Grendel as a Universal Infantry Cartridge

[JASmith]

...These include a laser rangefinder, a ballistic computer, and various sensors to tell whether the rifle is pointing up or downhill, or whether it's being held absolutely upright. They will even measure air pressure and any crosswinds (the trickiest part). So the soldier will not have to be a marksman to hit a target at 800m - he will just have to learn to hold the rifle steady (on a bipod, obviously, at that range), put the aiming mark on the target, press the lase button, then re-aim as the aiming mark moves to show him exactly where to aim. The only traditional shooting skill required will be to stop breathing for a couple of seconds and squeeze the trigger very carefully rather than pull it.

Tony,

I concur with all the above except the part about not having to be a marksman. It is all too easy for us folks who have been shooting for more than a half-century to forget what it takes to become effective at shooting even at 100 yards.

The problem is that "Joe Tentpeg" needs 1000 - 2000 rounds downrange to develop his basic skills to where he can effectively use the scope yo describe. That shooting needs to be a mix of supervised known and unknown distance and surprise targets plus a number of informal sessions "Joe Tentpeg" might get to shoot 600 - 800 during his entire initial active duty commitment and those shots are almost always taken under rather controlled conditions.

Further, marksmanship in the military field also requires significant skills in identifying targets that the average Joe won't develop.

Bottom line, the scopes you describe are likely to be a very important addition to the tools used by the sharpshooter or designated marksman. Remember also that users of the scope will be obliged to carry an extra 1-2 lbs on his rifle. Those scopes are big and heavy in their current incarnation. So the DM might be a little less effective in a room or alley, but likely more effective in covering his team from longer distance threats.

Take the new-fangled scopes to the next level, however, where the squad or team leader can designate the aimpoint in the shooters scope, then "average Joe" may be able to employ more effective suppressive fire.

The trade will be whether the new scope would justify the added cost, weight and reliability hits.

Cheers,
Joe

[Tony Williams]

The scope size, weight and cost can all be expected to fall over the years, as happens to everything electronic. So at first it will be for snipers, then for sharpshooters, then for all infantrymen (as happened with optical scope sights). The benefits will certainly justify their use, particularly since the army wants to build in combined starlight/thermal imaging technology for night fighting.

You are right about the need for training, but I suspect that this can be supplemented by "virtual ranges" on which soldiers can practice. These are already used in some form, I believe.

Just thinking off the cuff, here, but since what the soldier will see is a video image, I'm sure it would be possible to plug in a training session module which would run all sorts of scenarios through the scope's eyepiece, giving the soldier practice in identifying targets and in shooting skills, with sensors to determine whether his shot would have hit the right target. So they could practice anytime, anywhere. I'm sure the vast video game industry could come up with something toot sweet, as they say.

[LRRPF52]

Tony, I was involved with the testing of the Land Warrior System starting as early as 1997 in 25th ID, as well as a more matured system for testing in the 82nd in 2000-2001, and have been following the latest electro-optical aiming and ballistic solution developments closely. While there are some significant advantages to these developments, we don't have a system that will compensate for wind factors downrange, as that would require use of assets allocated for higher priorities than watching trees blowing in the wind to give a correct wind deflection solution to Joe Tentpeg and his super blaster.

The wind reading at the shooter's location is only one factor into wind-deflection if you're talking about shooting past 300m in speeds over 10mph, so until you get satellites to provide real-time wind readings based on conditions throughout the bullet's flight path, if there are any indicators (which are few and far between in the Middle East), you need a well-trained team to get a 2nd-round hit at 800m in realistic wind conditions.

Just as relying on GPS for your primary navigation solution is an absolute mistake without an understanding of map-reading, compass use, terrain association, pace count, etc., relying on technology for a firing solution without an underlying experience base with intermediate range shooting (that is only taught in sniper training currently) is a mistake.

Also, with the nature of a high-stress engagement where the Pashtun fighters have purposely initiated a far ambush outside the effective range of even optimistic effective ranges for the 7.62 NATO, no shoulder-fired weapon other than the M107 and maybe a .338 LM will begin to even touch them at the ranges they like to initiate at. These engagements are usually resolved with CAS, mortars, or artillery.

[JASmith]

Regarding Virtual Ranges, the few advertisement clips I've seen suggest that they exist and are very useful for practicing team shooting procedures from hasty, but nonetheless static, positions. They do not appear to have evolved to where things that affect required aimpoint adjustments needed to account for range, wind and slope.

