Looks like the US Army's new rifle isn't living up to expectations

 

At least, that's what a report in the Army Times suggests.

On all key technical measures, the Next Generation Squad Weapons program is imploding before Army’s very eyes. The program is on mechanical life support, with its progenitors at the Joint Chiefs obstinately now ramming the program through despite spectacularly failing multiple civilian-sector peer reviews almost immediately upon commercial release.

Indeed the rifle seems cursed from birth.

. . .

The XM-5/7 as it turns out fails a single round into a mud test ... the rifle seemingly fails, at point-blank ranges, to meet its base criteria of penetrating Level 4 body armor (unassisted) ... The fundamental problem with the program is there remains not enough tungsten available from China, as Army knows, to make the goal of making every round armor piercing even remotely feasible. The plan also assumes that the world’s by far largest supplier will have zero problems selling tungsten to America only for it to be shot back at its troops during World War III.

. . .

Another problem is the weapon sight. The Vortex XM-157, which may have critical components made in China, is most definitely not an ‘auto-aiming’ sight. For guaranteed hits, the shooter still must manually ‘ping’ the target. This takes back usable seconds and makes shooting 100% accurately on the fly, as envisioned under the program to justify the reduced available round count, an utter pipe dream. The scope is otherwise a normal scope.

. . .

In terms of weight, recoil, durability and ballistics, expectations vs reality are crashing down on Army right now, hard.

There's more at the link.

This sounds to me like eggheads (in and out of uniform) saying something like, "Wouldn't it be great if our basic infantry weapon could do X, and Y, and Z, and..." without an adult in the room, a combat-experienced adult, to tell them to back off and face reality.  Technology is wonderful when it works.  When it doesn't, it can get you killed.

In my younger days, serving first with the South African military and then with Armscor, which was the armaments development, production and procurement authority for the armed forces, that lesson was driven home again and again and again.  Weapon designers were constantly urged to make their designs "soldier-proof".  A constant refrain was the (probably ancient) mythical tale of the soldier who was locked in a room containing only three solid steel balls.  When he was let out 24 hours later, he'd lost one, broken another, and got the third one pregnant!  The story is funny, but it's also a reminder that soldiers will do anything and everything they can think of with (and to) their issued equipment, including their weapons.  Unless one designs for that reality, things can go pear-shaped in a hurry.

The new XM5/7 rifle (whatever the designation ends up being) is filled with new technology, but that technology doesn't seem to have been "soldier-proofed".  It's so advanced it may wear out the weapon before its time (see the incredibly high chamber pressure produced by the new 6.8mm round, much higher than any previously fielded service rifle cartridge).  The new hi-tech sight may be wonderful when it works, but if it doesn't, or if the batteries run down and can't be replaced, it's just so much extra weight to lug around.  (Also, how dust- and waterproof is it?  It may have done well in development tests, but after a few months in the field, things may look rather different.  For a well-known example of that, see the sorry, sordid history of the M-16's introduction in Vietnam.)

South Africa got around a lot of those problems by requiring that pre-production prototypes (the last stage in the development cycle) should, whenever possible, be tested in the field, under combat conditions, by the engineers who'd designed and would be producing them.  This tended to concentrate the engineers' minds wonderfully, because their lives might (quite literally) depend on the quality and serviceability of the weapon they'd designed.  If it didn't work, they might (and sometimes did) find themselves in a world of hurt.  That tended to clarify the design of new weapons better than any paper specification would suggest.  It enforced simplicity (the K.I.S.S. principle) and rugged reliability - and in warfare, there's nothing more important than the latter.  If it doesn't work, or breaks down under the stress of combat, why are you lugging it around in the first place?

(To illustrate, that's why I admire the AK-47 rifle.  It may not be the world's most accurate or ergonomic rifle, but the damn thing is just about indestructible.  It can withstand abuse that would lock up any M4/M16, whether that be lack of maintenance, or mud in the works, or whatever.  I've personally dug a half-buried AK-47 out of hardened African red clay laterite mud, dumped it in a stream to wash off the worst of the external dirt, kicked the action open with my boot to flush out internal mud, inserted a loaded magazine that was also filthy with mud inside and out (and had just been rinsed in the same stream), and fired off all 30 rounds without a single malfunction.  No lubrication, no detail stripping, just stone cold reliability.  You could see it kicking dust and dirt out of the barrel and the ejection port as it fired, abuse that would destroy just about any other rifle - but it kept on shooting.  Amazing!)

I wish the Army well in their efforts to develop an improved service weapon.  I think it's needed.  However, I'm not at all sure that the XM5/7 is going to be all that and a slice of toast.  They might do well to spend a lot more time on careful testing and (re)development.  See this article (and particularly the comments from readers) about the issue if you'd like to learn more.

Peter