Guardsman26 said:

I am not able to upload a high resolution version of that image. Basically it is the US Army's publicly released document showing budget authorisation to purchase test quantities of four NGSW ammunition types dated March 2023. These are GP, Training, SP, and Blank. (No Tracer yet). 

Here is the source document (p 63, which is p 79 of the actual PDF):

https://www.asafm.army.mil/Portals/72/Documents/BudgetMaterial/2023/Base%20Budget/Procurement/AMMO_ARMY.pdf

what are the details of the 6.5LICC?   muzzle energy? bullet weight?  how can it only weigh 16 grams?

gatnerd said:

But if AP is abandoned, does a new cartridge make sense, vs just leveraging thin wall steel lightweight cases in 5.56 and 7.62 and buying some EVOLYS to lighten the LMG make more sense?

I think that would depend on whether 5.56 and 7.62 performance is considered good enough and all that's wanted is to reduce ammo weight, vs whether better performance with reduced ammo weight is desired.

gatnerd said:

And if a new cartridge is deemed wise, and AP is no longer a requirement, is .264 LICC still the best choice? And is a 'GPC' 1 caliber solution vs an optimized 2 caliber solution really preferable?

Again, it depends.  At the squad level, a one caliber solution may be preferable, if the cartridge delivers acceptable performance in the rifle, the DMR (if used) and the SAW.

IMO, if AP is no longer a requirement, the .264 LICC is not the best choice due to its size.  Scale it down to .23 caliber, and it would fit a smaller Six8-size rifle and 30-rd mag.

gatnerd said:

Absolutely, it's a much more practical cartridge - so long as the armor penetration requirement is abandoned or greatly curtailed. 

well, I'd be interested in AP performance, after we saw what the old nazi ammo did in Buffman's video. Wondering about bullet composition here.

Interesting.  8.305 million GP rounds @ $2.83/round, 0.354 million SP @ $22.20 each, and 29.199 million Reduced Range Rounds @ $2.54 each.  Ouch.

Ouch, indeed.  The ammo cost alone seems sufficient cause to cancel the program.

graylion said:

well, I'd be interested in AP performance, after we saw what the old nazi ammo did in Buffman's video. Wondering about bullet composition here

Tungsten for sure.

There is some debate whether it was Tungsten Carbide, or WHA Tungsten Heavy Alloy. And if it was T-carbide, what type of binder was used.

Whatever it was, it was clearly a much superior core material then what is used in M993 and other tungsten cores previously tested by Buffman. All the other cores, even those that penetrated the plates, showed signs of shattering when encountering the ceramic (ballistics gel or clay would recover fragments of the tungsten core.)

The 7.92 nazi time traveler load by comparison didn't shatter, zipping through the plate and the 12" clay backer behind it like it wasn't there.

nincomp said:

Interesting.  8.305 million GP rounds @ $2.83/round, 0.354 million SP @ $22.20 each, and 29.199 million Reduced Range Rounds @ $2.54 each.  Ouch

That is brutal. 

Historically projectiles do fall in price after introduction; M855A1 dropped by over 50% in cost from when it was first introduced.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/02/12/13-shot-us-armys-new-7-62mm-xm1158-advap-round-costs-much/

But even a 50% reduction would make it quite expensive. What's alarming is the SP round at $22 is now nearly 2x the cost of the previous $13 a round 7.62 ADVAP prototype.

....

I wonder how much of production cost is influenced by the new SIG cases? If the steel bases are machined rather than cast, I expect they will be a good bit more expensive than brass cases even once production reaches economy of scale.

Granted, it was not clear in the budget document if some of the money is ammo-related costs like tooling or production equipment.  I just took the amounts budgeted and divided by the number of rounds.   Does anyone know if anything other than the purchase of ammo is typically included in these numbers?

It honestly seems like it depends. Sometimes an initial contract includes tooling, occasionally it doesn't. This probably includes tooling, but might not include all of it.