Beretta has announced that it will launch a new assault rifle at next week's DSEI. I spoke to them about this at the Shrivenham Close Combat Symposium in July of this year. They were obviously tight-lipped about the new weapon, but I expect it to be based on the SAKO M23 announced for Sweden and Finland in May of this year. Although the M23 is an AR design, it has short-stroke gas piston system like the HK416. I'll be back here in a few days to provide more information.

Guardsman26 said:

Beretta has announced that it will launch a new assault rifle at next week's DSEI.  I expect it to be based on the SAKO M23...

So, not really a "new" assault rifle.  Just one more iteration of the same old AR15 from six decades ago.

I wonder if there will ever again be a truly new assault rifle, or if it will be AR variants for ever and ever.  

Militaries like it or not are often shopping for looks not particular technical requirements that would put Ar15 on the pole position. 

Thanks for the update.

It makes sense to go AR given how little traction the ARX rifle series has gotten.
 

The current firearms market seems to reward standardization, not innovation.

Hence everything going ARish and Glockish.

Until we get lasguns, the AR platform will rule, simply because it has the best ergonomics. Like we've probably hit "peak tank". 

gatnerd said:

It makes sense to go AR given how little traction the ARX rifle series has gotten.

While the bolt carrier on the ARX design was clever, it was also very light and "needed" to be mated to a relatively heavy bolt for achieving proper reliability (you need a minimum recoiling mass for good reliability in mud / sand environment). Each time you are firing the gun, the bolt carrier impacts the buffer before returning into battery and with a light bolt carrier and a heavy bolt, that means a large load on the lug that locks the bolt and bolt carrier together.

On the ARX, the lug took a real battering and the locking hole in the bolt took an oval shape after 20,000 rounds, and the gun wasn't able to correctly lock into battery.

gatnerd said:

The current firearms market seems to reward standardization, not innovation. Hence everything going ARish and Glockish.

The Glock wasn't the first polymer frame pistol, nor the first striker fired pistol, nor the first tilting barrel locked pistol, but it was a synthesis of already tested and proven features.

The original AR-15 design had it's share of limitations and manufacturers made large changes to it, but people are still calling a HK416 a "piston driven AR-15", while no-one is calling the HK G36 a "polymer frame AR-18".

The UK’s process to acquire the KS-1 was utterly flawed. The Royal Marines wanted a new rifle, they were annoyed by the Army’s slowness in replacing SA-80, and when the new Ranger Regiment said it needed a new rifle too, this was an opportunity to go for it. Prior to Project Hunter (the Ranger Regiment / Commando rifle program) Project Goldweed had selected a new weapon for UK Special Forces. The desire was to purchase the same weapon. Unfortunately, the Goldweed contract did not allow for a significant extra number of weapons to be purchased (which seems strange) so Hunter was never an open and fair competition. Small gun companies expended hundreds of thousands of pounds to participate when the requirement had been written totally around the Knight’s Armament KS-1. So it was basically a single-source contract. I wish the UK MoD had been more upfront about what it was doing. It would have saved time and money. 
 

As others have pointed out, the UK has managed to acquire a new weapon based on a 60-year old design. That said, the KS-1 is built to the highest standards of any AR-15 clone I have seen. (Caveat: not sure if it passes the “Over-the-beach test”). The total contract value is up to £90 million for up to 10,000 rifles. I find this extraordinarily expensive. I would have expected the rifle itself to cost less than £2,000, the Vortex / AimPoint optic combo to be less than £2,000 and the suppressor to cost £1,500 or less. That’s £5,500. Even with magazines, and other ancillary things, £9,000 per weapon is crazy. 
 

Since I used an M-16A1 which failed on operations in Belize in the early 1980s (when we were deployed there to stop the Guatemalans from invading rather than simply using the country as a training base as we do today) I have been an advocate of piston operated guns. I very much hope Project Grayburn will select one to replace the L85 SA-80. 
 

Project Hunter was an opportunity to pre-select a weapon to replace SA-80. Given that the KS-1 is positioned as a “Specialist Weapon” we will likely see something else selected. I see  the list of contenders as follows:

SIG MCX spear / LT

H&K HK416 or 433

FN SCAR Mk 2

CZ 806 Bren II

And of course the Beretta (Sako M23)

I guess the question is how many will the Army really buy ? Though the contract states option for up to 10k rifles currently only about 1600 have been purchased.

if the RM go all out on the L403a1 that’s a total of about 6,500 .

Will the army only buying it for the ranger regiment and ‘wait’ for grayburn ? 

As regards the new Beretta I’m guessing this will not be a version of the Sako M23.

My bet is a MCX style modular platform piston design.

EmericD said:

The original AR-15 design had it's share of limitations and manufacturers made large changes to it...

While there have been significant improvements to the original AR-15 design, I would not characterize any of them as being "large" changes.

There is little difference in external appearance between the Vietnam era XM177 and the modern M4A1 carbine.

EmericD said:

...but people are still calling a HK416 a "piston driven AR-15", while no-one is calling the HK G36 a "polymer frame AR-18".

That is hardly surprising.  The HK416 looks like an AR-15 variant, whereas the G36 does not look at all like an AR-18.