it you can't get done just as well with a 12 gauge? Its hard for me to imagine a MOUT scenario where the larger charge of the 40mm would produce a significant advantage - except for breeching a door with a HellHound. Btw, you may remember us talking about a SLO round I had drempt up for my book, SuperLargeOrdinance, and the HellHound is exactly that. Using the new explosive gives it about 130% of std punch and it has like 88 vs 44 grams of explosive, for a total up-punch of 2.6x the normal round. It makes more sense to me to have every assault rifle used in MOUT mount an M203 than have one guy with a Milkor banging into his thigh all day long like a coffee can full of sand. Ouch!

The thing is, before you pull the trigger on a 40mm you need time to set up the shot because you are only going to get 1 before having to pull the gun back on target or reload and it does enough damage you need to know where the thing is going. This is not true for a wall of 00 buckshot. In fact, for a PDW for MOUT deployed vehicles the AA-12 is about perfect. Tons of supressive fire and its MOUT so who cares about range. This is NOT true for aircraft, which if they end up in MOUT are so FUBAR the pilot is dead anyway. Here I would favor something like the FN2000 in Grendel - ala the surviving pilot in BlackHawk Down who was holding off the skinnies until help arrived. Yeah, sometimes they survive, but most aircraft go down in remote areas where if the enemy closes you are fukt.

Maybe we are going about this the wrong way. How about a DGLMG to take care of the squad's grenade launching MG needs? Take the AA12 and mount about a 7-10 inch barrlled M203 under it. Call that guy private PAIN :cool:


PS: This looks to have better ergonomics than the Milkor... http://www.americandefensesystems.net/afj08-04e.htm

http://firearms.smith-wesson.com/page/p2pl/AirLite_Sc.html
http://www.weareguns.com/smiairwghts.html
http://www.eastonbike.com/downloadable_files/r&d_files/R&D-03%20Scandium.pdf
http://doc.tms.org/ezMerchant/prodtms.nsf/ProductLookupItemID/JOM-0302-35/$FILE/JOM-0302-35F.pdf?OpenElement
http://www.mse.berkeley.edu/classes/matsci102/F01reports/albats.pdf
http://www.home.no/al-sc/papers/Scandium%20in%20Aluminium%20Alloys%20-%20International%20Materials%20Reviews.pdf

One wonders what this technology would do for an assault rifle...

Note that the S&W pistol barrel is made of the alloy and simply lined with stainless. One wonders how such a barrel wrapped in carbon fiber would fare. DMR 32" barrels with flash-supressors for the weight of CQB M4s? Make mine a bullpup!


25.6 oz 3 1/2" 7+1 .40 S&W ... not bad!
:D

>>The problem is you are slapping two 8 lbs devices together.”

You are, I’m not. I don’t want to put the MGL on, beside or under a rifle. I didn’t like that for the OICW, and I don’t like it for a heavy 40mm either. A light 40mm is just fine though, M203 style.

A carbine would be carried as a backup, but not bolted to a heavy grenade system.

>>>“PS: This looks to have better ergonomics than the Milkor... http://www.americandefensesystems.net/afj08-04e.htm”<<<

At 17 pounds, and a massive amount of recoil?! Um, no thanks. Get back to us when the weight is down near 11 and the recoil isn’t any more than a 3inch magnum shotty.

Remember, because this is a grenade system, he’s still gonna have to carry a carbine separately.

>>>“Its hard for me to imagine a MOUT scenario where the larger charge of the 40mm would produce a significant advantage”<<<

Well I’ve no problem seeing the advantage: the ability to launch larger than average 40mm grenades, meaning far more explosives. Remember, the problem with bomb size is that the effect is greatly reduced by halfing the size of the bomb. But when you half the diameter, your actual volume is even smaller than that. Face it, that’s why the OICW’s first version failed outright: 20mm was clearly not anywhere NEAR enough to do anything but deafen your enemy. Going to 25mm isn’t going to be much of an improvement, I’d bet in the real world it’s radius of INJURING an enemy won’t be more than 2 meters, maybe even less. But the Hellhound, with it’s larger payload guarantees a radius of 10 meters. That starts to have an effect.

>>>“The thing is, before you pull the trigger on a 40mm you need time to set up the shot…”<<<

That’ll be true of any grenade system: the trajectories are so arced that even the flattest shooting shoulder fired 25mm is gonna need to be aimed for drop. But where the MGL can have the operator quickly put a second one on target, the ‘203 gunner already needs to be reloading. Oh, BTW there’s basically no recoil on the MGL, there’s not really any “pulling onto target” needed at all.


>>“In fact, for a PDW for MOUT deployed vehicles the AA-12 is about perfect.”

What? A PDW is a replacement for a handgun, something small that can be worn 24/7, something strapped to a tank driver…not a large bulky CQB weapon.



As for the notion of putting a grenade launcher on every weapon, that’s a good idea, a good alternative to the MGL, possibly a superior idea. I dunno which is cheaper though: 6 M203 style tubes, or 1 MGL… (note that it’s 6 tubes, not 8, because you have two LMG/SAW gunners who can’t launch grenades). It does however increase the load that



>>“Take the AA12 and mount about a 7-10 inch barrlled M203 under it. Call that guy private PAIN”

Ah, now THAT I do like! :D

Hey if the Shrike works, even your SAW gunner could have a grenade tube :D

If the explosive 12 ga rounds work, I would recommend having a mix of LSS with HEAP and frag rounds, and 40mm rounds in the unit.

Waitaminute...I seem to remeber a movie where the ARs all had pump action grenade launchers...

to quote one of my fav lines from it "Lets ROOOOOOOOCK"

Why not take a 10 round 30mm IGLS grenade launcher, remove the stock and sick that under the front barrel?

how heavy is it?

In studying combat one of the things that appears to me is happening is that individuals, when given the tools to respond to their individual 5 senses, process that in the context of prior experience informed by recent or very recent experience and their current situational awareness, are MUCH better able to address threats than when they are forced to fight in teams where any action requires a concensus. This was once again borne out in reading GENERATION KILL, where the USMC recon platoon were constantly stopping and losing the momentum when higher level support or decision-making was given precedence. Typically these were go-nogo decision or commitment of divisional or brigade arty assets, etc, When the men were in situations where they were in the thick of a fight and just reacting based on their own training and experience they got almost all of the fighting done and did so in a VERY lopsided fashion. This was of course part of the inspiration for the PAV, give men in 2s and 3s massive firepower and mobility and the tools to coordinate easily with other such teams and then turn them loose to raise hell and fight like demons.

The idea then for each soldier to have his own M203 instead of a single Milkor is just that 5 sets of eyes, ears, noses and brains spread out over more area are better able to respond than a single resevour of firepower. This is also the idea of 5 guys implementing a zoned defense (using 2 PAVs perhaps) vs one guy in the turrent of a BFV trying to make one-big-gun do it all. Nobody can be everywhere, doing, watching, and responding to everything at once, and no one can think as fast nor process as much sensory input as 5 guys can. Its also a lot easier for a sniper to kill the BVF commander and render the entire asset useless than kill 5 guys. To be more specific though, I think each guy's individual M203 should be seen as primarily a defensive, quick-reaction weapon, or perhaps used in a well-planned offensive maneuver.

By contrast I would see the AA12/M203 over/under as primarily an offensive weapon used to initiate offensive maneuvers. The HellHound blasts down the door, followed by a spray of Fang-12s to follow up, whereupon the runners jump through the shattered door keeping their M203's in reserve for any surviving threats while Pvt PAIN reloads another box of 20 FRAG-12s. It wouldn't hurt to have a couple of StarShips mounting twin Mk-19s pouring 1,400 rpm into the 2nd and 3rd story windows at the same instant that Pvt PAIN lets loose. Jj has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The only caveat would be, DON'T COLLASPE THE BUILDING INTO RUBBLE. Rubble is MUCH better cover than a structure as it is much denser and cannot collaspe having already done so - or if you are going to collaspe it you better plan on setting up camp and owning it so Jimmy Jihad can't reinfiltrate and use it for cover.

ATK has a reserach project going on to improve rather dramatically the 30mm full power round used by the Apache gunship. Perhaps we should take a look and compare it to the MK-19 grenade's performance. I don't see any reason, given what has already been done in the 19mm footprint of the 12 gauge shotgun, why a longer 30mm could not be as capable as the 40mm. Beyond that, assuming a FRAG-12 weights 1/4th as much as the HellHound it would seem to go against the almost universal trend in weapons to deploy sub-munitions. The 120mm CARGO round uses 32 of the M80 sub-munitions employed by the MLRS DPICM "steel rain" rocket. The physics driving this trend towards sub-munitions is simply that blast-waves and shrapnel loose force with the square of the distance from the round's explosion. In other words, free-air is a poor trasmission medium for blastwaves so it is better to chop up the big munition into smaller parts, spread them evenly and have them saturate an area. Applied to personal GLMG weapons this would seem to favor the FRAG-12 at a weight factor of about 4:1 over the HellHound - again, except for applications when you need the full power of the HellHound to get a job like breeching a door done. Is there any advantage when engaging infantry to having one big bang that splatters him 30 feet wide instead of 4 smaller ones that can be fired from an AA12 in a sweep and splatter personnel 5 feet wide? Wouldn't using a HellHound to engage infantry be pointless overmatch like using a M2 to engage infantry at close range?

I might also point out that whether using the vehicle armor of a PAV or the soon to be fielded full-body armor, armor frees one to use GLMGs in MOUT more liberaly as the consequences of having one richochette and land nearby are greatly diminished. I'd also point out that the theoretical advantage of the 30 vs 40mm would be a longer range and flatter trajectory. Only the latter would be useful in MOUT, with the caveat that it would have more of a richochette potential and this might offset the advantage of precision. There have been complaints about the MK-19's trajectory putting it through power lines and such and resulting in pre-mature detonation with blue-on-blue consequences. My guess is that for M203 type weapons there would be no way to justify the cost of a new weapon system and little to no advantage in effectiveness if it was developed. I don't think this is true of a MK-19 replacement where extra range and accuracy would be welcome.

I could see the AA12 used as a PDW if carried like a police squad car carries its shotgun, verticle between the seats or facing forward on gun racks between driver and passenger - perhaps on either side of a nice thick piece of ballistic glass to stop anyone from being able to take down the entire vehicle from one side. I'm thinking of HumVee and HEMTT convoy drivers here. A wall of 00 Buck will keep any group of 10-30 guys thinking about continuing a charge. Once you have broken their momentum and can get some inititive you can do a pretty good job with an assault rifle from within some kind of defensive perimeter. This is what happened with Jessica Lynch's group. One guy got his M-16 to work well enough to keep killing the mortar team that was trying to engage the rest of the group and allowed them to set up some kind of defense. If they had a bunch of M203s with HellHounds and a couple-three AA12s configured as suggested, they would probably have broken out of the ambush entirely and gotten to saftey.

Actually, the AA12 fills the same niche that the assault rifle does, but instead of shooting out a "stream" of bullets, it "burps" bullets in clusters. The only difference is ammo size and long range capability. On the otherhand an AA12 or LSS loaded with frag-12 or "heap"-12 ammo might be very handy in support of the guys with the 40 or 30mm GL. While the 40mm (and possibly the 30mm) take special training, the LSS is basically just a good old fasioned shotgun, which every grunt probably knows how to use..or at least can use very intuitively. Point at bad guy, and pull trigger, as opposed to "elevate barrel, point in general direction, compensate for wind drift and target movement, and fire, reload, and repeat as nessicary."

Maybe its just me, but I'm rather skeptical about the FRAG-12. Due to the size constraints, you really can't expect to pack any decent amount of high explosive into such a small projectile. Remember that even that the marginally wider and longer 20mm OICW projectiles were considered to be inadequate.

Dan,

A little skepticism is warrented, but there are some strong indications that the FRAG-12 is for real. First, the USMC is intensively testing the FRAG-12 and the only modification they have asked the mfg for is to allow it to work with chokes. Not only the Army, but also the AirForce has developed a new generation of explosives that are significantly more powerful than what has been used before. I would also point out that the Raufoss rounds use MUCH less explosive charge and they are very effective at causing both fragmentation and incindeary effects.

Certainly if you just filled the shell body with C4 and used a simple primer and inertial detonator you'd have a lot of punch. How much does a 12 gauge shell filled with PlayDoh weigh? 8,12,16 oz? Do you need the wadding if you are launching a C4 slug? Detonated inside of a car - confined space - that would be pretty devastating. Sooo... I think its possible that is is for real and will proove to be quite effective. Also, if it weren't, it seems unlikely they would go on to develop additional derrivatives. If version A doesn't work yet, why go on to develop versions B,C and D?

Finally, in spite of its big-budget development programs, ATK has not distinguished itself in being able to develop anything. The tiny MEI company developed both the HellHound and HuntIR rounds and ATK has NOT been able to develop either the upgraded 30mm Apache round, OCSW nor an acceptable XM-109 round, so the fact that this Boeing, fat, slow and happy company has not been able to get something like this developed is not a good indicator of what is possible.

This is a bit of an aside, but looking at ATKs presentations of their developments I see a company that is obsessed with analyzing everything to death, NASA style, (a very bad effect of Boeing bidding on gov't contracts for decades now) and very little of just going out and trying stuff to see if it works. One of my favorite engineers is Burt Rutan, who is the greatest aeronautical engineer alive imho. Burt almost single-handedly pioneered computational fluid dynamics in developing small aircraft, but he has always believed it is more efficient to get a rough working model built and then go test it because you can learn more from making mistakes than running endless computer simulations.

I wrote very complex mathematical and statistical simulation software for decades, and spent a lot of time building prototypes so the small army of mathematicians, statisticians, OR, finance, physicists etc could get a peek at what lay ahead and then make quick adjustments. I came to see my role as the builder of an atom smasher - allowing the scientists to pick their way from theory to theory as directed experimentation slowly pushed back the veil of ignorance. At the cutting edge of finance there are problems that are so complex it would require as many supercomputers as there are gains of sand on earth to solve them. One therefore has to use simplifications in building models to inform the process as to where cutting corners matters and where it is only theoretically objectionable. The point being that in my experience the approach Rutan and I and the Israelis use is massively more efficient than the very laborious approach ATK & Boeing use. Because the Clinton Administration actually paid the many defense contractors to merge themselves out of existence what we are now left with is a military-industrial complex that is utterly devoid of creativity and solves problems in the most risk-averse and therefore least cost effective way. It will be interesting to see if EITHER the FRAG-12 or HellHound live up to their billings.

PS: I have been boning up on armor plating and Brinell hardness and now believe that the 4" penetration in soft steel claimed by the HellHound is likely only about an inch or so against good face-hardened armor plate. I also did some checking around and found US made armor for sale which claimed to be face hardened with a Brinell hardness of 260, which is complete nonsense. Good face-hardened armor on WW-II German tanks was in the 590-630 range, diminished with thickness (another good reason to pin and glue thin sheets together instead of using a single thicker sheet - no propagation of molecular cracking either) and degraded steadily after 1943 down to the 260 range, which was considered by the west to be mild steel, not face-hardened RHA at all.


