Third Generation Battle Rifle

[Michael]

I am not convinced that any of the GEN III weapons improve the capabilities of the current main battle rifle enough to justify the cost of fielding - this is essentially what the Army and Marine Corps decided a few years ago. They look cool, and have some interesting features, but do they perform better? More lethality? Better accuracy? I know from testing a few years ago, the XM-8 was a little more reliable than the M4, but I believe that was accredited to the magazines used.

BLUF - having been in the loop of testing/evaluating weapons for the Marine Corps, I don't see any drastic changes within the DOD until a replacement (or improvement) for the metallic cased cartridge is perfected. It's all about capabilities, and the metallic cased cartage is pretty close to the apex of development/reliability. The M16/4 family of weapons is not perfect...but it's pretty damn good.