Thanks

To me it is immoral to ask our troops to risk their lives and not give them the best weapons we can provide.

If the M27 is a superior weapon buy it for everyone instead of just the infantry. If a $2,000 more expensive weapon means our kids are more likely to come back alive and in one piece than write the fucking check.

6.5 Cased Telescopic would be an excellent round choice IMO.

Those are interesting- hadn't heard of them before.

I wonder if this is the type of 6.5 mm round the army has in mind. Would be a radical change.

---

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

It's been under development for the Army's LSAT program for over a decade. It is a *highly* effective round. IMO, an argument can be made that the ammo capacity, reliability, and firepower of the LSAT is sufficient to replace all carbines.

That would be an incredible leap in technology and the applications are amazing. But, the Army is notoriously cheap and rarely early adopters, so I fear it is to 21st Century for them. Start w/ the "simple" 6.5 cased telescoping ammo and evolve into:

---

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

I'm going to hold out a bit of hope. They made the right choice with Sig. 6.5 CT has the potential to streamline logistics for the Army and there are cost savings there. The logical way to deploy 6.5 CT would be to roll out LSATs and a replacement for the M24 at the same time (if you read up on 6.5 CT it's spooky accurate) and take 7.62x51 and associated weapons out of service (M240, M24, and a few others). After about a decade of sustained use and experience with the LSAT and 6.5 CT in the field, the Army could say "hey, general infantry should just be carrying LSATs, let's ditch 5.56." At that point you'd be doing the vast majority of your fighting with just one round.

Not to derail the thread but since this is the LR afterall, why hasn't the Army invested research (or maybe they have?) in non-projectile weapons, ie lasers. I remembered Ronnie Raygun with his Star Wars initiative back in the 80's but I don't think that went anywhere.

why hasn't the Army invested research (or maybe they have?) in non-projectile weapons, ie lasers.

Physics.

They've actually invested quite a bit into lasers and so on. I think there's been modest success. Nothing that would be applicable to a handheld rifle, though.

---

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I know that in small units the 5.56 is replaced by similar carbines chambered in 300 blackout or 6.8mm. I'm talking SOCOM and Force Recon though. The 5.56 does it's job pretty well. NATO was never looking for a round that would k^ll, they were looking for a round that would put people out of the fight as it takes more of the enemy out of the fight to tend to them. Quite honestly, if they would get rid of the FMJ they would be seeing the stopping power results they want. Fortunatly/unfortunatly (depending on your views) there are the Geneva Conventions that prohibit hollow points, lead rounds, and similar effective munitions.

It would be interesting to know more about the physics limitation as I always thought it was more around the technology & costs that would prevent something like this from taking hold.

This is an interesting read on Star Wars btw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/...c_Defense_Initiative

The Army, Air Force, and Navy have all invested significant amounts of money into lasers. Their initial application will be in missile and mortar defense and the test results thus far look very promising. I wouldn't hold your breathe regarding personal laser weapons though. The limitations you hit are power and energy density.