... let me see if I can find the URL on armor back.... brb

http://www.mgmtargets.com/hardness.htm

This is a fantastic source of information well worth reading exhaustively... http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/introduction.html#Armour_Hardness_and_Quality
http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/german_hardness_veh.html ... note #10 for Brinell hardness specs > 600.

You need to remember that the average shotgun slug is only one ounce. I have seen reference to one as heavy as 1.37 oz. 3" lead shot loadings can run near 2 ozs; however, you have to factor in the fact that lead is heavier than steel and even more so than explosive filler.

P.S.: ATK is not part of Boeing.

ATK used to be part of Boeing, they were spun off. The corporate culture hasn't seemed to change much since their departure.

Tnx for the data on the shotgun fill. Wasn't too sure about the weight. Chuck Hawks says 1.125, so it sounds like you have the right number there. That is about 30 grams. The HellHound has twice the normal charge of 44 grams, but of course we would have to remove the wadding to get close to that weight for a 12 gauge and that would likely put the weight somewhere between 3 and 4 to one for the 12 gauge vs HellHound rounds. The FRAG-12 is supposed to penetrate 1/2" (12.7mm) of RHA....now if someone would just put a Brinell number on that RHA we'd have some idea what the performance really was. :rolleyes:

ATK used to be part of Boeing, they were spun off. The corporate culture hasn't seemed to change much since their departure.

Tnx for the data on the shotgun fill. Wasn't too sure about the weight. Chuck Hawks says 1.125, so it sounds like you have the right number there. That is about 30 grams. The HellHound has twice the normal charge of 44 grams, but of course we would have to remove the wadding to get close to that weight for a 12 gauge and that would likely put the weight somewhere between 3 and 4 to one for the 12 gauge vs HellHound rounds. The FRAG-12 is supposed to penetrate 1/2" (12.7mm) of RHA....now if someone would just put a Brinell number on that RHA we'd have some idea what the performance really was. :rolleyes:

You are confusing the explosive fill weight with projectile weight. A standard 40x46mm HEDP projectile weighs around 180 grams; ~45 grams of this is explosive fill. In this example, the explosive is only a quarter of the projectile weight. The rest is the body, fragments, and fuse. The Hellhound lists its weight at 225 grams which is just about the same as a complete standard 40x46mm HEDP round. Assuming equal projectile weights, the explosive fill would work out to be just under half the projectile's weight. In order to double the explosive fill, they had to extend the length of the projectile, which increases the weight of the body. To offset the two, they probably needed to reduce the size of the fuse and/or the amount of fragments.

However, there is really no room for growth in a 3" shotshell hull. The complete round has to be three inches or less in order to chamber. In addition, you really can't increase projectile weight by much without stressing the mechanism. Any increase would have to be accompanied by a decrease in velocity and thus a loss in range. The before mentioned ~2 ounce limit works out to around 56.7 grams. Remember that per unit of volume, steel weighs less than lead, and explosive filler weighs much less than steel. You really can't expect that a HE-Frag round weighing two ounces will even fit in a 3" hull. Even if one assumes that it could and that the ratio of fill weight to projectile weight remains constant, the fill weight would be at best ~28 grams, but more likely less.

P.S.: Actually, ATK was spun off from Honeywell in 1990. However, they did buy Boeing's Ordnance Division (mainly the Chain Gun line) back in 2002.

>>"You are confusing the explosive fill weight with projectile weight."<<

That's what I'm thinking too.


Anyway, 28 grams explosives...Vs. 225 grams, I know which one I'd want, crawlin' round the Sunni triangle. Combat shotguns should maximise on what they do best: an instantaneous "burst", throw the buckshot. Foolling with explosive shotshells, with unproven fusing systems is at best a wash, at worst a safety hazard.

Besides, with the smoothbore 12, your tiny Frag-12 may even be limited to just 100m max effective range, give or take 25m. The 40 is at least rifled, and can take out enemies out to 350m.

MECHANICAL SOLUTIONS, INC.
1719 Rt. 10 East, Suite 305
Parsippany, NJ 07054
Phone:
PI:
Topic#: (973) 326-9920
William D. Marscher
SOCOM 05-002 Selected for Award
Title: Door Breaching Ammunition
Abstract: United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) currently has identified a need to develop improved door breaching capabilities. In response, Mechanical Solutions, Inc. (MSI) has conceived a novel, non-lethal, door-breaching munition. This 12-gauge shotgun round would contain magnetic powder and small, strategically positioned magnets. The powder would approximate a solid projectile upon firing because of the magnetic forces acting on it, but would then disperse rapidly after transferring its energy while removing targeted door hardware. MSI's concept offers improved kinetic energy potential versus similar designs without generating large fragments of matter, dramatically improving the safety of the shooter and of those on the opposite side of the door. MSI is confident that it can successfully construct such a munition, having recently conducted substantial research on prototype non-lethal munitions that used magnetic technologies. MSI has assembled an outstanding team of munitions consultants along with its seasoned staff of engineers, in order to ensure successful implementation of this important and timely project.

PS: I have been boning up on armor plating and Brinell hardness and now believe that the 4" penetration in soft steel claimed by the HellHound is likely only about an inch or so against good face-hardened armor plate.

I'm not too keen on the hellhound, especially when the same guys make a TB version (with an externally grooved frag jacket and a PIBD/shaped charge setup (With a TB fill? Why???), and then go on to reccommend it be used outdoors and the other indoors), but with regard to your comment, hardness doesn't make much difference to a shaped charge. Other things can, but there's almost no way that hardening steel is going to cut SC penetration by anything remotely like 4x. Density matters much more.
Their camera round looks kinda neat, though. It must cost at least $100/rd, but it's an interesting use of really common technology.
Also, it wouldn't be compatible with most repeating shotguns, but what about a very long, heavy, reduced velocity (normal impulse) HE 12Ga round? I notice the APERS rounds for the RPG-7 use long cylindrical warheads, so it should be effective. Would a tilt-down cluster of four 12Ga barrels have any advantage in place of a single 40mm barrel?
In general on this topic, I've been thinking one "ideal" weapon for close range combat could be something like a 20-25mm shotgun, basically the OICW/2 with more ammo capacity, which could fire KE ammo without massive parasitic losses from sabots or lowered velocity and also fire reasonably sized HE rounds. A full power 12Ga load could become a 23mm minishell. I think the Russians already have a pump-action 40mm.

The US developed a pump 40mm during Vietnam. The regular ammo chambered fine, but the shot shells kept hanging up because of the shortened profile and no round nose to ease feeding.

I seem to recall the russians also have a 10 or 8 ga. shotgun or something like that designed specifically as a "mini" grenade launcher. Can't remeber what its called though.

On a side note, one option would be to take an existing design like the LSS, and expand it to use ...say....4 to 5 inch shells, make sure the chamber is smooth throated to avoid wear from using "shorty shells" when using standard shotgun ammo. another improvement would be to ditch the shotgun shell style hull on the rounds. gives you another mm or so of total projectile diameter (yes, I know, not exactly, but I am fudging here.

As much as I like the idea of using commonly available 12 ga. (19mm) ammo, the military spends enough on R&D that they could foot the bill to bump it up to 10 or even 8 ga. And for crying out loud, just because the russians did it and it never really took off, doesn't mean its not potentially a good idea, it just means their execution sucked

From http://archive.dumpshock.com/ArchiveShowArticle.php3?ID=548

C-4 Explosive notes
Carl Rigney (cdr@amd.com)
I pulled my copy of the Ranger Handbook (ST 21-75-2) off the shelf (every GM should have one of these lovely pocketfuls-o-fun) and looked it up. C-4 is 1.34x as powerful as TNT; I'll give the formulas so you can figure things for yourself with whatever new joys 2050 military tech has come up with.

The "minimum safe distance for personnel in the open" for demolitions is 77 meters times the cube root of the weight of the TNT in kilos. For C-4 its 85 meters times the cube root of the weight of C-4 in kilos. So for a 200kg C-4 explosion we're talking 500 meters. Now, that's just for people, and I assume it includes a healthy safety margin. Buildings aren't going to be leveled all the way out.

I get cube root of 1oz / (2.2x16) * 85 as .... 26 meters... and
cube root of 88 grams or 3oz as 37 meters... you can see why everybody is going to submunitions... its the cube root part of the equasion.

I reread Chuck Hawks site on 12 and 10 gauge shotguns and the 12 gauge magnum can be loaded as heavy as 2.25 oz, so if we use that footprint and assume C4 weighs 1/4th as much as lead then a 1 oz charge is possible. As you can see though, smaller charge sizes matter on an inverse cube root scale, so .75oz would work almost as well. The much lighter weight means they can pack it in tight, make the finned base of solid steel, and still have a lightweight round...and no wadding needed of course.

George, thanks for the added info on the hardness of steel armor. For a shaped charge round you would know better than I, but even there the toughness must matter or we'd make armor of lead - which has more density. For a fragmentation round the hardness would matter, as would the toughness. Metals that are prone to molecular cracking are a poor choice for armor. This should make the Scandium Aluminum the preferred choice for aluminum armor, except for cost. On my PAV thread I estimated the HellHound at 75mm penetration of face-hardened RHA, and am now feeling pretty comfortable with that estimate, as opposed to 102mm in soft steel.

Still trying to find the weight of C4, assuming C5 is the same weight more or less. Before we start wishing for bigger sticks I think we should see a need for them. Why not give everyone a 60mm mortar tube, or 120, or 160mm? Why? too big, too heavy and no requirement. The FRAG-12 looks pretty simple coming out of a smoothbore to me and spinning the round would reduce the effectiveness of the SC round. Whether in the middle east, Europe or Asia, the civilian vehicles our foes are using are getting smaller and lighter so before we start shooting Toyota trucks with cannons lets see if something smaller can do the job and is more appropriate. Isn't this the same logic behind ditching the 7.62x51 for the Grendel?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_explosive_anti-tank_round ... it appears that for SC warheads there is a direct correlation between diameter and penetration. A 40mm SC should be able to penetrate 100mm to 280mm of RHA based on the information contained here. Note that the hardness of ceramic DOES make it more effective in eroding the jet, as would large angles as the effective width of the material is thickened. Note the discussion of the SFF sub-type used in Russian land mines with 2000mm of penetration. This also appears to be the basis for a much more potent version of the RPG - I assume this would be the RPG7/7M grenade with 330mm of penetration. These slugs are like getting shot by an APFSDS round at pb range! The Russian mines were used in Kosovo. Btw, www.Debka.com is reporting that the explosives used in both the London and Egyptian bombings came from Serbia.

George, any idea what would happen if you constructed a "wet wall" with three ceramic armor surfaces, one on each of the outsides and one sandwitched between the two 1" water-filled honeycombed structures? I have proposed this for my PAV project and have a strong suspicion it would severely degrade or perhaps defeat entirely the metal jet. Of course slat armor is very effective as well as it allows enough space for the jet to cool and slow before striking the standard armor. In fact it looks to me that slat armor is much more cost and weight effective than ERA and poses less of a hazard to infantry in the vicinity.

PS: Man, Googling for this info gives me the creeps. I'm just waiting for John Ashcroft or the FBI to knock on my door.. :eek:

FWIW: The standard M433 HEDP uses Comp A5 for the filler, as does the Hellhound. I suspect this might make a difference in your calculations.

As the article states, this is true for TNT and C4 both. It would be true for any explosive. It's not a function of the explosive, but air as a poor ballistic medium. As for the weight of A5 or C4, I can't find either, but have the weight for PETN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX


Petn the hair on the back of your neck... :eek:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN ... for a 20 x 63mm volume I get a weight of 34.8 grams. Remember, the low-impulse 40mm has both high and low pressure vessels in the base which takes up a lot of space.

Also, even from the M79's 14" barrel the 40mm's range for point targets is only 150m, and likely less than that for the HellHound as it is significantly slower than the standard 40mm round at 262 fps. Shotgun shells by contrast are in the 1,200-1,500fps range.

http://www.diddybop.demon.co.uk/blooper.htm
http://www.diddybop.demon.co.uk/bloop3.gif

PAX-2A`````````````````````````````8584``1.783`````````````````5`567`912
PBX`9404```````````````````````````8370``1.83``````````````````K&O`9/599
PBX-9007```````````````````````````8090``1.64````````-----``````````LLNL
PBX-9010```````````````````````````8370``1.78````````-----``````````LLNL
PBX-9011```````````````````````````8500``1.789```````-----``````2700`P73
PBX-9205```````````````````````````8170``1.770```````-----``````2700`P74
PBX-9404-03````````````````````````8800``1.884```````-----``````2700`P74
PBX-9407```````````````````````````7910``1.62````````-----``````2700`P74
PBX-9501```````````````````````````8830``1.843```````-----``````2700`P74
PBX-9502```````````````````````````8170``1.67````````-----``````````LLNL
PBX-9503```````````````````````````7720``1.90````````-----``````````LLNL
PBXC-105```````````````````````````7512``1.80````````-----``````2700`P74
PBXC-303```````````````````````````7200``1.40````````-----``````2700`P74
PBXN`3`````````````````````````````8450``1.70```````````````````K&O`5/599
PBXN-102```````````````````````````7550``1.798```````-----``````2700`P74
PBXN-2`````````````````````````````8670``1.803```````-----``````2700`P74
Pelonit`D``````````````````````````3500````1.0```````-----```````````K&M
Pelonit`D`(powder)`````````````````3500``-----```````-----```````````K&M
Penastit`93/7`w/`20%`aluminium`````7700``1.68````161%```````````2700`B285
Penastit`96.5/3.5`w/`20%```````````7700``1.67````176%```````````2700`B285
aluminium
Penobel````````````````````````````2000``1.25````````-----```````````K&M
Pentanitroaniline`[2,3,4,5,6-]````-----``-----```164%```````````2700`A414
(PNA)
Pentanitrophenyl`azide`````````````9210``1.76````````-----``````4`600`536
Pentanitrophenylmethylnitramine```-----``-----```152%```````````2700`B285
Pentasit`93/7``````````````````````8000``1.56````140%```````````2700`B285
Pentastit``````````````````````````7720``1.59````````-----```````````K&M
+`Pentolite`50/50``````````````````5480``1.0`````````-----```````````PoE
Pentolite`50/50````````````````````7530``1.70````````-----``````````LLNL
Pentral`50/50``````````````````````7450``1.55````362/120%```````2700`P137
Pentral`50/50`15%`Al```````````````7000``1.62````450/150%```````2700`P137
Pentral`60/40``````````````````````7600``1.56````370/123%```````2700`P137
Pentral`60/40`15%`Al```````````````7200``1.68````490/163%```````2700`P137
Pentral`70/30``````````````````````7800``1.58````394/121%```````2700`P137
Pentral`70/30`15%`Al```````````````7400``1.65````498/166%```````2700`P137
Pentrinit`5/50`````````````````````8000``1.65`````````-----`````2700`B286
Pentrinit`50/50`w/`30%`aluminium```7200``1.9``````````-----`````2700`B286
Pentrinit`80/20````````````````````8400``1.72````179%```````````2700`B286
Pentryl````````````````````````````7340``1.65````130%```````````2700`B286
(Trinitronitranilinoethanol
nitrate)
PEP-3``````````````````````````````7780``1.47````118%`by`BM`````2700`P137
Perkoronit`A```````````````````````5000``1.58````340/113%``````````Davis
Perkoronit`B```````````````````````4400``1.52````330/110%``````````Davis
Permonite``````````````````````````3780``1.13``````````````````````AM`493
PETN`(Pentaerythritol``````````````8400``1.7`````523/174%````````````K&M
tetranitrate)
+PETN`(Pentaerythritol`````````````8500``1.77`````````-----`````````Swed
tetranitrate)

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2003insensitive/geiss.pdf

RDX forms the base for a number of common military explosives: Composition A (wax-coated, granular explosive consisting of RDX and plasticizing wax), composition A5 (mixed with 1.5% stearic acid), composition B (castable mixtures of RDX and TNT), composition C (a plastic demolition explosive consisting of RDX, other explosives, and plasticizers), composition D, HBX (castable mixtures of RDX, TNT, powdered aluminium, and D-2 wax with calcium chloride), H-6, Cyclotol and C-4.