That, too, will evolve. I have what I believe is rudimentary knowledge of image generation using trajectories affected by wind and slope. Hence I am very sure the impediment is not technology, but a perceived need and confidence that the enhanced range training will make enough of a difference.

[JASmith]

...Also, with the nature of a high-stress engagement where the Pashtun fighters have purposely initiated a far ambush outside the effective range of even optimistic effective ranges for the 7.62 NATO, no shoulder-fired weapon other than the M107 and maybe a .338 LM will begin to even touch them at the ranges they like to initiate at. These engagements are usually resolved with CAS, mortars, or artillery.

You've identified a missing element in taking this discussion to useful insight.

The reality is that, most of the time, the fire team has a lot of combined arms resources available. There are very few times when even SF teams are truly isolated and are obliged to rely only on what they could personally carry to the fight.

I cut my teeth in a world where unguided weapons delivered by air and arty could be put within 1 km of friendlies day in and day out. Strafing, napalm and some CBUs could, in ideal conditions, be put within 10-15yards of friendlies. I also know how fickle this support can be, so I do not suggest we assume that drones, Apaches, A-10s, Fi16s and B52s will always be close enough or be allowed to give the support soon enough to matter.

Further, we haven't yet discussed what team-organic assets are currently available -- grenade launchers and mortars for example, and their impact on how much range is really needed for the infantry rifle/carbine. As Tony suggests, we also need to project at least a little into the future to forecast what might have been added in this category by the time any new cartridge we discuss might be fielded.

I think that the 20-25 mm grenade launcher supplementing or supplanting the 40mm might make a big difference in perceptions of what long range ability the average infantry soldier needs in his or her personal weapon.

How does that square with your understanding of available equipment?

[LRRPF52]

The fact is that no rifleman has any fantasies about effectively engaging targets at 800m+. 500m is a stretch, especially under fire. That is the territory of DMR's, SAW's and M240's right now. The problem is that M240's and SAWs are difficult to get into action because of their weight and bulk, compounded by the disparity in fatigue the gunners experience in relation to riflemen carrying M4's...so when contact happens, the guys with the lightest blasters are the most able to assess the situation, maneuver into the best positions, which are more likely to be at the forward edge of friendly troops, while the guys burdened down with SAW's are suckin' wind trying to find a good position to get into a shooting solution.

Weight and bulk are the biggest enemies with small arms, other than the M4 and SPR.

203's and similarly re-packaged GL's are limited to 400m effective range, and most grenadiers can't make hits under stress much past 200m. The first thing to be removed are the new Star Trek scanner aiming devices that are supposed to compensate for wind, and have laser range finders and the sorts of firing solutions mentioned by Tony, but they are simply too bulky for any self-respecting soldier to hump around and get caught on stuff, with the insane amount of top weight that makes them totally impractical.

[stanc]

The problem is that M240's and SAWs are difficult to get into action because of their weight and bulk, compounded by the disparity in fatigue the gunners experience in relation to riflemen carrying M4's...so when contact happens, the guys with the lightest blasters are the most able to assess the situation, maneuver into the best positions, which are more likely to be at the forward edge of friendly troops...

Doesn't it then make sense to give them long range capability? As has been seen in combat video, riflemen are going to shoot back at those distant targets, anyway. I doubt that would change, even if your hypothetical, 12-pound, 6.5 Grendel Magnum LMG was developed and fielded.

[stanc]

So the main selling points for a new cartridge will IMO be to replace 7.62mm in portable guns for dismounted infantry while saving a substantial amount of weight, and to standardise on one calibre for such troops.

7.62mm would remain in use for a long time in vehicle mounts, but that doesn't matter since they have their own ammo supply line. 5.56mm would probably hang on in more of a PDW role in lightweight carbines in non-infantry units. But the idea is that the line infantry would only carry weapons in the new calibre.

I understand that. I'm just very skeptical about the chances of getting the US/UK/NATO to adopt another caliber that doesn't replace one of the current standard rounds. That would make for a 3-caliber system, to which I see only historical opposition.

[JASmith]

...203's and similarly re-packaged GL's are limited to 400m effective range, and most grenadiers can't make hits under stress much past 200m...

If I understand the ballistics correctly, the 40mm grenade effective range is driven by a very low muzzle velocity. Increasing the velocity even a little bit would make the recoil too much for shoulder firing. I'm also guessing that the elavation needed for 200 meters is about fifteen degrees and goes to about 35-40 fro 400 meters. These high elevations both make precise aiming a challenge and give plenty of time for the wind to have its way with the projectile.

