JASmith Wrote:Where I continue to be stuck is "How do we treat the enormous investment in vehicle-mounted 7.62's?" By the time you add up the machine guns on HMMV's and other wheeled vehicles, light armored vehicles, plus mini-guns on helicopters and AF gunships, you have an enormous stock of weapons.A very relevant question. I don't view the guns on wheeled vehicles as a problem. They are just infantry machine guns on pintle mounts. And, since the 5.56 M249 is often used for that purpose, it seems clear that caliber doesn't have to be 7.62x51.
Armored vehicles and aircraft may be another matter. Although in theory the 7.62 weapons could be converted to the new round, the reality is that it would require considerable expense and effort to convert not only the guns, but also the feed systems and (perhaps) the stowage bins. The benefit of increased number of rounds for a given weight/space might not be deemed worth the cost.
Which means you'd end up with a three-caliber system, and that's been opposed by the leadership at least as far back as 1970, when the 6mm SAW round was dropped in favor of an improved 5.56x45 loading.
Quote:Should we then advocate both the lighter, still highly capable cartridge while pointing out that eliminating the 7.62X51 from the dismounted role creates an opportunity for adopting a heavier, more effective bullet for the mounted role?If you mean a heavier, more effective cartridge, I doubt that would fly. They already use .50 cal for some vehicle/aircraft applications. I think that anything in between 7.62 and .50 would be viewed as more gun than needed for the 7.62 use, and "not enough" gun to replace the .50 BMG.
Plus, even if it were to be argued that a new machine gun in caliber intermediate between 7.62 and .50 could replace both on aircraft and armored vehicles, then you've at least doubled the difficulty in getting the new infantry caliber adopted. Getting one new cartridge fielded will be hard enough, but to get two such changes at the same time?