It is a colourless solid, of density 1.82 g/cmł. It is obtained by reacting concentrated nitric acid on hexamine. It is a heterocycle and has the shape of a ring. It starts to decompose at about 170°C and melts at 204°C.

... its about 104% of the weight of PETN.

This is the state of the art...
http://www.reciprocalnet.org/recipnet/showsample.jsp?sampleId=27344327&sampleHistoryId=16551&level=65536&applet=minijamm&setLevel=1
... and will make "heavies" all the more obsolete. I would assume the Javelin ( and Stinger ) missile system would be one of the first high-value applications of this technology with about a 25% increase in its 800mm penetration - call it 1,000mm. Not bad for an image processing, self-guiding missile in a 21 pound package! :D

c4

~1.5 to 1.643 g/cm^3.

The upper value is a compressed density, but
it may be able to be compressed more my
reference did not specify. I'm certain the
sensitivity would vary at high density.

njoy

Thank you. That is the number I found just a few minutes ago... the 1.64 number...

Octanitrocubane's calculated density is 1.978 g/cm3, but the structure of the molecule and strong electron bonds seem to make it even more potent... about 120-125% of HBX, which is already significantly more powerful than C4 or TNT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octanitrocubane
This molecule is stronger than Carbon-60 "Bucky Balls", meaning we might make bullet-proof vests of the stuff. Then if you need to breech a door you can just blow up your vest..lol...man.. what a crazy world!

Man, I sure hope this info doesn't get in the wrong hands. I know these guys are proud of their work and all, but jeeze, this stuff is killing a lot of people and I don't need to know this stuff THAT bad!

How does the explosive effect come about? Oxygen atoms contained in the molecules of the explosive oxidize the other "combustible" parts of the molecule, in most cases carbon and hydrogen. This causes heat and hot gases to be released very quickly - leading to an explosion. In a detonation, the most violent form of explosion, speeds up to 10,000 m/s, temperatures up to 6,000 °C, and pressures up to 300,000 bar can be achieved in the shock wave.

Octanitrocubane could be twice as powerful as trinitrotoluene (TNT), and "it's thought to be 20 to 25 percent more effective than HMX [octogen], which is the state-of-the-art military explosive right now," says Peter M. Gehring, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md.

More and more, the idea of the "M-41A pulse rifle" is seeming fesable. Especially the "30mm over under pump action grenade launcher" (which was acutally 19 mm, but whos counting :D ).

On a side note, one of the PDFs I ran across a while back was another stab at the cased/caseless projects. They are sticking with 5.56mm projectiles, but I think it could be done with a 6.5 (and thier 5.56 rounds looked like High BC ammo too)

Toughness is the amount of energy absorbed before fracture and increases with ductility, which is how far a material stretches before fracture, which pretty much always varies inversely with hardness and strength. So toughness and hardness are opposing values.

What is dumpshock? It sounds like one of the sites that comes up on google a lot for weapons related searches that's actually about someone's role-playing game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_explosive_anti-tank_round ... it appears that for SC warheads there is a direct correlation between diameter and penetration. A 40mm SC should be able to penetrate 100mm to 280mm of RHA based on the information contained here. Note that the hardness of ceramic DOES make it more effective in eroding the jet, as would large angles as the effective width of the material is thickened. Note the discussion of the SFF sub-type used in Russian land mines with 2000mm of penetration. This also appears to be the basis for a much more potent version of the RPG - I assume this would be the RPG7/7M grenade with 330mm of penetration. These slugs are like getting shot by an APFSDS round at pb range! The Russian mines were used in Kosovo. Btw, www.Debka.com is reporting that the explosives used in both the London and Egyptian bombings came from Serbia.

I didn't read the wikipedia article, but from what I've seen of some of their HE related articles, that category as a whole requires a lot of revision. I corrected one error in their section on detonation myself, where someone had put in that diesel engines function by detonation. Self-forging projectiles (more often called explosively formed projectiles, EFPs) have LESS penetration than conventional SCs, but greater range.

George, any idea what would happen if you constructed a "wet wall" with three ceramic armor surfaces, one on each of the outsides and one sandwitched between the two 1" water-filled honeycombed structures? I have proposed this for my PAV project and have a strong suspicion it would severely degrade or perhaps defeat entirely the metal jet. Of course slat armor is very effective as well as it allows enough space for the jet to cool and slow before striking the standard armor. In fact it looks to me that slat armor is much more cost and weight effective than ERA and poses less of a hazard to infantry in the vicinity.

I have no credentials to back my interpretation up, but the way I understand ceramic armor working is that, given that most all armor works by absorbing the energy of the projectile, generally by spreading the impact pressure out over a backing with high toughness (at least high enough to absorb the impact): In most ceramic armor, the ceramic functions to spread out the impact pressure by blunting the projectile and forming a cone of fractured ceramic in front of it. Unless the ceramic is unusually strong, such as an exotic ceramic with with a compression ring around it being shot in the center only once (which under lab conditions is so strong that it actually takes the impact force itself and splatters a small long rod, apparently converting the KE into heat at the interface), the backing has to absorb the energy by deforming. And it has to do it without deforming massively; to keep the wad of ceramic together, the backing has to be rigid. For instance, I once investigated the story that a bathroom tile can stop a .22 round by trying it, and it worked about half the time when the tile was placed on a piece of wood. To see how the backing affected performance, I selected an opposite extreme and used 3/8" of cheese wax (still warm when tested). I still have the specimen, which has a really cool "crater" with radial sharts of tile embedded in it, and a half inch hole all the way through. The backing absorbed what energy it could, even taking so much lateral velocity that it formed a hole two calibers wide, but neither it nor the tile made much difference to the bullet, partly because the 'wad' of tile shards dissipated before reaching firm support on the underlying wood.
So anyway, about your idea: tile goes on the outside, and something with optimal toughness/weight like, perhaps, 1018 or 8740N steel, or maybe 304 or something, or some Al alloy, or unidirectional or 3D weave composite, or lexan... search a materials database, goes under the tile, and then if you like water and other stuff, it shouldn't hurt anything, but tile on the inside will just sandblast you when something goes through it.
I understand that something about the layers is intended to help defeat SC jets, but at the least, every tile layer must include a backing structure.
Oh, and if you want a really high-speed way to defeat SC's, make your vehicle with an electric transmission and a system that charges a really big capacitor to a few KV, and then mount your first tile layer a few inches out on a good insulator, like a bunch of plastic blocks, with one lead of the cap bank going to an inner layer and one to the outer. You'll be fine as long as you make sure at least one side of the HV circuit is insulated all the way around so you can't short it out with yourself, while a jet will, if everything is designed and functioning right, explode as soon as it touches the first inner layer. But EFP's and long rods would be pretty immune to it. If this kind of electric armor becomes prevalent, I can see an RPG round with either a precursor charge to drain the caps (pretty much already in place for ERA) or a mini-proximity fuze and an EFP warhead.

PS: Man, Googling for this info gives me the creeps. I'm just waiting for John Ashcroft or the FBI to knock on my door.. :eek:

You'll get used to it :D Look into an onion network or something if you still hope to preserve your good name and status.

Also, SC jets don't use heat, they use KE. They're always stretching because the tip has much greater velocity than the tail, so they break up when there's too much standoff, not cool down. And guess what property strongly affects how far they can stretch before breaking.

ONC might have high molecular strength, but unless the molecules lock together very hard, it's mechanical strength will be nil. And I thought that 1.9x was its measured density, while calculated densities were mostly greater than 2.0.
C4 is only RDX and an inert rubber binder. A5 is only RDX and ~1.5% stearic acid, nothing else (not clear from the quotes).
ONC is still scifi at this point; it's got to be pretty powerful, but CL20 (HNIW) is probably as good, and only costs something like $100/lb, not ONC's current $X,000,000/5g. HNIW actually has the highest density of all known organic compounds, according to a book I browsed through recently, and has much better performance than HMX, which is saying something.
Also, pressed explosive fills are rarely pressed to even 95% of the theoretical density. It takes a LOT of pressure to get that far.

Wow, that was a long post. Heh.. Sorry about that.

RE: ATK History... http://www.atk.com/CorporateOverview/corpover_history.asp ... I stand corrected... better to look things up than make things up.. but in my defense, admittedly a weak one in the Google era, there were a few NIDA presentations that were misleading.

George, the site is indeed for role-playing but the data is solid. I looked up the books the research is taken from and it appears to be the current preferred standard reference for such data.

The wet-walled honeycomb structures can be made using metal-free cloth ribbon, which would make the entire 2" system an insullator. I only have access to good electical power when the chariot boom is attached, but it's system would easily support electric armor. Warbucks pointed out the system to me before, but I am not a fan. The metal and electric charge give its position away and it only works against SC jets, so I think I'd rather go with a layer or two of chain-link fence if I'm going to give up RADAR stealth. Still, I will keep it in mind as there is more than enough space in the V-hull for some very healty capacitors. I think the best place to mount such a system is on the two skirt armor slabs that can be raised from a /V\ configuration, in a second or two, over the V hull to form a <> overhead protective shape. All that electrical cable and the charged plates will reflect RADAR like a mirror... :( My biggest complain with the system, as you pointed out, is it is too threat-specific.


PS:

The idea behind the wet-wall is that under a small amount of pressure the mass of the water keeps the layered ceramic tiles from being forced back at high speeds AND the baffled water spreads the point load. Take the edge of a ruler and whap a full Coke can really hard and watch it spring right back. Now enjoy your Coke and try it again - the can will collaspe easily. Because water is not compressible only a small 30-150 psi would be required. The idea for the ceramic tiles would be to have 2-3 layers of hex-shaped beveled edge tiles which get smaller towards the front. Silver dollars to quarters to dimes, each wrapped in their own composite sheet to hold them in place, perhaps with a layer of metal between, although I don't want any metal in the hull at all if I can engineer around it, and no ferrous metal anywhere near the ground to trigger magnetic mines. Ti is perfect, but expensive. Anyway, gotta run. Thanks again all for the input.

Since there are many of our guys at risk from these kinds of threats, I am going to post this and hope it finds its way to those that can use it to protect themselves and those under their command.

http://www.gichd.ch/pdf/publications/Mechanical_study/Mechanical_study_chapter5.pdf

You will note that the most powerful mine listed is the - you guessed it Soviet - TMK-2 HC SFF mine with 2000mm of penetration.

When you can't organize a society worth a crap, your leadership is all vain and corrupt, and your people are all converted to cowering sheep, and when finally that isn't enough, you can always build lots of stuff to kill other people.... like Stalin ... or the current crop of losers, the Islam-i-Nazis. If only we had cut Stalin off in about the first week of August of 1944 and used those production facilities to give our guys the Pershing tank so they could have punched through the German western defenses.... sigh...

All it needs now is an M203 under... sweet!!!

As you can see from the comments, others are considering the DGLMG idea. The more I think about it the more I like it. Put a choke on it and give me some FRAG-12s and I'll leave my assult rifle behind - maybe with an extra Berretta 96FS for shooting in two directions at once.
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/blackwater/?s=2005_main1

Maybe its just me, but I'm rather skeptical about the FRAG-12. Due to the size constraints, you really can't expect to pack any decent amount of high explosive into such a small projectile.
No, it's not just you. I concur. The amount of explosive that can be stuffed into the Frag-12 ain't much more than in a good-size firecracker. Notice that the fuze assembly for the 20mm OICW warhead is almost as big as the entire Frag-12 projectile. Detonated inside a car, the 12ga round would be rather unpleasant, but in the open its casualty radius would be quite small.

I find it interesting just how many people are getting excited over this round, which does not seem to be anything really new. Judging by the picture on Defense Review, the Frag-12 appears to be no more than a slightly improved copy of the 12ga HE round that the Argentines developed over 30 years ago! :rolleyes:

A sectional drawing of the Argentine round can be found in Tom Swearengen's 1978 book, The World's Fighting Shotguns. The projectile shape is virtually identical, but where the Arg had an ordinary shotgun wad attached to the base for in-flight stability, the Frag-12 has folding fins.

Before his death, Swearengen told me that getting reliable fuzing in such tiny warheads has always been a problem. Maybe the Frag-12 has been able to solve that, but who knows?

Regarding the AA-12, it seems really cool to me, especially since it uses the "constant recoil" principle, which I'm really hot on. Anyway, some Marine Corps staffer wrote a letter to the editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine questioning Gary Paul Johnston's breathless review of the AA-12 in a previous issue. The USMC guy wanted to know where Johnston got his reports of stellar performance, because when the USMC tested it, it apparently still needed, shall we say, more developmental work.

John

RE: reliable fuzing... seems that problem has been licked in the last 70 years..
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/mk211.htm

I think it has been shown here on this thread that whether or not FRAG-12 makes use of the technology, current explosives are up to twice as energetic as they were 30 yrs ago. When you spend 300-500 BILLION a year on defense for decades, even with DOD efficiency, things can get better. I personally find a constant council of dispair almost as annoying as mindless entheusiasm....just my personal psychic wiring I know, but really, is there no hope?

While I am happy to hear the USMC is upholding its usuall high standards for weapons acceptance, or maybe I should say, BECAUSE of it, I'll be interested to know their evaluation of the FRAG-12. (What size firecrackers are YOU playing with :eek: ) :D

If the FRAG-12 doesn't work as advertised perhaps Raufoss will be interested in shaving a mm off of their 20mm ammo and create a nice 12 gauge slug of thier Mk211 technology.

