schnuersi said:

These cartidges are pretty powerfull. ME wise in the league of the 7,92x57 or the 30-06. Frome a 4 kg rifle these would be rather unpleasent to shoot. I am not sure that these would be a sensible choice for general issue. Concidering people compain about the recoil of a 7,62x51 from a 5 kg rifle. Some even concidering it uncontrollable.

That's right, but a current "4 kg" rifle is supposed now to be strapped with accessories, and those high pressure rounds are going to be used with suppressors that are making a good job in reducing felt recoil (and increases rifle weight). 

A 102 gr (6.6 g) bullet launched at 3550 fps (1082 m/s) is generating only 7.14 N.s of impulse when fired with a suppressor, or only ~60% of the impulse of the 7.62 mm NATO when fired from a '60 era rifle with just a flash hider. 

Or just 20% more than a regular 5.56 mm NATO rifle equipped with a flash hider...

EmericD said:

That's right, but a current "4 kg" rifle is supposed now to be strapped with accessories, and those high pressure rounds are going to be used with suppressors that are making a good job in reducing felt recoil (and increases rifle weight).

True.

But to me it seems that is just going around in circles. One reasons besides the recoil that battle rifles have been replaced has been the high weight of the weapon an ammo. Now even higher weight is lobbied as being positive because it reduces felt recoil.
IMHO that is a case of you can't have the cake and eat it.
Either you want low weapon and ammo weight for easy handling, lots of carried ammo and saving the soldiers endurance because of lower encumberance OR you want a powerfull weapon and accept that it and its ammo will be heavy.

EmericD said:

A 102 gr (6.6 g) bullet launched at 3550 fps (1082 m/s) is generating only 7.14 N.s of impulse when fired with a suppressor, or only ~60% of the impulse of the 7.62 mm NATO when fired from a '60 era rifle with just a flash hider.

which immediatly brings up the question how would a modern 7,62x51 rifle with a suppressor behave. How heavy would it be and is its power sufficient.

EmericD said:

Or just 20% more than a regular 5.56 mm NATO rifle equipped with a flash hider...

...and a 5,56 rifle with a suppressor?

Physics can't be cheated. A heavy load for a soldier 50 years or more ago is a heavy load for a modern soldier.

I also don't really understand what the point of basically issuing DMRs to every rifleman is. To me it seems like a 180° change to what has been preached as the one and only truth in the last 40 years or so. While the heavy load you suggested above certainly would make an intresting MG loading I am not sure that the improvement of 7,62x51 is worth the effort. Especially concodering that the performance of 7,62x51 can be significantly improved by modernising the cartidge.

stancrist said:

Well, what? You said he performed the clearing procedure "just like he was trained to do." Therefore, I can only conclude that he was trained to:    1.  Not care where his gun was pointing.    2.  Not remove the ammunition feed device from the weapon before retracting the bolt to clear the chamber.

Sorry, I was thinking that you were troll joking.

The guy was clearing the gun on top of an armored vehicle, less than 10 minutes after being fired at, the MG pointing to the ground. He checked that the muzzle was pointing in a safe direction but didn't see that someone exited the vehicle, walked around and stand in the LoS, because adrenaline was still pumping high and he was relatively new to the gun, so he focused his attention. That was a first mistake.

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. 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.

So, yes, he made at least two mistakes, and it's fine that accidents happen only when people make several mistakes at once.

stancrist said:

Now you are being quite blatantly dishonest.  I did not say that training is overrated. I said the benefit to training of a "matched pair" of 5.56 and 7.62 rifles is overrated.

Now I was troll joking.

You listed so many different guns (rifles, carbines, SMGs, MGs) of so many different calibers that I doubted that the demonstration was limited to 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm rifles.

schnuersi said:

True. But to me it seems that is just going around in circles. One reasons besides the recoil that battle rifles have been replaced has been the high weight of the weapon an ammo. Now even higher weight is lobbied as being positive because it reduces felt recoil. IMHO that is a case of you can't have the cake and eat it. Either you want low weapon and ammo weight for easy handling, lots of carried ammo and saving the soldiers endurance because of lower encumberance OR you want a powerfull weapon and accept that it and its ammo will be heavy.

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.

You can buy a 5.56 mm cartridge for 0.25-0.30 € on the current market, while the future price of the training 6.8 mm is above $2. That's simply not sustainable for a country like France.

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).

schnuersi said:

I also don't really understand what the point of basically issuing DMRs to every rifleman is.

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

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.