Australia and USA wouldn’t need to invade Solomons, just mine the PLAN port & crater the runways of the PLAAF airbase.

Lots of specious claims stated as facts there Nick.

DavidPawley said:

...just mine the PLAN port & crater the runways of the PLAAF airbase.

ROFL.  

Guardsman26 said:

As I mentioned above, there is the SP round with is the armoured piercing loading that cracks Level 4 plates at 500+ metres.

Current 7.62x51 mm could do that up to 200+ m with medium length WC core, and to higher distance with the very long "Stiletto" core or the XM948 SLAP. Those latest rounds are already existing and no EU countries bought them in large volume, so I don't think that the existence of the SP round will be a pivoting point to the adoption of the 6.8x51 mm vs. 7.62x51 mm.

Guardsman26 said:

Second, there is a new standard loading, the GP round, which may even be fired at standard pressures and have MV of 875 mps / 2,900 fps. This would allow lightweight polymer cartridges to be used, reducing weight - but it would still be superior to 7.62x51 mm NATO in performance at all ranges due to its greater efficiency.

I don't think that a polymer-cased 6.8x51 mm will be so attractive versus a polymer-cased version of the M80A1, which is already delivering nearly anything you can expect from a "low pressure brass case" 6.8 mm. The 6.8 mm will have the edge after 400 m, and definitively better after 600 m, but armies will probably estimate that it's a limited gain at a large cost.

US SOCOM, after seeing from the insight all the greatness of the 6.8x51 mm, decided to resume its 6.5 mm Creedmoor program.

EmericD said:

US SOCOM, after seeing from the insight all the greatness of the 6.8x51 mm, decided to resume its 6.5 mm Creedmoor program.

That is what allways puzzeled me. The 6,5 Creedmore allready does what the 6,8x51 is supposed to do. Its a established and mature design. Even if the Creedmore is not an option the 6,5x55 Swedish does the same as well. The 6,8x51 tp me allways seems a case of reinventing the wheel.

A lot of that is purely speculative in terms of how it will be rolled out and the effectiveness of doing so, especially with regards to the plate cracking ability of the SP round. Perhaps with tungsten it could at a shorter range, but if we're back to using tungsten penetrators this entire program itself was a bust.

Interesting to read, useful information really.

Apsyda said:

but if we're back to using tungsten penetrators this entire program itself was a bust.

Its simply an urealistic goal to penetrate modern high performance body armor with a steel penetrator at usefull combat ranges with a ME in the range of what is currently concidered full power rifle.

https://www.gao.gov/docket/b-420766.1
Lone Star/True Velocity finally submitted their bid protest.
Probably won't go anywhere, but it was to be expected eventually regardless. Without this NGSW contract Lone Star as an acquisition is mostly useless and is going to hurt True Velocity as a company pretty significantly. Maybe GAO finds something, probably won't.

schnuersi said:

That is what allways puzzeled me. The 6,5 Creedmore allready does what the 6,8x51 is supposed to do. Its a established and mature design. Even if the Creedmore is not an option the 6,5x55 Swedish does the same as well. The 6,8x51 tp me allways seems a case of reinventing the wheel.

Perhaps.  I think it would depend upon how much difference there is in performance.

And if one wants to go for an existing cartridge, 6.5x55 seems to me like a bad choice.

As shown in the pic below, 6.5x55 is too long to be used in rifles designed for 7.62x51.