RE: reliable fuzing... seems that problem has been licked in the last 70 years..
But, has the Raufoss concept been successfully applied to shotgun projectiles? From what little info I've seen on the Frag-12, it appears that they may have copied the Argentine mini-grenade fuzing, as well as the projectile shape.
I think it has been shown here on this thread that whether or not FRAG-12 makes use of the technology, current explosives are up to twice as energetic as they were 30 yrs ago.
That may be true, but it doesn't overcome the limitations of an 18mm warhead to produce fragments of sufficient size and number to have adequate lethality. The web page you referenced re the Mk211 round shows that it only creates 20 fragments.
I personally find a constant council of dispair almost as annoying as mindless entheusiasm...
By "council of dispair", does that mean that you prefer to not know about negative aspects of ideas discussed in the forum? Personally, if I propose a concept, I'd rather know if others see any drawbacks to it, instead of remaining in blissful ignorance of any illusions or delusions I might have.
...just my personal psychic wiring I know, but really, is there no hope?
Hope of what? That I won't point out problems or drawbacks to proposals? Probably not, since that goes against my training and job experience, where I was expected to search for and make note of flaws and errors.
BECAUSE of [USMC high standards], I'll be interested to know their evaluation of the FRAG-12.
As shall I.
(What size firecrackers are YOU playing with)
Attached are cross-section drawings of the 40mm M406 and Argentine 18.5mm mini-grenade rounds. I've colored in red the high-explosive content of each. (Sorry about the poor quality of the pic -- I no longer have the hi-res image, so had to copy from a 1995 article.)

An M67 hand grenade has a diameter of approx 64mm and contains 6.5 oz of HE filler. The grenade portion of an M406 round is approx 37mm diameter, and has only 1.25 oz of HE filler. A 12ga grenade (Frag-12 or Arg) is approx 18mm (not 19mm) diameter, so could hold what, maybe 0.1 oz of explosive? Sounds kinda like it's in the same class as an M80 firecracker to me. ;)
If the FRAG-12 doesn't work as advertised perhaps Raufoss will be interested in shaving a mm off of their 20mm ammo and create a nice 12 gauge slug of thier Mk211 technology.
Question is, will the Raufoss pyrotechnic initiation work reliably on the low-velocity 12ga round? Even if it can work, there'd be another problem, in that the projectile would be armed before it even leaves the muzzle. For similar weapons, such as the M79 and M203, they like to have the fuze not arm itself until a safe distance downrange. The bore-riding safety of the Arg mini-grenade arms right after exitting the barrel, and Frag-12 arms at a mere 3 feet! (Or does that imply that Frag-12 casualty radius is considerably less than 3 feet???) :eek:

Regarding the AA-12, it seems really cool to me, especially since it uses the "constant recoil" principle...
From what I've been able to gather, "constant recoil" is just a fancy way of saying that bolt travel is long enough so that the bolt does not bottom out against the rear of the receiver. The recoil spring is therefore able to slow down and stop the bolt before the spring is fully compressed. However, the "constant recoil" term makes it sound as if they've done some really incredible technological feat. :D
Anyway, some Marine Corps staffer wrote a letter to the editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine questioning Gary Paul Johnston's breathless review of the AA-12 in a previous issue. The USMC guy wanted to know where Johnston got his reports of stellar performance...
Perhaps from the developer (MPS, Inc), who was quoted on Defense Review as saying that "the AA-12 is the only shotgun in the world that has been developed from the ground up to be an infantry combat weapon, specifically--as opposed to all previous combat shotguns that were merely adaptations of existing hunting shotgun designs."

I guess he never heard of the HK CAW, the Franchi SPAS-15, or the Ramo USAS-12... :rolleyes:

The Raufoss system doesn't "arm". So 20 is too small a number? Says who? Four people in a Toyota that just took 10 rounds? For what purpose? What is the standard? And if 2x is not enough bang, what is? 18mm isn't enough, but a 20mm Raufoss is? For what application? What is the standard? 0.01oz...?

I can see why the Argentine shell was a flop - all the space it taken up by the arming mechinism. Clearly the Raufoss is much more efficient or they couldn't have shrunken it down to a 1/2" (.50 caliber) footprint and still made it the most effective bullet the system fires. I calculated the weight based on a 3" shell and it came out to about an oz.... posted somewhere above, so excuse me if the Argent system was crap, but that doesn't mean the system can't be made to work in a 19mm footprint - it just means it hasn't been done yet.

Gunpowder has a lot less energy than PAX-2, and a 19mm (.75 x 25.4 ==19mm) by 3" wad of gunpowder is more than any firecracker you've ever seen. With a Raufoss detonator and fin stabilization all the case needs to be is scored sheetmetal, or BBs glued to the inside of a plastic or carbon fiber case for that matter... or with blastwave of 6-7,000 meters/sec, nothing at all for a meter or so... as the link to demolition procedures was pointing out.

Arming in 3ft, yeah, kind of like programming in C. If you don't know what your doing stick to Basic! An AA12 and FRAG-12 system would be a pretty special purpose weapon, enough so that proper training should be possible. If I go thru a doorway inside a building and there is a guy prone on the floor with a MG trained on me I don't want to have to excuse myself and back up 30 feet/yards/meters so my bullet will go "boom"! I'm wearing body armor so I'll take my chances with my bullet going "boom" over it bouncing off the floor like a rock.... or is that Iraq... I forget now :cool:

...hope of someone developing something you'd actually approve of...? Hope that someday you might say "yeah, that's great. Nothing wrong with that!" Has there ever been such a thing?

The problem I have here Stan is you are never on the side of advocating anything new and different. Instead, you use your knowledge and experience to criticise people who are motivated and creative and come up with new ways to solve problems. To a point this has a usefullness, but when its a constant council of dispair it just comes across as a personality profile. The world doesn't have enough critics, skeptics and cynics already?

The debate over "is new better ?" was settled by a 63:1 kill ratio over the Bekah Valley, by a 100 hour ODS ground war, by a 6 week knockdown of Afghanistan when the Sovs couldn't get it done in 10 years, and most recently by the knockdown of the Iraqi military in 3 weeks with our most capable heavy division tied behind our Turkish allies backs. I remember all of that "Soviet stuff is crude but rugged" crap circulating before ODS, but you never hear that anymore because all of that crappy gear superiority in numbers (not to be confused with good gear numerical superiority) doesn't prevail if your opponet has decisive overmatch - like Shermans facing Tigers.

Hey, you know I respect your opinion, I'd just like to see you have more fun. So come on, make me a liar - propose something new and different and tell us unreservedly how and why you like it. Break the mold. :D

Just thought I would point something out. What we are talking about is not the OICW "shoot around corners" shell. Our little idea hear is more along the lines of the "30mm grenades" from "Aliens". Yes I know its fiction, but the idea is sound. You have about a two inch to two and a half inch projectile, seated in a half inch to inch long case, with a medium impulse charge (around a full house 12 ga. shell recoil), impact detonated, with a core consisting of either "notched wire", flechettes, or pellets (or some combination of that) surrounding your central explosive charge. That would be your GP round. IF you need to "shoot around corners", aim at the ground near the corner. If you are doing CQB and are afraid of "shrapnel ricochet", use a version without the internal frag sleeve (cant remeber who made it, but there was a plastic "concussion" grenade that could be upgraded to frag by attaching a sleeve of notched wire). Up against light armor? Use a HEAP warhead. Thinking CQB in a building, and don't want explosives, use a cannister round.

They don't have to be all powerful micro RPG launchers, they just have to be enough to increase the firepower of the individual soldier, without making him cart around a 40mm or OICW and all the heavy ammo for it. Adding an LSS to a Grendel AR would do nicely. Gives you reach out and touch someone capability, with a little extra THUMP for those sitcky situations. :D

And yes, if the LSS lives up to the hype, give everyone that carries a full sized assault rifle or CAR the extra capability (provided they want it)

Using 18mm by 88.5 for a 3.5 inch 12 ga magnum - Turkey load - which the AA12 will NOT fire, but to get an idea as to where the upper limit is on this concept, and using Octanitrocubane's 1.978g/cm^3 weight factor I get a max load of 49.5 grams of explosive... pretty close to the HellHound's... but having to use the entire space for propellent. Using 3 pieces of 1 1/4" long 12 gauge wire stuck to the inside of a carbon fiber shell to supress the building pressures as long as possible we'd get about ??? 30 fragments??? Fusing is normally a combo of turns counters and timings and the circuits to do that are now so small you couldn't even see them if they were done on modern IC die scales. This leaves the actual "blasting cap" or initiator, which I don't know much about but know that Raufoss has got a very safe, reliable and tiny one, so lets just assume we use that one and it weights about nothing and take s up so little space its within the margin of error for this back of the Grendel site calculation.

Containing the blast with carbon fiber would produce immense pressures - and therefore speeds - once the pressure vessel was breached, and it will weigh zip so no weight worries even with the tungsten flechettes. Thirty tungsten flechettes going 10,000 meters per second sounds pretty potent to me.

Moving to a 10 gauge we get in increase from .729 to .770 x 25.4 or 19.56mm... one more mm in diameter, and the same 3.5" max length... so 52 grams of explosive max. The format is too small for a good HSC system, but would excel at a non-hollow shaped charge system where the carbon fiber tube would create a necked case for a shaped charge explosion propelling a tungsten slug foward at 4-5,000 fps. This would be very close to a SFF shaped-charge system, but with a factory formed slug rather than an explosively formed slug.

Use this IsoGrid technology to make your shell body and depending on the thickness of the carbon fiber you get Ti fragments or a VERY strong slug barrel. http://www.titusti.com/exo_iso.html ... no, its not a Lezbo jazz band.. :rolleyes:

The Raufoss system doesn't "arm".
That was my point. A Raufoss projectile is capable of detonating the moment it is fired. That leaves no safety zone for the shooter, unlike 40mm grenades.
So 20 is too small a number?
I don't know if it is "too small" of a number. However, compared to the great number of fragments produced by 40mm grenades (or even 20mm OICW warheads), 20 is indeed a very small number.
I can see why the Argentine shell was a flop - all the space it taken up by the arming mechinism.
And the FRAG-12 that so many people are raving about looks to be little more than a clone of the Argentine round. If it doesn't have the same type of space-consuming fuze assembly, I'll be very surprised.
Clearly the Raufoss is much more efficient or they couldn't have shrunken it down to a 1/2" (.50 caliber) footprint and still made it the most effective bullet the system fires. I calculated the weight based on a 3" shell and it came out to about an oz...
Aw, heck...now you'll probably accuse me of continuing to be a "council of dispair" when I point out that your calculation is waaaaay off the mark. :o The Mk211 projectile does not have anywhere near 1.0 oz of high explosive. The actual figure is a miniscule 13.9 grains, or 0.03 oz! (Attached is a sectional view.)

Even the M56A3 20mm cannon round has only 165 grains (0.38 oz) of HE filler, and the cavity of that projectile is about twice as long as that of the FRAG-12. This means that FRAG-12 could at most have only about 0.10-0.14 oz, and then only if it has a far more space-efficient fuze assembly than the Argentine mini-grenade.
...a 19mm (.75 x 25.4 ==19mm)...
Nominal bore size of 12ga is not 0.750", it is 0.729" -- which translates to 18.5mm. And, if you're going to allow for passage through a choke, projectile diameter will have to be reduced to about 18.0mm, otherwise one of two things will occur:

1. Best case -- the shotgun's choke will be quickly ruined.
2. Worst case -- the FRAG-12 projectile will be decelerated so quickly that in-bore detonation might occur.
If I go thru a doorway inside a building and there is a guy prone on the floor with a MG trained on me I don't want to have to...back up 30 feet/yards/meters so my bullet will go "boom"!
A good point! Although personally, for room clearing, I'd rather have my shotgun loaded with 000 Buck...
...hope of someone developing something you'd actually approve of...?
There are a lot of things I approve of. I was an early fan of 6.5 Grendel, for instance.
Hope that someday you might say "yeah, that's great. Nothing wrong with that!" Has there ever been such a thing?
Never has been. Never will be. At least, I've never come across anything that is perfect, with zero drawbacks or negative aspects. Do you know of something in this world that has no "down side" to it?
The problem I have here Stan is you are never on the side of advocating anything new and different. Instead, you use your knowledge and experience to criticise people who are motivated and creative and come up with new ways to solve problems.
Motivated and creative is good, but if everybody ignores the "inconvenient" negative aspects of an idea, and only concentrates on the "Gee whiz, neato!" positive aspects, reality will doom the idea to failure. Anybody can propose a new idea, but few are up to the challenge of dealing with the details of making it work.

An example of this was when I noted the difficulty of converting the M249 to belt-feed of 6.5 Grendel. Most dismissed it as a "simple engineering problem." It's easy to say "It's no problem." It's much more difficult to actually solve the problem.
To a point this has a usefullness, but when its a constant council of dispair it just comes across as a personality profile.
What you see as a "constant council of dispair," I consider as posing rational and logical questions. Perhaps I take it to extreme -- my best friend once likened me to Spock, in the original Star Trek -- but that's my personality, and how many of us can change our basic psyche?
The debate over "is new better ?" was settled by a 63:1 kill ratio over the Bekah Valley, by a 100 hour ODS ground war, by a 6 week knockdown of Afghanistan...and most recently by the knockdown of the Iraqi military in 3 weeks...all of that crappy gear superiority in numbers doesn't prevail if your opponet has decisive overmatch - like Shermans facing Tigers.
Hmmm...didn't the side equipped with Shermans prevail over the guys equipped with the technological overmatching Tigers? You are partially right, though, even if you're oversimplifying. One can find examples throughout history of quality defeating quantity, but also of the reverse. Highly-trained combatants equipped with low-quality armament can defeat a poorly-trained force equipped with high-quality weapons. The "Flying Tigers" vs the Japanese air force, for example. And in Desert Storm the USMC had outmoded M60 tanks, yet did just fine against the comparable Russian stuff they went up against. Training and discipline count for as much as, if not more than, technology.
Hey, you know I respect your opinion, I'd just like to see you have more fun.
I enjoy discussing new concepts. But, I also like to discuss all aspects of an idea, and not just chime in with, "Hey, that's great!" It might feel good, but nobody learns anything.
So come on, make me a liar - propose something new and different and tell us unreservedly how and why you like it.
Oh, sure...like I'm going to step into that trap! :D

again, the idea is not to replace the 40mm launcher, but to supplement it by having everyone else packing some extra bang. If you can make an effective 18.5 to 20mm explosive projectile, then your 40mm is going to be an even bigger hit (pardon the pun) :D .
Adding versitiliy by having a 12 or 10 guage shotgun for everyone not carrying an MG or GL and relativly effective "firecracker rounds" available for it is kindof a no brainer. Especially with an LSS type system that doesn't add too much appreciable weight to the rifle and a light weight rifle.

Ummm.... divide all of my weight calculations by 10... I calculated all of the displacements in mm^3 and then converted to cm^3 by dividing by 100, by 10 for length and by 10 for diameter. The correct conversion is of course 1,000.