That's part of reason behind the question about 20-25 mm grenades. The smaller weight projectiles can be launched at a higher velocity while keeping recoil manageable. And yes, the "Star-Trek" aiming devices are big and clumsy today. They should become more compact with time for two reasons. First, the electronics will become more compact. The second and more important reason is that folks will realize that too much is being asked of fancy technology. When this happens, the feature count will drop to something more like a basic range finder and ballistic computer to get the elevation solution displayed in the reticule. The hardware for basic laser range finding and sight elevation computation takes up very little space and weight as suggested by the existence of commercial riflescopes doing just that.

Hence the 20-25mm grenadier has a chance of getting a weapon that weighs about the same as the M4 with its claptrap and can carry 4-6 times as many rounds as can be carried for the 40mm. This means that he can afford to shoot a few more grounds making the first round hit question less important. Further, he and his buddies are likely to see where that grenade lands and explodes, so better references are available to getting a second round hit. The second round hit probability gets even better if his weapon is a repeater so the second shot is taken while the wind remains more or less the same.

[bwaites]

The issue today isn't the electronics on these optics, its the lenses/screens. To make them usable, they have to have a big enough screen/lens combination to be seen. Since the human shape and eye aren't changing very rapidly, we are locked into a certain size, regardless of how small we shrink the electronics, (which don't take up much space at all right now!).

The game changer will be some kind of screen that drops in front of the eye and creates a "Heads Up" kind of display, based on where the weapon is pointed, similar to what is used to slave the machine guns on helicopters now. Optics on top of guns will then go away, with only some kind of highly sophisticated sensing unit. Ideally, this will include thermal, optic, and starlight type of information. The electronics are available, the sensors are available, but the combination applied to boots on the ground hasn't been maximized.

[Tony Williams]

While there are some significant advantages to these developments, we don't have a system that will compensate for wind factors downrange

We don't at the moment, but that's the intention. From my web article:

"Even more remarkable is the LIDAR (Laser Identification Detection And Ranging) unit developed by the Israeli Soreq Nuclear Research Center. This works by firing a laser beam at the target, the reflection being captured by an array of photodiodes. Fluctuations in the signals received by the photodiodes are used to detect the direction and velocity of any cross wind. This may well have an application in the DARPA One Shot next-generation sniper scope program. The One Shot program is intended to enable snipers to be on target with the first round, under crosswind conditions, up to the maximum effective range of the weapon: a target of 65% probability of a first-round hit at up to 1,500 metres has been set (presumably when using large-calibre long-range sniper rifles).

The goal of the DInGO program is to develop a rifle scope that will turn every soldier into a marksman over the full lethal range of combat rifle, allowing accurate engagement of targets by automatically making all of the ballistic adjustments needed to hit the target."

Just as relying on GPS for your primary navigation solution is an absolute mistake without an understanding of map-reading, compass use, terrain association, pace count, etc., relying on technology for a firing solution without an underlying experience base with intermediate range shooting (that is only taught in sniper training currently) is a mistake.

You raise a very interesting point there. Warfare is becoming more and more reliant on electronics. To what extent should we have low-technology fall-back systems in case the electronics fail? In many instances there is no alternative - if your radar set goes down, you're not going to be able to fire those anti-aircraft missiles or direct your own fighters. Soldiers are already expected to learn a huge amount more than they were a generation or two ago. How much more can they be burdened with? As you know far better than I, sniper training is not something you can pick up in a couple of range sessions. Maybe we just have to accept that if the fancy sights stop working, the soldiers are going to be limited to BUIS and an effective range of 300 m or so.

Also, with the nature of a high-stress engagement where the Pashtun fighters have purposely initiated a far ambush outside the effective range of even optimistic effective ranges for the 7.62 NATO, no shoulder-fired weapon other than the M107 and maybe a .338 LM will begin to even touch them at the ranges they like to initiate at. These engagements are usually resolved with CAS, mortars, or artillery.

I think that the problem has been with engagements which are outside the effective range of 5.56mm, but not 7.62mm - i.e. 400-800m.

CAS, mortars or artillery may not be immediately available, or apprpriate to use if they are, depending on the ROE.

[JASmith]

One of our challenges is to identify the time frame for any potential new cartridge.

Once that is done, the next step is to identify the other technologies that might be mature enough to use in the same time window.

That fancy LIDAR, for example, has to go through a lot of maturation before it becomes a sensible tool for the elite soldier. At some point, it might become suitable for the average grunt.

