EmericD said:

I agree, and I'm not advocating to replace the Infantryman IW with a rifle designed around an "Uber cartridge" with a 1200 m effective range, that will need a 1 kg smart scope for good measure.

I didn't have the impression you did. My comment was more meant in the sense that there obviously are people out there who do.

EmericD said:

That's simply not sustainable for a country like France.

Most likely not for any country. Even the US military has to answer to someone. This someone might ask embarrsing question about the 6-8 time increase in ammo cost.
The US for a long time did only issue M855A1 to troops in deployed in a theatre. The M855 has been left in production and used for training because it was cheaper. I don't know if they still do. Never the less it seems cost is a concern even for somebody with deep pockets.

EmericD said:

But "high pressure" modernization of ammo could also be applied to a diminutive round like the 5.56 mm, like the one Federal is developing (>2100 J from a 20" barrel).

Fully agree. This is why I mentioned modernising 7,62x51. Of course the same is true for 5,56 and other cartidges.

EmericD said:

Neither do I, but I don't have the budget of the US Army neither.

Are you suggesting they have to justify their small arms R&D budget somehow?

“I don't have the budget of the US Army either“

I suspect even with the US budget the 6.8 will end up paired down due to weight and ammo load out, plus need to carry alternate weapons (HE / anti tank / MANPADS / drone jamming rifles / offensive drones / pilllowcase full of hand grenades)

Ie

6.8 LMG + DMR 

X lighter cartridge rifle / PDW

schnuersi said:

Are you suggesting they have to justify their small arms R&D budget somehow?

I think that "every soldier need a DMR" is following the same logic than "every soldier need lvl IV body armor". When you don't have the money, there is no question, but once you have affordable lvl IV body armor, it's very difficult to justify that "no, I'm not going to put 13 kg of armor on every soldier".

France already did that with the FELIN program. We could field a 6+ kg individual rifle with a fantastic day / night sight, so we did...

EmericD said:

I was thinking that you were troll joking.

Despite what some folks think, I have never trolled anyone.

And when I joke, I usually use an emoji to indicate it is a joke.

EmericD said:

He then forget to remove the ammo, which is a second mistake, but I suspect that he had the habit to just unlock the magazine on his rifle before "clearing" it, and re-inserting it after.

Does the French Army train soldiers to just unlock the magazine and leave it in the mag well before clearing the rifle?  

EmericD said:

In this case, he focused on opening the feed trail, checked that the chamber was empty, then close the feed cover just like he closed the bolt on an empty chamber on his IW, then dry fire the gun.

The brain is good to make different things looking similar. You retract the bolt on your IW to see the chamber, just like opening the feed tray on your MG. When you close the bolt on your IW, you no longer see the chamber, just like closing the feed tray mask the chamber on a MG.

The trouble is, there are two major flaws with that explanation.

First, opening the MG feed tray is not like retracting the IW bolt.  Just as you retract the bolt on your IW to see the chamber, you also retract the bolt on your MG to see the chamber.

Second, after opening the MG feed cover and checking the chamber, in order for the MG to fire you first have to intentionally load a belt of ammo.

YouTube

M249 - Clear, Load & Make Ready

M249 - Clear, Load & Make Ready

"farmplinker2

It's probable, but the big worry was lead contamination at ranges. One base supposedly was starting to see lead showing up in the water.

gatnerd said:

I suspect even with the US budget the 6.8 will end up paired down due to weight and ammo load out, plus need to carry alternate weapons

Ie

6.8 LMG + DMR 

X lighter cartridge rifle / PDW

Are you suggesting something like this?

Upon what evidence do you base your conclusion?

Such a caliber mix is contrary to US Army history.

SOP for 100-plus years is to have only one caliber.*

*USMC World War One squad illustration used due to lack of comparable drawing for US Army squad of that period, which also consisted of eight men.

17thfabn said:

Could they have made a better projectile using lead? I would guess that it would have been less expensive.

No they could have not.
Lead and copper can not simply be swapped out. Which is why the M855A1 is conciderably different compared to the M855.
A lead using M855A1 would be different to the one we have. Which means it would behave different. It would be shorter for example. Its also qestionable if lead could hold the steel tip the way copper does.

The price difference of cooper and lead is not that high. Copper depending on quality is twice to five times as expensive as lead. Concidering the low ammount (less than four gramms per bullet) and the cost of the other components the differenced on the cost per cartidge is neglectable.
Also you have to look at all the cost. Lead contamination drives the maintenance cost for shooting ranges up. So if we concider all the cost the lead free solution is actually chaper even though the bullet is slightly more expensive.

farmplinker2 said:

It's probable, but the big worry was lead contamination at ranges. One base supposedly was starting to see lead showing up in the water.

Which is absolutely sensible...
but I think its pretty obvious that this has not been a main concern since the M855A1 has not been used for training for several years. The M855 has been used instead. The positive effect of a green round is mostly when its used for training. In theatre the effect is neglectable.
I think its pretty obvious that the main concern behind the M855A1 has been imroved performance and they just made the round green as they went because it has been sensible to use the opportunity.
Regardless of how the priorities have been now they have a highly effective and green round as standard ammo for their 5,56 weapon. The result speaks for itself.

schnuersi said:

I think its pretty obvious that the main concern behind the M855A1 has been imroved performance and they just made the round green as they went because it has been sensible to use the opportunity.

Nope.  You have it backwards.  Farmplinker2 is right.  Environmental regulations made it necessary to develop a "green" bullet, and the Army took the opportunity to get improved performance.