Applying my trusty mm ruler to my computer screen, I got an area about 13mm long and 8mm in diameter on the .50BMG Raufoss? Is that about right? Using magnesium in my metals calculator I got 00.06733 oz... so that would imply that Comp A4 weights about half of magnesium? That's less than water! :eek: I would have thought it heavier, but perhaps not.

Plugging this into my calculator I get .14 oz as a max load for a shotgun shell - not a working system.... :( ... it still goes "boom" though and might be the biggest 40mm "submunition" possible in a hand held GLMG that is controllable at full auto.

So I guess I just proved your point... :)

...and nope, none of us can much change our stripes, so I'll keep doing my quatitatively informed speculations and you keep watching over my shoulder. I do "show my work" most of the time so others can vet my algebra, but this goofy error got past us all I guess. It's a much easier mistake to make when working in 2 dimensions, diameter and length, than the usual HxWxL ... but still pretty amateurish.... sigh...

Applying my trusty mm ruler to my computer screen, I got an area about 13mm long and 8mm in diameter on the .50BMG Raufoss? Is that about right?
Pretty close. Applying my trusty tenth-inch ruler to my drawing, and converting to mm, ;) I got 8.7mm diameter (at rearmost portion) by 6.5mm diameter (at front), with length of 15.7mm. Of course, the intrusion of the penetrator into the explosive must be allowed for.

For those who might be interested, I think I got the drawing from an NDIA Small Arms proceeding several years ago. It might still be accessible on the NDIA web site, if anyone wishes to search through the proceedings from past years. Be warned, though, that some of the .pdf and .ppt files are pretty large, and take a while to load.
Using magnesium in my metals calculator I got 00.06733 oz... I would have thought it heavier...
The HE weight for the Mk211 was provided to me by Bill Woodin, co-author of History of Modern U.S. Military Small Arms Ammuniton. Since it seems to be in proportion to the HE weight/volume of the M56A3 20mm proj listed in TM 43-0001-27, I saw no reason to question it. I have an Olin data sheet on the Mk211, but it only lists weight of the complete projectile, not the fillers.
I do "show my work" most of the time so others can vet my algebra, but this goofy error got past us all I guess.
Yeah, well, I reckon we've all made silly mistakes. I know I have. No big deal. :)

Just give me an inch... :D

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/smallarms/Parks.pdf

It looks from this chart that there is no benefit from Ti armor over Brinell Hardness 500 hardness (homogeneous I assume, as opposed to face-hardened) steel plate as the lighter weight of T1 is almost perfectly offset by the thicker plate required. Note that there is a dramatic increase in mass efficiency as angles are increased - above and beyond the geometry of the increase in LOF (line of fire) thickness. It appears from this that hardness is the primary determinant of armor efficiency for small arms. Hey, even I'm right some of the time :D

Njoy!

PS: The 500 BNH steel required is 6mm. Using this thickness yields a steel-only armor weight of 1128 lbs for the base PAV... and about another 5-600 lbs for the crew kayak. You can see the advantages of the V-hull for ballistic protection working here AND at the same time, for mine protection. :)

You know, considering the talk here of combat shotguns, and grenade launchers, I've heard it said many different places that the 40mm buckshot loading "is no different than a standard 12gau". Which, turns out, isn't strictly true: while the velocity may not be different (not seen any numbers though), and the pellet size the same (00 buck), the number of pellets PER SHOT...are WILDLY different: where a typical 12gau combat loading might have between 7-9 pellets, the 40mm will carry 27 pellets each.

So just for the sake of considering CQB in Iraq, we examine the fact that the enemy over there fears the buckshot loaded shotgun more than any other American weapon, let’s consider a fleeting enemy target, and the application of two pulls of the trigger before the insurgent/terr is hidden behind cover/concealment:

12gau semi-auto, two shots – 18 pellets
40mm two tubes or 2 shots from MGL – 54 pellets downrange

Something to consider?

one problem with using buckshot in an MGL is the rifling. Spinning up a cluster shot or "grape shot" round like that will spread the pattern significantly, reducing your effect at range. A shot round from a standard smooth bore shotgun only spreads 1 inch for every ten feet (If I remeber correctly) giving you a trash can lid sized pattern at maximum effective range. The benifit to a shotgun is not a "multi target hit" spread, but multiple wound channels on ONE target, giving you the effect of a full auto sub machingun burst at close range with one "burp" instead of a spray.

A smooth bore version of the 40mm would remove the issue of spin imparted on the "cannister" round, but would also remove its usefulness as a grenade launcher since most 40mm rounds are armed by spin. Of course, an MGL loaded with shot would be good, but that still doesn't address increasing the firepower of the individual soldier since only one or two men per squad would be carrying the MGL. Everyone else would have their standard issue AR.

But you are making an assumption that you shouldn't be making: that a spin is imparted on this round. C'mon, let's get real here and find out if that's really the case, because you don't actually know it does. It may very well be that it uses the rifling simply as pressure blowby, with a modified version of the standard hi-lo pressure system. It doesn't use a standar-looking shotgun wad at all, instead it more resembles a sort of sabot arrangement that peels away in excess drag.

After all, this shotshell is not new, having been used a great deal during the VN war, and if it wasn't effective, it would have been dropped from production, never mind military inventory, four decades ago.

Usually ANY rifling will impart some spin to a shot cup.

On another note, there is an interesting review of the 30mm AGL that the Russians played with. It uses a hi/low pressure system like our conventional 40mm MGL and EGLM systems. Looking at the cross section of the shell, its got alot of volume to play with there. I haven't had a chance to put a scale to paper on it yet, but if anyone else wants to take a crack at it, maybe an update of this concept is what we are looking for. They even had a novel system for having an arming range that might work for a simplified LSS grenade round.

The HellHound flys out of the muzzle at a staggering 262 fps... you might as well be throwing stones or using a slingshot. No matter how many 00 buck pellets it has, at less than 100 meters a second it is impractical for anything but zero relative motion targets. In 1 second a man can run 20 ft, and can see a 40mm comming, so as opposed to 1,300-1,500 fps for a shotgun, which can be aimed accurately and hit point targets, the 40mm is easily outrun. Hell, a good baseball pitcher throws at almost half of the HellHound's speed, and from about 50 ft and most batters can avoid a bad pitch even though they can't tell its gone awry until the ball as well downrange.

You still haven't told us how many you, not the guy next to you, or his buddy, but you, are gonig to carry - in addition to 12 lbs of body armor, your assault rifle, 8 lbs of water, your helmet, radios, etc, on a sweltering 115 degree day at 65 percent humidity along the Euphraties river. The M203/M79 was made to fill the gap between hand grenades and light mortars, it was not intended to sweep a room or lay down a wall of supressive fire or catch a massed formation on the move.

The best weapon for doing the latter is the MG-42, or nowdays, a GAU, as it has the rate of fire and velocity to do so. For MOUT a 10 gauge GAU would be about as good as it gets and would make a great weapon for the PAV's HOOOW gunner. It would also be a great gun for an uparmored Hummer or M113 and should be a relatively easy conversion from a 20mm Phalanx type GAU, or maybe just stick with that gun and use a shotgun load. It would certainly make a versitile weapon as even the MK19 has too much velocity to use in close quarters, but a wall of 00 buck from a 20mm GAU would have no such restrictions and given a selectable dual-feed the 20mm would be very versitile. Ohhh. I just remembered, there WAS an M113 used in Vietnam with an 20mm GAU mounted on it. Too bad both of those platforms are too big to get thru many of the small streets in Ragheadland.

...there is an interesting review of the 30mm AGL that the Russians played with. It uses a hi/low pressure system like our conventional 40mm MGL and EGLM systems. Looking at the cross section of the shell, its got alot of volume to play with there.
Sorry, but the Russki 30mm round does not use the high/low system, but instead has just a simple, single-chamber case. See the attached sectional view.

I do agree that the long projectile appears to offer some interesting possibilities, though.

one problem with using buckshot in an MGL is the rifling. Spinning up a cluster shot or "grape shot" round like that will spread the pattern significantly, reducing your effect at range.
Very true. Back about 1988, the Navy began development of a canister round for the Mk19 AGL. Early on, they found that the spin imparted by the rifling produced a pattern like a ring, or doughnut, around the aimpoint. "The aimpoint would have a light concentration of hits and be surrounded by a ring of a heavy concentration of hits. The diameter of the ring would increase as a function of range from the muzzle. During testing...the ring dispersion...was so severe as to essentially render the cartridge ineffective at ranges beyond 50 meters from the muzzle." Ref: The 40mm High Velocity Canister Cartridge, by John D. Barber, Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center.

In order to reduce this dispersion, a "spin obturating band" (SOB) :D was later incorporated into the design. The SOB is similar to a projectile drive band, except that where a drive band fits tight so that spin is imparted to the projectile, the SOB is a loose fit. The SOB engages the rifling, and therefore spins, but little of the spin is transferred to the projectile. Of course, a drawback is increased cost and complexity.
A shot round from a standard smooth bore shotgun only spreads 1 inch for every ten feet...
I think you're a wee bit optimistic. Ten years ago I patterned Winchester (M162) 00 Buck (9 pellets) and 000 Buck (8 pellets), fired from a shotgun w/cylinder bore. Ranges were 25, 50, 75 and 100 meters, with three patterns shot at each distance. The E-type silhouette sustained the following number of pellet strikes:

00 Buck
25m: 9-9-8
50m: 4-5-5
75m: 2-3-1
100m: 0-0-2

000 Buck
25m: 8-6-7
50m: 3-4-3
75m: 1-2-0
100m: 0-1-0

As you can see, pattern size grows pretty thin past 25 meters. :(
The benifit to a shotgun is not a "multi target hit" spread, but multiple wound channels on ONE target, giving you the effect of a full auto sub machingun burst at close range with one "burp" instead of a spray.
Since "burp gun" is another term for submachine gun, to avoid confusion, may I suggest that when describing a single round fired from a shotgun that we use "belch" instead? ;)

I can live with "Belch Gun"

Hmmm, interesting cross section. The picture shown definitly shows a standard "primer/powder" arrangement. I will have to go back and look at the article, but the case they sowed in the article definitly had vent holes that resembled a high/low pressure case, and I belive it was even stated that it was a hi/low system so that the launcher would avoid the weight issues associated with the mk-19.

Well, that is an old drawing. Perhaps more recently they've developed a hi/lo case.

"Belch gun" sounds good. If I recall correctly, "belch" is the Russian word for "shot"...or is it what they do after taking a "shot"? :D

>>>“I just remembered, there WAS an M113 used in Vietnam with an 20mm GAU mounted on it.”

Yea, and do you know WHY it was a wash?

Ammo persistence. It didn’t carry enough ammo to keep up with it’s rate of fire, for a ground fight. For ultra-short airborne targets though, it did just fine. But the point is, your 12 or 10 gauge gatling gun won’t have that much ammo aboard the vehicle. Plus, why all that effort for a vehicle-borne weapon with a max effective range of just a fraction that of the M-4 carbine?!

Wouldn’t we be better off just getting a Gau-19? It’s a COTS availability, already in the system (some specops helos already carry them apparently). It’s got the close range firepower of 2000 round/minute, but has penetration to punch through Middle East walls, go right through normal trucks, and the range to engage past 2000 meters. Oh, and normal rate of fire of 1000rpm is similar (slightly slower than the 1100-1400rpm) to the much-admired MG-42.



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>“You still haven't told us how many you, not the guy next to you, or his buddy, but you, are going to carry - in addition to 12 lbs of body armor, your assault rifle, 8 lbs of water, your helmet, radios, etc, on a sweltering 115 degree day at 65 percent humidity along the Euphraties river.”<<

An infantryman is usually gonna end up carrying the same amount of weight, regardless of the weapon type: if part of his load is lighter than average, he’ll be making up that weight in another area…like more ammo, extra batteries, a belt for the GPMG, a medical bag, a second radio, hand grenades, folding stretcher, flare launcher, breaching kit like sledgehammer or “master key” and pinchbar. How much does a decent sledgehammer weight? 20lbs or more right there?

So, to answer your question, in my example of an MGL with Hellhound rounds, I’m picturing him carrying that primary weapon, and perhaps 20-35 rounds, depending on his level of need. He’ll have an M-4 CQB (shorter barrel) strapped to his chest, HK style not flopping about, with 3 mags (one on the weapon, and two in a single pouch out of the way).

Now…someone earlier mentioned the concept of everyone having an M203 system attached. Well, it’s a good concept, but it’s severely limiting in system flexibility: do you plan on attaching M203’s to m240G’s, sniper rifles like the Barrett or SPR Mk.12 Mod.1 , the radioman’s M4, and to the breacher’s 12 gauge? What about your SAW gunner? How about your M3 or Javelin gunner? See, suddenly you are giving up all sorts of capabilities, just to accommodate 40mm tubes on every patrol member’s weapons. Or, you are making their primary weapons far heavier than the MGL system.


Milkor 40mm MGL-140 Weapon Specs:
Weight (Empty/Dry): 13.2 lbs.

The HELLHOUND 40mm Low Velocity Multi-Purpose Grenade
Weight: 225 grams (98g A5 explosive).


Note: 225 gram = 0.4960401 pound.

So, loaded weight of an MGL is going to be 16.2 lbs. Let’s compare that to other weapons being used by Americans in Iraq, shall we?

<<

SPR Mk.12 Mod.1 ok, the weight of this system is gonna be in dispute, as every operator seems to have a different configuration for it’s optional sight systems, bipods and doodads. But let’s figure on the basic rifle being about 12 lbs, plus scope and bipod for another 2 pounds, other assorted night operations gear adding at least another 2-4 pounds…that’s 16-18 pounds not including the admittedly very lightweight ammo.


M240G Medium Machine Gun Weight (empty) : 24.2 pounds (10.99 kilograms), now add a 200 round belt that weighs about 14 pounds each (just belt, not including steel can as it won’t be always carried with can on patrols). Anyway, total of 38.2 lbs

M107 Barrett 50cal (M82A1), Weight (empty), 32 pounds. Add two magazines, I’m gonna guess they are perhaps 4 pounds when loaded with rounds. That places the weapon at 36 pounds, plus another magazine to carry makes the system weight 40 pounds. Before adding night vision gear (which may not be carried on all ops).

84mm M3 Multi-Role Anti-Armor Anti-Personnel Weapon System (MAAWS) (Rangers, NSW, JSOC)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m3-maws.htm
The M3 Rifle weighs approximately 25 pounds, ammunition weighs between 7 to 10 pounds each, depending on the type of round.
Total system with 4 rockets: 53 lbs

Javelin ATGM
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/javelin.htm
A full-up system weighs 49.5 pounds. That’s with just a single round, but we must remember it’s a powerful guided missile. Note that the operator will likely be carrying a basic M –4 or M-16 with a modest loadout.