Another example is shown by the emerging 20 - 25 mm grenade launchers. The first attempts have these things being told when to detonate so they'll be more effective inside rooms, over foxholes, etc. While that added finesse will improve effectiveness, it is also delaying by five or more years the availability of a dumb version that will help battlefield effectiveness.

My intuition suggests that these contemporaneous technology introductions will significantly reduce the pressure to field a ubiquitous 800 meter rifle. That region will be covered by other organic assets like the lighter grenade launcher and the modern LMG LRRPF52 brings to our attention.

[LRRPF52]

Even if I waved a magic wand and took the Israeli (stolen tech from US, France, Germany, South Africa) and miniaturized it into something no larger or heavier than an Eotech, the basic premise by which it operates is flawed for in at least one major way: bullet trajectories are not linear like a laser, so the higher area of their flight path is where you need to compensate for wind for long-range shooting, not what is just seen along your line-of-sight. Would it help achieve a higher hit probability within 500m, maybe, but if ends up in actuality being a Clingon-sized Star Trek scanner like the PVS-10 abortion, it will get left at the FOB or bottom of the rucksack at best.

The guys I know that are truly gifted at making 1st-round hits at extreme distances spend the majority of their free time at the range, and usually make those shots when the wind is tame in the early morning. The bullet spends almost all of its time outside (above) the line-of-sight in those solutions, and I have a hard time seeing how a LIDAR will compensate for multiple value winds. Sounds like a great spiel to get some big Pentagon dollars though...the big contractors will jump on it and get some Colonel getting ready to retire to declare it the cat's meow, even though he couldn't zero a regular service rifle, let alone explain with any degree of expertise what long-range precision marksmanship is about. Forgive me for being cynical, but I've seen this rodeo before, and it always ends up with the rider being tossed off after he gets into the real corral of Joe taking it overseas. The AN/PVS-10 Day/Night Sniper Optic for the M24 is a perfect example of that, since I saw it paraded at AUSA in 1994, and saw our Snipers with it in 2003 for OIF1...couldn't hold zero to save its life.

The same things is happening with the new Grenadier LRF ballistoc trajecory gadgets right now. If they would have spent the money on sending Joe to the grenadier range until he can put a 40mm HE round through a window at 150m reliably, and make kill zone hits out to 400m consistently, we'd have a better real-world solution. They could learn from the way a certain unit at Bragg runs their grenadier ranges.

In the meantime, a lightweight Multi-role LMG with constant recoil would be a plug-and-play solution with the current defunct leadership command climate, and entry-level soldier skills. Load, point, spray, controllable beaten zone, badguys die...simple.

[Tony Williams]

Even if I waved a magic wand and took the Israeli (stolen tech from US, France, Germany, South Africa) and miniaturized it into something no larger or heavier than an Eotech, the basic premise by which it operates is flawed for in at least one major way: bullet trajectories are not linear like a laser, so the higher area of their flight path is where you need to compensate for wind for long-range shooting, not what is just seen along your line-of-sight.

That's a good point. Although to be fair the target is a 65% first-round hit probability, not 100%!

If a device like this enables the average Joe to get the bullets in close proximity to the target, that may still be worthwhile.

[JASmith]

I think the point LRRPF52 makes can be summarized with the observation that experienced soldiers know that "shit happens." Hence any overly complex system has to be viewed with suspicion unless and until it is proven as being reliable and effective.

The current incarnations of these sighting systems are clumsy appearing and, judging from the reports of soldiers who have combat experience, are clumsy to use.

That doesn't mean that they won't pass muster in ten years, but it does mean that we need to work a common time frame for the discussion.

Also, we need to define the background experience the new recruit is likely to have and how much effective weapons-handling skills development he or she will enjoy during that first term of active duty. First, they will have killed about a zillion Gorgon/Dragon/Evil Things by putting a dot on the image and punching a button. That gives an advantage over the inner city kids of 80s who didn't have all the gaming experience. It is also part of why the red-dot sight works as well as it does for the younger troops. They are, however, still ill-prepared for precision shooting even in the mode of place the pip on target, hold, and squeeze.

The ability to get a steady sight picture from a stable firing position while squeezing the trigger is an advanced marksmanship skill.

I further believe that the average soldier does not need this skill when just the assets of a platoon are considered. As much as I personally dislike the varmint cartridge, the 5.56 does have a good track record where it works.

We have covered the intermediate range with 7.62mm, grenade launches, and LMGs. These are the roles and applications where new cartridges, grenades, and sighting systems may get traction over the the coming 5-10 years.