The Case for a General Purpose Cartridge

[cory]

The most damning argument against a single caliber for most shoulder-fired small arms is one I have brought up many times before, yet remains unaddressed in that article.

Duty positions of actual operational combat arms units that go outside the wire, and the fact that at least half of them would be hindered with such a cartridge. Many combat arms soldiers do not fire their weapon, even while engaged in heavy fighting. If things get so bad to the point that they were being overrun, the 5.56 is what you want, not anything larger.

The Army may need to be prepared to be over ran, but that isn't even in thought process of the Marines. This brings me back to the old saying, The most effective Soldier on the Battlefield is the one that keeps the Marines supplied with ammo. HAHA

But seriously, I did the calculations in one of these threads somewhere. The weight increase of a 5.56 combat load and a 6.5 Grendel is negligible. It's less than all of the extra flaps(armor) they've added to the flak jackets that hinder the movement of the Marine/Soldier.