<<

Now by comparison, our MGL gunner with Hellhound rounds, is going to be carrying:
MGL 13.2 lbs
6 rounds loaded 3 lbs
basic load 25 rounds hellhound 12.5 lbs
9mm pistol +2 magazines + ammo 3.5 lbs
_
Total system weight of: 32.2 lbs, with 31 high explosive shells and a backup pistol. Not bad for a man portable individual weapon system bringing the firepower of a Mk.19 to the streetfight. Not to mention the flexibility of rounds it can fire.


<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Regarding the buckshot 40mm shells, you guys have been talking about the high velocity (mk19) versions not being very practical. Ok, fair enough…but do these shortcomings apply to the LOW velocity 40mm? Because that low vel buckshot round is still in service, and has had many copies in other countries…usually a sign that something works well, not useless garbage.

Anyway, it’s worth considering that a military environment DOES lend itself to lots of fragmentation. Otherwise, the military wouldn’t bother with Claymore mines, cluster bombs, airburst artillery fuses, fragmentation grenades and so on. Which means that my point about the 40mm shell putting out more than 3 times as many buckshot pieces per round fired, is very valid…if the spread doesn’t get too silly.

Now, just because it’s spread is insane in the high pressure 40mm system, doesn’t necessarily mean this is a problem in the low pressure 40mm, as pressure can have all sorts of effects on such a sabot: extra pressure could cause the gas check to press into the rifling, where a low pressure may not do so at all. Also, the excess volume of gas blow-by could be enough to impart a spin, that you may not get on the low pressure version.

Most importantly, beyond “educated guesses” here, and descriptions of the high pressure version being problematic, I’ve never heard any negative descriptions of the M79 era shotshell from operators, so until I do, I’ll make a slight assumption that it works reasonably ok.

You know, considering the talk here of combat shotguns, and grenade launchers, I've heard it said many different places that the 40mm buckshot loading "is no different than a standard 12gau". Which, turns out, isn't strictly true: while the velocity may not be different (not seen any numbers though), and the pellet size the same (00 buck), the number of pellets PER SHOT...are WILDLY different: where a typical 12gau combat loading might have between 7-9 pellets, the 40mm will carry 27 pellets each.

Actually, the pellet size for your comparison is not the same. The issued 40x46mm multiple projectile loads used #4 Buckshot, and the most common version only holds 20 pellets. (The design of the 27 pellet load created too much dispersion.) A 2.75" 12 gauge holds 27 #4 Buck while a 3" load has 41 pellets.

FWIW: Pat Rogers claims from personal experience that the 40x46mm buckshot loads were unimpressive.

The HellHound flys out of the muzzle at a staggering 262 fps... you might as well be throwing stones or using a slingshot. No matter how many 00 buck pellets it has, at less than 100 meters a second it is impractical for anything but zero relative motion targets.

FWIW: The 40x46mm Multiple Projectile loads have a higher velocity than the grenade loadings due the reduced projectile mass. The quoted velocities that I've seen hover around 880 fps. Hoowever, this is still much lower than that of a full-size shotgun.

MGL gunner with Hellhound rounds, is going to be carrying:
MGL 13.2 lbs
6 rounds loaded 3 lbs
basic load 25 rounds hellhound 12.5 lbs
9mm pistol +2 magazines + ammo 3.5 lbs
_
Total system weight of: 32.2 lbs, with 31 high explosive shells and a backup pistol. Not bad for a man portable individual weapon system bringing the firepower of a Mk.19 to the streetfight.
Not bad at all. I agree that it'd be an excellent weapon for dismounted infantry fire support.
Regarding the buckshot 40mm shells, you guys have been talking about the high velocity (mk19) versions not being very practical. Ok, fair enough…but do these shortcomings apply to the LOW velocity 40mm?
Yes. Even in the low-velocity grenade launchers, there must be a snug fit between the sabot and the bore, or so much gas will blow past the sabot that muzzle velocity will be unusably low. If fit is tight enough for efficient propulsion, the sabot is going to engage the rifling, producing a doughnut-shaped shot pattern.

The only practical solution seems to be fitting a slip ring to the sabot to minimize spin. It can be done, but is the increased complexity and cost per round acceptable?

...precisely because it doesn't have the velocity to engage "fast" moving targets. It works well for breeching doors and engaging oncomming vehicles and other zero relative motion targests, but for moving targets, forget it.

RE: the GAU equipped M113. This is the same M113 that can carry 2,000 lbs of infantry and now, 6,000 lbs of additional armor, but NOT enough 20mm ammo? Nahh, the military is just too ridgid and cheap to fill the thing with the ammo it needs to be effective. We have an 'old-think" military that will spend lavishly on defensive armor systems, while leaving offensive armor systems in the R&D labs. This in spite of the fact that their own research shows the complete ineffectiveness of passive armor against all modern ATGM threats - like the 21lb Javelin missile (you don't carry the whole system for each missile, so yeah, the whole system weight 46lbs, but the missile only 21 lbs, and a team of 2 shooters and one loader can get a good shot away evey 6 seconds - 10/min. Therefore a hundred Javelin teams can destroy 1,000 pieces of heavy armor per minute. Defensive armor systems are pigheaded madness beyond small arms protection, but this has nothing to do with MOUT, so I'll leave it be for now.)

There is nothing written in the stars that says the military needs to put more than 3 men in an M113. This whole pig-headed obsession with moving large numbers of men in a single vehicle flys in the face of every piece of military analysis done in the last 15 years, yet the head-in-the-sand military continues to persist in this nonesense. Precision guided and sensor-fused weapons make killing any armored vehicle child's play, and now it turns out that if you give your enemy a predictable parol path, infinite time to plant mines, and infinite access to explosives by not even guarding huge stockpiles at suspected WMD sites under surveilance for 20 years, any dumbass raghead can bide his time and kill an AmTrac or Bradley or even Abrams for an afternoon's worth of digging in the dirt - so the folly comes home to roost much earlier than planned.

This aside, 17,000 lbs of 20mm ammo is what? 10,000 rounds? With shot ammo for ranges from 20ft to 300 ft and conventional ammo from 300 ft to 10,000 ft you have a very effective gun platform for MOUT. The M61 GAU munition will not tend to collaspe buildings into rubble like the Bushmaster, can be fired at rates well below its max 6,000rpm with a multi-speed trigger (1,000 rpm would roughly equal any other machine gun with no rest needed for cooling the gun) , and the 20mm defeats urban defenses the .50BMG won't. (A careful study of the 50's capabilities shows it does not defeat a large number of urban threats - despite the gleeful prattling of operators who have no experience with a 20mm for comparison.) The goal for this weapon is safe fire inside the safe range of a MK19 and sufficient rate of fire an multiple target destruction to decimate a mass of enemy troops running across a 35ft street to shift positions when the battle shifs and makes their position untenable. These 2-3 second intervals were the ONLY times we had an opportunity to kill large numbers of Tangos in Fallujah with relative ease. These were particularly valuable opportunities because the USMC feigning attack from the south to mask the initial assault from the north by the Army was the major single strategic play available to us. It's a piety we weren't better able to maximize those opportunities when the enemy had to shift positions to engage the real assault and abandon the feigning attack. Beyond offensive use, getting suprised by a hunter killer team would go much better if the M113 20mm could throw shot at bp ranges and would provide tremendous protection against such teams for other heavies. This weapon would have the ability to compartmentalize an urban battlefield by sealing off avenues of infiltration and escape 24x7 which would make all other combat operations much more effective - especially the use of CAS.

I think a lot of these scenarios get a lot clearer after reading Generation Kill.

Rechecked the article, and yes its a low pressure system. Also, I used my scale and a little math and came out with a warhead payload of about 2.8+ cubic inches of explosive and a fragmenting sleeve for anti personell applications.

Ya'll play with those numbers a bit ;)

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_SPIKE,,00.html ... lol.. it looks like the author divided by 2.2 instead of multiplied by 2.2 to get his weight figure. It's still an impressive system.

... OR... maybe not... http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/spike.html... there are at least 3 missile systems called Spike.. 2 anti-armor and one anti-aircraft.

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/missile_systems/anti-armor/gill_spike/GillSpike.html ... it looks like the min weight for the short range version might be 20lbs on the Spike. My research indicates it is less capable than the Javelin as it requires a man in the loop which means...

1.) you kill the man you the missile goes wild
2.) the gunner is exposed while the missile is in flight
3.) since it is NOT true fire and forget the rate of fire is equal to that of our TOW missiles, about 1-2 a minute, vs 5-8 seconds with a Javelin.

(My assertion that 2 gunners can get 10 missiles away is very conservative. The best case scenario with a VERY adept loader would be 25 missiles a minute. While this seems optimistic, if these were put in quad-pacs like the very similar Stinger IR guided missiles, this would be easily achieved. Further, if banked in large numbers, like an MLRS launcher, this rate would increase dramatically as the missiles' IR optics could be pre-cooled so it is ready for immediate launch upon target aquisition. A single PAV crew could outgun dozens of MBTs, especially if the launch platform is a StarShip peeking over protective terrain and launching in salvos. Combined with TIITS capabilities to computationally shift the perspective of weapons sites, and its ability to serve up remote data links, anyone with a good NVS assault rifle scope should be able to launch a Javelin from an MLRS type dispensor. http://www.rafael.co.il/web/rafnew/products/brochures/RAFAEL%20ER.pdf ... thow out the commander's and gunner's laptop, use the TIITS enabled weapon sight sytem to display the same info, and you have an everyman-can-fire ATGM system with NOBODY carrying anything on their backs!)


from http://www.cadre.maxwell.af.mil/warfarestudies/wpc/wpc_txt/army/div.htm

Anti-Armor Weapons: The Javelin is a man-portable antitank missile using an imaging infrared fire-and-forget system. The missile is designed to attack the topside of a tank where the armor is thinner. After launch, the missile climbs to a 330-660 ft altitude and dives at a 45-degree angle. The warhead is a tandem shaped-charge for penetrating explosive reactive armor. The first charge detonates the armor and the second penetrates the vehicle. The Javelin can defeat any known enemy armor. (I have posted a URL to a video of a Javelin launched against a T72 II and it not only blew the chassies into schrapnel, but the turret took 8 seconds to return to earth... estimated height of 150-200ft - utter and complete destruction!) . WEIGHT: 49.5 lbs; MAX RANGE: 2000 meters; MIN RANGE: 75 meters.

The TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) is the most widely distributed anti-tank guided missile in the world. It is fired from tripods, ground combat vehicles, and helicopters. The TOW II has a larger warhead and motor than predecessors. TOW IIA has a tandem charge warhead for defeating reactive armor and TOW IIB uses a top-attack flight profile. Data for TOW II: WEIGHT: 205 lbs includes tripod mount; missile weighs 48 lbs; MAX RANGE: 3750 meters; MIN RANGE: 65 meters.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-148.html
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/javelin/ ... I think they have combined the weight of the missile and the launch tube here in the specifications section. The CLU is an outstanding surveilance tool and was used extensively in Operation Anaconda to spot targets at night. Based largely on that experience against caves, an new "bunker buster" version of the missile was created. My info is that the cost to manufacture one of these is in the 25k range. I mention this because while the current quoted costs are the total systems cost divided by units produced, if we get into a real war and start making them like hotcakes the cost that is relavent is the marginal cost, not the average cost.

http://www.military-aerospace-technology.com/print_article.cfm?DocID=519


Well, I may hve newer weight data on the Javelin, or perhaps older, or just wrong, lets assume it's 26 lbs for now.

A quick look at this table should indicate the folly of building "unsinkable battleships" that run on tracks instead of props... http://www.aviationnow.com/media/pdf/spec05_missiles.pdf

What does all of this have to do with GLMGs and MOUT? Mostly that IMHO the need to carry "big bang" type handheld weapons is minimal. Infantry with M203s can each use their individual sensor packages - eyes, ears, nose, touch, to better deploy large 40mm Hellhound weapons than a single gunner. Better to give a DGLMG guy a full-auto shotgun and M203 so he can halt an enemy troop migration using his best quick-reaction instinctive fire rather than have him worrrying about how much to lead, distance to arm, # of rounds left... etc. All that thinking will get you killed. Let the guy pull the trigger just like when he is using his assault rifle (IE: instead of turning him into a "weapons system operator", let him be an infantryman!) and reward his instincts. If heavier fire is needed use a mounted weapon to repel, assault, pursuit and defeat enemy troop movements.

An acquaintance collects 40mm ammo. If anybody is interested, here is some info from his library:

======================

Re 40mm buckshot rounds, there were 4 rounds in the various stages of development that I am aware of. These were the XM576, XM576E1, XM576E2, and XM576E3. I guess you could consider the existence of one more variation, the M576, which was fully standardized nomenclature of the XM576E1.

XM576--The initial version of the cartridge which was produced in test lots only for lab and field evaluation. Apparently, the first 100,000 rounds, 90,000 of which were allocated for field testing in Southeast Asia, were of this type. It consisted of the familiar open mouth black plastic sabot with the central shot cup. The cup contained 20 lead pellets, each 19 grains in weight.

The main difference with this cartridge from later models was the use of the early model of the XM199 cartridge case, which employed a screw-in primer, and the presence of polyethylene powder between the shot pellets to facilitate seperation and minimize distortion during firing.

XM576E1--This was the same as the earlier cartridge except the primer was the press-in type and the polyethylene powder was replaced by a silicone oil. This was the production round, although I have not been able to find any production quantity data. It was originally type classified STD-B with distribution limited to SEA, and later redesignated M576. As far as I know, it remains the only buckshot round is service today, but I am unsure if production has resumed in recent years. The only rounds I've seen, including the M576 in my collection, are dated in the early to mid-1970's. I think they are still shooting up the old stuff.

XM576E2--This elusive round shows up in the Vietnam era manuals but almost never in real life. It used the XM199E2 cartridge case which was similar to the case used with the XM576E1 rounds but about .06" longer. The configuration of the projectile package was quite different from the E1 model with a sabot that oriented the shot in a single flat layer beneath a 2-piece closing cap. Twenty seven 19-grain lead pellets comprised the payload.

XM576E3--a further development of the XM576E2 round with the primary changes being a cartridge case constructed similarly to the M118 case, with deeply swaged propellant container and small crimped primer assembly. It also utilized a one-piece closing cap, rather than the two-piece assembly of the XM576E2. Those changes would have likely been incorporated into the final production version of the XM576E2 round, had it actually reached full standardization. Very small numbers were produced for lab testing only.

The sabots for both styles of projectiles need to act as bore obturators to prevent excessive gas leakage around the sabot, resulting in low or erratic velocities. Fired examples of the XM576E1 sabots certainly show markings from the barrel rifling, so I presume they must be spinning.

Muzzle velocities were 885 FPS for the XM576E1 and 850 FPS for the XM576E2.

Most of this came from a Memorandum Report---"CARTRIDGE, 40mm, MULTIPLE PROJECTILE, M576 SERIES" by Richard J McManus, Ammunition Development & Engineering Laboratories, Frankford Arsenal, August,
1971.

Stan,

It seems possible to form a chamber around the throat of a 40mm barrel that bleeds much of the charge into a larger diameter chamber surrounding the throat. If done correctly this should allow a full-power MK19 grenade to be fired from a hand-held launcher with the possibility of an adjustable range by bleeding more gas into the surrounding larger chamber. The gas would not necessarily have to be wasted, it could be reintroduced behind the projectile further down the barrel but after allowed to expand into the larger pressure chamber, at a reduced pressure. The basic idea is to migrate the pressure-reduction feature from each and every shell to the weapon itself with obvious implications for cost and weight savings.

The advantages I see are the "dial a punch" capabilities and reduced logistical load. To make full use of the system a longer barrel may be required, but the idea seems to have merit. I know the hi-lo system was a German invention dating back to WW-II - quite some time ago- so I wondered if the "dial-a-punch" approach had ever been tried? For getting a grenade downrange faster, hitting a point target, or pushing it thru a thick oak door so it can fragment inside of the room behind it this would be a nice capability.

I assume at some punch levels one would need to have the buttstock braced against something solid like a building or vehicle - perhaps the deployment of a wire stock into its funtional position could release a pressure interlock so the weapon couldn't be accidently fired at full punch and seperate a shoulder.


It sure would be handy for the ground-pounders if the MK19 guys could toss them a few dozen rounds in a pinch.

There are a couple of patents for the early '70s that describe a launcher which would allow for the emergency use of 40x53mm ammunition. Right off the top of my head, I can't think of the inventor, but he was a former Springfield Armory employee.

There are a couple of patents for the early '70s that describe a launcher which would allow for the emergency use of 40x53mm ammunition. Right off the top of my head, I can't think of the inventor, but he was a former Springfield Armory employee.

I guessed correctly on my first try: Stanley Silsby.

US3611867 - EMERGENCY WEAPON FOR FIRING HIGH-VELOCITY GRENADE ROUNDS (http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US3611867&F=0)

He filed two other related patents which describe other aspects of the launcher's design.

Way to go Daniel! Nice piece of leg work there. Thank you!

He claims that tests confirmed that the range could be dialed down to a few feet from 2,200 meters!

Doesn't fielding one ammo and two launchers make more sense than two launchers and two different kinds of ammo? Is there something I am missing? I had not though of the downed chopper defense, but did think of it for the BlackHawk down crew with what I presumed was a lot of minigun ammo they couldn't seem to use. My interest was of course a "downed" PAV crew as the USMC requirement for the ITV specifically specifies that it be able to host the MK19.

PS: The only changes I might make would be to have part of the pressure chamber set behind the charging vent - within the limits of a break-away action - and increase the size of the pressure vessel so no gas is wasted when using a longer barrel. I am sure he thought of these and many other enhancements and made clear that this embodiment was not to be considered exhaustive.

I wonder if that IR focal plane array on the Javelin missile is small enough to fit in a 40mm round? If we made the gunsight a tiny version of the CLU we could have a multi-shot guided projectile working in the IR spectrum for all-weather and night operation! :D Give it a 30" barrel and you have just massively improved on the RPG. It weights less, flies further (with something to brace the butt against) and is self-guiding to the target with a possible man-in-loop redirect. A well-constructed shaped charge should be able to penetrate from 2-7x the 40mm diameter. (The SPIKE is 39.9mm) You don't need a tandem warhead, you can just fire 2 shots. Now THAT puts the XM-109 to shame!

http://www.drs.com/products/index.cfm?gID=21&productID=197

Way to go Daniel! Nice piece of leg work there. Thank you!


No problem. I stumbled across it during patent searches related to my 5.56mm Timeline (http://www.thegunzone.com/556dw.html).

An acquaintance collects 40mm ammo. If anybody is interested, here is some info from his library

Would he happen to have any info on the bounding airburst 40x46mm round or the experimental rocket-assisted round?

Daniel,

A few additional thoughts after a long walk... :D

The Milkor could quite easily be made to support this pressure reduction feature either directly or via a bevel-cut gas tappet that is held in place by a detent ball when the cylender is rotated into firing position. The detent ball and tappet are lifted out of the pressure vent ring on cylender "n" when the revolver is turned. This would allow for a bridge mounted gas chamber. On the other hand, by making the cylender round, by not removing the material between chambers, one could just use the Silsby method. Using the full-up MK19 round would likely require the extra material for strength anyway. This seems like a perfect application for Scandium Aluminum alloy's extra toughness to make a truely lightweight ATGM launcher. We would likely have to use a similar seal system between the barrel and revolver on a Milkor to keep the gases from leaking out of the small gap between them.

Putting a CLU on a Milkor would give a squad excellent surveilance capabilities and even if an IR guided 40mm needed to be larger, perhaps even larger than the Hellhound, (up to 130mm ??) if the weapon were capable of firing all versions of the 40mm it would then, in my opinion, be worth the weight and bulk as it would be capable of defeating - especially in top-attack mode - light vehicles up to and including BMP-2s at 2k. Because top attack mode makes perfect use of high arching trajectories, a top attack IR self-guided warhead would seem especially well suited to the "dial-a-punch" concept.

It looks to me like a long barrel (35-45" ??) might be benificial with this concept in order to use the force of the gas charge over a longer time interval to spread the recoil out. A titanium diboride ceramic barrel wrapped in carbon fiber would make an extremely durable barrel at about 30% of the weight of steel and unlike a mortar tube barrel heat should not be a problem. This should keep the system's balance and weight manageable.

This would just beat the hell out of any RPG system in existance for precision, weight and rate-of-fire - and with top attack mode it should be at least as effective. Imagine the effectiveness of the system for SOCOM operators infiltrated deep behind enemy lines tasked with destroying an entire flightline of attack helicopters. Given the same F&F capabilities of the Javelin 5-6 seconds between rounds and better than 85% probability of a hit. When the tangos come to hunt you down you kill them in their armor with more of the same.

I keep hearing about this stuff called "liquid metal" that apparently someone is using to make knives

Apparently it is extreamly tough, and when fluid, it can be poured into any mold and come out as you want it, for instance the material for the knife is poured into the mold (which has the edge already formed in the mold) and comes out sharp. The material is supposidly so tough that it can only be cut or filed by a device made of the same material. The only draw back I have heard is that at extreemly high temperature (hotter than a car engine gets when it overheats and craps out) it tends to explosively fracture. As one of my aquaintences put it, "you could pour this stuff into a mold of a gunbarrel, and when it was set, pull it out, put it on the reciver, and shoot it, with no additional machining required".

I know it sounds like "geeksville scifi crap" but apparently said aquaintence has stock in the company so it must exist in some way shape or form.

http://www.liquidmetal.com/index/

Wish I knew more about the process, some of it says high melting point, other parts say low melting point, I would like to see how it would work in gun parts

Too bad I don't have the money to talk to them about it or the molds made up for testing, it might be and interesting experiment

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2003gun/hawl.pdf

Considered against the Hydra 70 rocket, the SPIKE is a major advance. At 1.57" vs 2.75" and with precision guidance (visible light, not IR... my bad), it's obvious why the USN is interested in strapping these to helicopters. It makes the 19 count Hydra launcher tube a 33 count SPIKE tube and with F&F capabilities it can be launched at point targets with what I assume would be hit probabilities equal to the Javelin's (> 90% if my crappy memory serves ;) ) I'll take a couple-three pods of 33 for my StarShip anyday. With a 2km range this represents an amazing amount of firepower! :D

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4549685.html

Cool,

FYI, I am working with a vendor who can mold the entire PAV hull as a mono-cast part out of Ti, aluminum, stainless steel or some mix of the three. Using diffusion bonding a 2-sided Ti face can be made with a Ti honeycomb structure in-between. Unfortunately for the PAV, all metals have radar returns that are hard to mask, and a mono-hull with no replaceable sacrificial armor panels precludes in-field R&R of damaged armor. For the frame and torso area of the crew kayak, spec-ed at STANAG 4569 level III+ , it is very compelling technology though and offers a great solution for strong and light suspension members. I am investigating Ti composite structures like IsoGrid for the suspension. Thirty % lighter than Ti and 3x as strong. Pinnacle DragonSkin armor "scales” molded right onto the Ti skin are child's play.

The claim of strength above that of the metal sheet used in the process is false. The strength over welding is what is being referenced – in a very clever use of words the website’s statement is true. The finished product is stronger than if welding were used – much stronger.

PS: Now that I know what I'm looking for, I can tell my beloved stainless steel Starbucks coffee cup was formed using this process. Google around. It's 20yr old technology that is just getting going commercially.

back to the "ideal AR" subject matter, I recently sold my HK to get enough money for an XCR and wound up having to use the money for something else. So I broke down and bought a Mini-30 and have since "reopened" my investigations of a prototyped rifle based on this action. Not wanting to screw up my existing rifle, I am going to either purchase replacement parts for modification, or build "prototype" parts out of cheep, maliable material. It will not be a working prototype of course, only a model that cycles. The next step after that would be to build actual "real steel" parts for a working weapon. Since I am working with an existing cartridge, pressures, cycling mechanism, etc. as long as I do not alter the weight of the bolt, or change the bolt face, breach, chamber or barrel, it should be safe to try out with a live charge...and a test bench and remote firing syste, ;)

Liquid Metal is amorphous steel. Basically, they use a substance (I think it's Yttrium) to cause the metal to crystalize in an amorphous state. The tenstile strength of amorphous steel is twice that of regular steel, but it's expensive to make.

How much more expensive? Since it is stronger than steel, (and they claim as light as Ti) would the cost to weight be worth making weapons parts out of? What if we take into consideration the reduced time and complexity of manufacture?

...any info on the bounding airburst 40x46mm round or the experimental rocket-assisted round?
I queried my friend, but he has not yet answered. I do have a little info on the M397 airburst round, copied from FM 23-31 and attached below.

As you can see, range and casualty radius are the same for the airburst and conventional 40mm HE rounds, since both types use the same size (approx 37mm diameter) spherical grenade.

It is my understanding that the rocket-assisted projectile has the same grenade, and so would also have the same casualty radius. Regrettably, I have no info as to range or accuracy of this round.

It is my understanding that the rocket-assisted projectile has the same grenade, and so would also have the same casualty radius. Regrettably, I have no info as to range or accuracy of this round.

I've seen the figure 800 meters cited.

Coolhand,

According to the article at:

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040623-041703-9887r.htm

The raw materials cost of amorphos steel is 100 dollars per pound, but they're working to reduce the costs.

Call me crazy, but if I did my math right, it looks like the 30mm low pressure russian ammo actually has 2.8 cubic inches of filler and the 40mm HE round only has 1.6 cubic inches (the actual warhead is a 37mm diameter sphere behind the arming and fusing mech). With modern electronics and fusing systems, would it be possible to stuff a fusing system comperable to the standard 40mm arming and fusing system into the nose fuse space of those 30mm rounds that the russian AGL uses? Perhaps even use the basic pattern for an updated, high BC, underbarrel GL system for the next gen AR?

anyone out there have any experiance with the AUG? I have some questions about the operating mechanics, specifically imparted forces on the rifleman and effects on aim for long range shooting.

point of interest, the 25mm payload round for the XM109 and XM307(the 25mm "machinegun") only has about .4 cu in. of explosive in the payload. The rest of it is the freaking fusing system.

anyone out there have any experiance with the AUG? I have some questions...
I owned one for awhile, back when they first became available here. Don't know if I have the answers you seek, but ask away.

...the 25mm payload round for the XM109 and XM307(the 25mm "machinegun") only has about .4 cu in. of explosive...
Yep, that's the drawback to such (relatively) small-caliber explosive rounds, the size of which was chosen primarily to achieve the desired range, trajectory, and weapon weight.

IMO, ya gotta go to about 50-60mm, if not bigger, to get a truly effective HE projectile. Fer instance, the standard "baseball" hand grenade is approx 63mm diameter, and according to combat vets I've talked to, much preferred over the 40mm grenades fired by the M203. Of course, the trade-offs are reduced range and basic load.

Actually I was comparing it to the 40mm HE and the russian 30mm frag rounds. The russian round has a much smaller fuse volume and a HUGE explosive payload for its size. AND its low impulse, instead of "dislocate your shoulder" Hi impulse like the XM-109 ammunition.

I was wondering about torsional effects because of the side mounted gas tube. Specifically, did you notice any pulling to the side on which the gas tube is mounted? I have been informed that rifles with out a center (top or bottom) mounted gas piston have a tendency to pull in that direction during firing thereby throwing aim off a little at long range. I know its probably someone talking about something they don't really know about, but you never know.
How was the muzzle climb? Did you have any issues with the piston system locking up in heavy rain/submerged conditions (I know you probably didn't experiance this, but I had to ask)?

Aside from that, any additional information along those lines would be helpful. I am currently working on altering a design that initially had a bottom mounted piston, and changing it to a side mount piston as well as other little ideas.

The penetration of a SC blast is a multiple of the diameter of the cone. Therefore, bigger is better.

I was wondering about torsional effects because of the side mounted gas tube. Specifically, did you notice any pulling to the side on which the gas tube is mounted?
Nope.
I have been informed that rifles with out a center (top or bottom) mounted gas piston have a tendency to pull in that direction during firing thereby throwing aim off a little at long range.
Never heard of this before, although I suppose it might be possible. If it is a real effect, I'm sure few shooters would ever notice it.
How was the muzzle climb?
My AUG was semi-auto only, so can't give you an authoritative answer on muzzle climb in full-auto.
Did you have any issues with the piston system locking up in heavy rain/submerged conditions?
I was supposed to submerge an expensive, and (at that time) hard-to-replace rifle??? :D
Sorry...am afraid that's not something I tested.
I am currently working on altering a design that initially had a bottom mounted piston, and changing it to a side mount piston as well as other little ideas.
I don't see any reason why a side-mounted piston should offer any significant problems for an infantry rifle. I've heard no complaints about this from the Austrian or Australian armies, which seem satisfied with the weapon. The only negative aspect that I know of is that it produces a slight increase in width at the front end of the rifle.

As noted above, if there is a tendency of the rifle to pull in the direction of the gas system, probably only a very highly skilled marksman would be able to notice. For the vast majority of infantrymen, the rifle is almost certainly capable of greater accuracy than the shooter.

Here is my 2 cents worth, as an Armourer who works on them, and shoots with the Army's Shooting team in International competitions, and carried them operationally on overseas deployment.

No problems whatsoever with side mounted piston.

The faults I see are, the safety is easily knocked onto fire when its slung, the trigger is insufficently guarded to prevent occasionally going off well slung, I have only seen it happen twice but that was enough for me!!.
The 2 sets of driving springs can only be accessed by armourers, dunking in salt water causes bad rusting in this area, which is a bugger to fix.
Firing a 203 causes the action to jar open slightly and them not close fully (because of the relationship of the auto-sear and cocking piece) users them have to either eject the chambered round, or try and use the fairly inadequte forwrd assit to close the action.

Otherwise a really good rifle, reliable and easy to work on, and very short with a full length barrel which (in my veiw) puts it streets ahead of the M4, as you get full velocity out of a wpn that is easy to get in and out of veh and AFV etc.

Thanks for the input. Which section had the springs that weren't accessable? I have a few diagrams and I was curious as to where the problem is. During my design phase I may figure out that the AUG mechanism is easier to modify or "Fix" than the one I was working on and I want to know where the flaws are. Doubtful, but stranger things have happened

as far as armor piercing, yes, you would probably want to go with a 40mm tube. In fact if you design your laucher right, you might be able to use RPG style oversized warhead with a 40mm stick, but thats another prototype I have in mind.

For a 25 to 30mm multipurpose GL, I was thinking something more along the lines of the main ammo being a cylindrical shot charge. Basically it would have a hard fore and aft section, with a plastic casing around the middle, a layer of shot (similar to a claymore) and a high explosive charge in the center, minimizing forward and aft dispersion and giving you a shot cone or cylindar instead of a spherical pattern.

Almost forgot to ask, What is the best forward assist out there? I have heard grumblings about the one on the M16 and a few other weapons, I was just wondering what was the best all around....might be able to engineer it into my design

I notice that the FN SCAR does not have a separate one like the M16, and neither does the XM8/G36

I notice that the FN SCAR does not have a separate one like the M16, and neither does the XM8/G36

On these designs, you simply use the cocking handle.

I know the G36/XM8 system has a reciprocating handle, does the SCAR? If I remeber correctly, the FN FAL style cocking handle is not reciprocating unless you lock it in to use as a forward assist, but I don't know if they carried that over to the SCAR.

I know the G36/XM8 system has a reciprocating handle, does the SCAR?

Yes, the SCAR's cocking handle reciprocates.

Reciprocating handle, good idea or bad idea, and what are the viable alternatives?

You know, considering the talk here of combat shotguns, and grenade launchers, I've heard it said many different places that the 40mm buckshot loading "is no different than a standard 12gau". Which, turns out, isn't strictly true: while the velocity may not be different (not seen any numbers though), and the pellet size the same (00 buck), the number of pellets PER SHOT...are WILDLY different: where a typical 12gau combat loading might have between 7-9 pellets, the 40mm will carry 27 pellets each.

So just for the sake of considering CQB in Iraq, we examine the fact that the enemy over there fears the buckshot loaded shotgun more than any other American weapon, let’s consider a fleeting enemy target, and the application of two pulls of the trigger before the insurgent/terr is hidden behind cover/concealment:

12gau semi-auto, two shots – 18 pellets
40mm two tubes or 2 shots from MGL – 54 pellets downrange

Something to consider?



I may be jumping into something that has been thoroughly discussed...

couple comments. IIRC the 40mm gl shot round was about 600 fps? and I think it used #4 shot, not OO.

A twelve gauge would hold iirc 20+ #4 shot, and usually (not the newer "Tactical" loadings, would fire them at about 1300fps.



The Raufoss Mk211 round could probably be a pretty effective frag round if it was made without the steel penetrator. But it was designed for anti-helicopter use originally iirc, so they wanted penetration, fragmentation, and incendiary effects.

I am also curious about the capabilities of these various 12 gauge grenades.

I have long suspected that a 12 ga fin stabilized slug with a shaped charge was possible, and going out to 8 or 4 gauge would be even better.

The Russian shotgun KS23 would probably be even better, but would need some ergonomic work, imo. A long recoil semi automatic operating system or a gas operated system might keep it from HURTING the firer. 23mm shell...


I have been wondering about a modernized EM-1 or EM-2 (making use of modern materials and manufacturing techniques) in 6.5 Grendel with a 4 column magazine might be the way to go. I figure 28-40 rounds could be used fairly easily, and if it was properly built into the stock, it should not be too awkward. It would be rather fat, but...

I would try to minimize the weight of the rear end as much as possible (despite the heavy magazine) and put a moderately heavy barrel on it to try to shift the balance point forward, more like a conventional rifle.

If this didn't work, there are ways to make light, stiff rifles, imo.

A relatively quick change barrel, so that a standard 18-20 inch assault rifle could be converted to a marksmans rifle with a 24" barrel or a SNIPER/support weapon with a 28 inch barrel (assuming such made a significant difference given the inherent efficiency of the 6.5mm)

By using Carbon fiber, aluminum, titanium, what have you, I would prefer that the basic unloaded weight, with a Trijicon scope, was about 6-6.5 lbs.

Loaded weight would be more like 7.5, at a guess.

Make a quick release simplified version of the thermal imager/laser rangefinder/ballistic computer from the OICW program, and...

The HellHound flys out of the muzzle at a staggering 262 fps... you might as well be throwing stones or using a slingshot. No matter how many 00 buck pellets it has, at less than 100 meters a second it is impractical for anything but zero relative motion targets. In 1 second a man can run 20 ft, and can see a 40mm comming, so as opposed to 1,300-1,500 fps for a shotgun, which can be aimed accurately and hit point targets, the 40mm is easily outrun. Hell, a good baseball pitcher throws at almost half of the HellHound's speed, and from about 50 ft and most batters can avoid a bad pitch even though they can't tell its gone awry until the ball as well downrange.

You still haven't told us how many you, not the guy next to you, or his buddy, but you, are gonig to carry - in addition to 12 lbs of body armor, your assault rifle, 8 lbs of water, your helmet, radios, etc, on a sweltering 115 degree day at 65 percent humidity along the Euphraties river. The M203/M79 was made to fill the gap between hand grenades and light mortars, it was not intended to sweep a room or lay down a wall of supressive fire or catch a massed formation on the move.

The best weapon for doing the latter is the MG-42, or nowdays, a GAU, as it has the rate of fire and velocity to do so. For MOUT a 10 gauge GAU would be about as good as it gets and would make a great weapon for the PAV's HOOOW gunner. It would also be a great gun for an uparmored Hummer or M113 and should be a relatively easy conversion from a 20mm Phalanx type GAU, or maybe just stick with that gun and use a shotgun load. It would certainly make a versitile weapon as even the MK19 has too much velocity to use in close quarters, but a wall of 00 buck from a 20mm GAU would have no such restrictions and given a selectable dual-feed the 20mm would be very versitile. Ohhh. I just remembered, there WAS an M113 used in Vietnam with an 20mm GAU mounted on it. Too bad both of those platforms are too big to get thru many of the small streets in Ragheadland.


SPorts medicine will tell you it would be effectively IMPOSSIBLE for a batter to hit a ball going 250fps, If I remember my physics classes correctly.

You can see a 40mm grenade going downrange. It would be VERY difficult to spot if you were not the one firing it.

The average reaction time of a man is roughly .25 seconds. This gives VERY little time to actually do anything. Particularly given the time it takes a body to accelerate.

Arrows are larger than 40mm grenades, And go about the same speed. How many people can dodge them?

Also, afaik the body armor is either 16 or 18 lbs, depending on the version.

Nobody said a man could throw a baseball 250fps, read the thread. 262/2 fps is 89 mph. My gf in highschool pitched softball underhanded faster than that!

You are assuming in your scenarios that the runner is responding to the gunner. This is not the scenario that was being discussed. When tangos cross a street or appear in a window THEY have the inititive, not you. You are the one responding. I stand by my analysis.

A 40 mm grenade is not appreciabally smaller than an RPG missile and is going slower and you can sure as hell see one of those comming at you - as you can see a baseball comming at you at 100+ mph. The key here is the amount of relative motion. If something is comming straight at you the only relative motion is due to drop or windage. Other than that the projectile is essentially stationary from your point of view - except that it gets bigger in your view as it approaches.

Arrows are nowhere near 40mm in diameter, and that frontal area is all you see comming at you - and once again - you are assuming they are responding to you, instead of you them. If your enemy is stitting in a lawn chair sipping tea you can hit him in the side of the head with a rock, and this is not at all the scenario under discussion. The analogy is inappropriate.

http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=781

Put the lower in grendel, and frankly, Nuff said :D

Only thing better would be figuring out a way to set up the AUG ejection "combat swappable" for ambidexterous "shoot from cover" situations (and so that a left handed firer can shoot from the right side and vise versa without eating hot brass).

I went back and reviewed the RobArms M96 Bren configuration and it looks like the perfect top layer for a long Silsby style "dial a punch" M203 firing the full-power MK19 grenade. If the triggers could be collocated this would allow for a 40mm barrel longer than the rifle barrel with the trigger mounted under the 40mm tube. (I am assuming the longer barrel would make the Silsby mechanism more useful by allowing more time for the gas charge to push on the grenade.)

One possible trigger configuration would be a very stiffly sprung or safety released trigger guard that can be pulled back to fire the grenade. Electric 40mm grenade primers would also be great as the trigger could then be moved almost anywhere as it would be a switch.

One variation that might prove superior to the drop-down breakaway barrel on the M203 would be a flip-flop 2-shot cylinder. Starting with a round in each, the first can be fired, second flopped sideways into place, first cylinder reloaded with 2nd shot at the ready at all times. A 4-5" cylinder could be implemented using the Silsby charge-reduction system. In such a configuration the cylinder would have to be mounted just ahead of the 40mm's firing pin and trigger. If collocated this would also be the location of M96 upper's trigger.

Nobody said a man could throw a baseball 250fps, read the thread. 262/2 fps is 89 mph. My gf in highschool pitched softball underhanded faster than that!

You are assuming in your scenarios that the runner is responding to the gunner. This is not the scenario that was being discussed. When tangos cross a street or appear in a window THEY have the inititive, not you. You are the one responding. I stand by my analysis.

A 40 mm grenade is not appreciabally smaller than an RPG missile and is going slower and you can sure as hell see one of those comming at you - as you can see a baseball comming at you at 100+ mph. The key here is the amount of relative motion. If something is comming straight at you the only relative motion is due to drop or windage. Other than that the projectile is essentially stationary from your point of view - except that it gets bigger in your view as it approaches.

Arrows are nowhere near 40mm in diameter, and that frontal area is all you see comming at you - and once again - you are assuming they are responding to you, instead of you them. If your enemy is stitting in a lawn chair sipping tea you can hit him in the side of the head with a rock, and this is not at all the scenario under discussion. The analogy is inappropriate.



It could be I misread the applicable posts, but it seemd to me that people were saying the grenade can be dodged.

Slower projectiles do make target lead more difficult. That is obvious.

Unless I miscalculated, 100mph is about 146 fps.

Back on the subject of the rifle, I have a concept that is half way through diagramming stage, does anyone have a preference for a safety lever? For the design I am working on, an FN P90/F2000 style rotory under the trigger would be easiest to impliment (specifically because I am looking at an AUG style "trigger/hammer" group that even on full auto allows a short trigger pull for semi-auto shots) but I would like to hear from those of you out there with more experiance than I weather that would be acceptable, or something more akin to an M16 style thumb operated lever would be more well received.

Okay, since feedback was not forthcoming, I just went ahead. I know its not complete, I know its odd, and I know it will take some explanation, but here is my answer to the M4. below it is an M4 scaled the same for a comparison. I know its not perfect, but maybe I can get some feed back.

Oh and feel free to ask questions. :D

The best feeling M16 pistol grip I've ever had was one made by Lone Star Ordnance. It looked much like a regular A2 grip but felt a lot better. Unfortunatley I left it on an issue rifle which unbeknowist to me was turned in for replacement. I have been looking for a replacement since but no luck. Maybe they went out of buisness? M9

I'm working on making the grips modular. I personally like the ergonomics of the P90 (obviously), but I know there are those who prefer an A2 style pistol grip, or an AUG, so, might as well make it modular.
How about the saftey lever M9? Prefer an AR style selector, or something that can be actuated by the trigger finger like the Garand/M14/Mini-14 style lever?

My idea of an ideal assault rifle would probably be a bullpup along the lines of the FN F2000, but very minimalistic.

So far, the idea of a bull-pup has been to make the barrel as long as possible, in as short a gun as possible.

Why not turn the idea on its head once more, as that probably was the way the bullpup was invented. Make the barrel as short as possible, in a gun being as long as possible, while still keeping the magazine behind the trigger:

It should have the pistolgrip very close to the mag-well, to enable hand to hand coordination. A pistolgrip as on the P-90 could be the best solution.

Also the distance from the pistolgrip to the butt-plate of the receiver should be as short as possible, to make room for an adjustable shoulder-stock.

...thinking about how a bullpup "aims" ... it shoots from the armpit, not from the hand, as a normal action does. I wonder if this is the best arrangement as it is so counter-intuituve. I cannot think of a single sporting or other activity where the object moves from the armpit - except for crutches I guess. Whether spears or stones or arrows, all of our opposing thumb, tool-using history goes against the bullpup.

Here is an even more radical idea. Taking many of the advantages of the Bren gun, how about a P90 style feed where the bullets are stored in the clip perpendicular to the action and rotated into place at about the 9 O-Clock position. The massive 12-16" long clip is inserted in a mag-well from behind and the clip rests at a 30-45 degree inward-facing angle along the top of the butt. The recoil action jiggles the spring with each firing, making jams nearly inconcievable, and with a horizontal push little pressure is required. In addition, the mass of the bullets is right on the centerline of the recoil so there is no asymetric torque from a clip sticking out the top or bottom - and better still - as the clip empties the torque does NOT change as it does not move closer to the center of recoil.

It might make for a fat butt perhaps 1.75" on top, but the bottom of the butt could be any size and a thumbhole stock would offer the grip for a great cheek-weld. Two additional of these massive clips could be held on the outside of the butt for an on-weapon load of 150 rounds! It seems to me the Grendel round would be especially suitable for such a rotating feed system as it is similar in profile to the 5.7n round of the P90.

The feed point would still be ahead of the trigger, but now the butt is doing something besides taking up valuable space in order to support proper ergonomics. Now you have great accuracy, no clip length issues, and a weapon that makes its length a real benefit. Heavy barrels could be used with such a weapon and it could still maintain excellent balance making it very fast on target. As a final bonus, a quick glance down would provide a split second ammo check. ( I have a feeling that with your ear so close to the clip when cheek-welded you would get to know the ammo load by the sound of the clip's spring :D)

I guess my sketch wasn't that good, thats almost exactly what I was talking about. Top mount, 45degree turn P90 style magazine, minimum lenght around that of a P90, with maximum length dependant on what job you want to do with it. Everything from a heavy sidearm/PDW up to a sniper platform or LMG. The only diff is I put the mag forward instead of aft (because of the base line mechanisims I am using and/or not wanting to use the mag as a cheek rest) and I left the capability to use standard "AR15" style mags in a bren style config in a pinch.

...seems to have the advantage of balance and keeping the top & forward part of the weapon unencumbered for sights and M203s and such. Once you use a powerful enough round to need a shoulder support to control the recoil you are going to need a buttstock anyway. Why not make it do something intrinsicially usefull and leave the barrel unencumbered?