179
Full power will fix it bro
(thelemmy.club)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
179 points (99.4% liked)
NonCredibleDefense
669 readers
94 users here now
Militaria shitposting central! Post memes, tasteless jokes, and sexual cravings for military equipment and/or nuclear self-destruction!
Rules:
- Posts must abide by Piefed.social terms and conditions
- No racism or other bigotry allowed.
- Obviously nothing illegal.
If you see these please report them.
Related communities:
!forgottenweapons@lemmy.world
For the other, slightly less political NCD, !noncredibledefense@sh.itjust.works
founded 10 months ago
MODERATORS
I mean, I know the 'real answer' is the Mil-Ind complex figuring out the most expensive way to solve a problem that didn't really exist...
But is it really that hard on the TO&E to just... do 5.56x45... and 7.62x51?
HK 416/417?
CZ Bren 2 variants?
Or... just... M4, some kind of homegrown AR10 type thing, that works similarly?
Like, you have the same 7.62 weapon be the DMR/BR... the DMR is just built with a fancier, but less durable barrel, the BR variant has a more durable, less fancy barrel. 10 rnd mags for the DMR, 20 round mags for the BR.
We... we've been doing this, to varying extents, for decades...?
Maybe I'm not properly reading a layer of sarcasm in what you wrote?
The solution comes first from thinking bigger than the squad level. Think at the platoon level at a minimum, since as a baseline that's going to be the smallest independent element for conventional purposes. A platoon already includes 7.62mm MGs in the weapons squad. Adding onto that a limited amount of DMRs in the platoon level, as was done in Afghanistan solves the supposed "overmatch" issue. A select amount of the platoon has the full powered ballistics, while all the standard service weapons remain in intermediate caliber, which is the best all around caliber for infantry service. Optics are much easier to modify to match the theater. Want to add some M110A1s or something to the platoon for a few dedicated guys? Sure. Want to make a floating TO&E where every normal guy might get one of two calibers of weapon? Nah, nah. Want to give the standard guys a bunch of extra weight? Give them some extra belts of 7.62mm that they can feed the weapons squad.
An example of some of the early not-quite-honest MIC pushing of the NGSW idea was they would list the consistent terminal ballistic range of 5.56mm and then compare it to something like 7.62x54r that was being used by insurgents in Afghanistan. Obviously the full power round has a longer reach. Everyone already knows that, that is part of the trade off. The presentations however scare mongered as if this was a newly discovered and terrifying fact. "Oh no our brave boys are being outranged in combat, they're sitting ducks!"- as long as you ignore that platoon already has DMRs and M240s that is. As well as the fact that US military optics are allowing standard Joes to accurately reach out to basically the edge of the effective ballistic range of their calibers, whereas an iron sighted Mosin with a clapped out barrel is not doing the same. In extended advances by remote US units, a platoon may even carry it's own mortars to make it's own organic base of fire, which is a heavy ask, but is both effective and doesn't completely disrupt the TO&E.
I want to re-emphasize that ever since the Afghan drawdown the primary push of why the NGSW is supposedly so important has shifted. Nowadays it is all about punching through body armor and playing up the trouble 5.56mm has. You know ignoring that M995 has existed for decades and that it would be a lot simpler to mass issue it or an improved 5.56mm armor piercing round than it would be to completely switch calibers.
If the US is so worried about keeping ahead, there are a lot of things that would be a lot more effective like actually making some headway on issuing the guided, extended warhead 40mm rounds that were part of the justification for moving to the M320, which have not materialized at all.
Ok, that makes sense, I understand what you're saying now, not just from this snippet, but I think this snippet encapsulates the answer to the confusion I was having.
We're gonna need to start a NonCredible War College, lol, if you keep dropping write ups like that!
I guess, if I were still to quibble, what I'm proposing is that you'd just have different kinds of battalions.
The 'standard' battalion would have combat companies with primarily 5.56, augmented with 7.62 DMRs peppered in, and then the 'mountaineer' battalion would have 7.62 BRs, with 5.56 peppered in, basically, perhaps slightly different standard platoon/squad compositions.
(Again, where the DMR and BR would be at least somewhat interchangeable varianants of each other, either could take the 10 or 20 rnd mags, though maybe you'd be ok with the barrels/uppers not being fully interchangeable, so the DMR can be more focused on precision, the BR can be more focused on endurance)
Like, if you're not mounted, or not mounted as often, maybe you can make an argument that cutting out a SAW gunner, and instead just having enough ammo, in general, to do collective suppressive fire... this is worth it as you are overall less equipment heavy in an unmounted, on foot situation, because you gain mobility and endurance/stamina, as a unit.
Perhaps I don't fully understand exactly what constitutes a floating TO&E, but... if you went with this, you'd presumably have a more stable and defined pool for the battalion, at which level you'd have an accompanying support company, to keep all this straight.
Though this would mean that said 'Mountaineers' would essentially have to actually train and qualify on both the 5.56 and the 7.62... maybe you could just pull Mountaineers from people who qualify as marksmen and are also built like refrigerators, lol?
I'm definitely not sure of how the actual training pipeline progression looks, how it would have to change.
I totally hear you on the M955 though.
Yeah... it is... pretty absurd to pivot to 'we need a whole new kit and kaboodle to defeat body armor' when just... no, you don't, we already have a pretty good, much cheaper solution to that 'problem'... if its really a 'problem', just get some heavier duty barrels and chambers, refit a bunch of existing M4s/16s.
And yeah... yeah having a guided 40mm would be pretty neat, in a lot of situations.
Like, we ... did figure out how to make this:
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-camera-drone-grenade-launcher-gluas/
In think I recall an earlier similar thing that just deployed a parachute, and was just basically a floating camera.
You'd think you could make something along similarish kinds of lines, just pop it high up, it deploys wings, then it glides itself down toward just a laser designated target, or maybe its FPV via a terminal or AR glasses/headset?
I am in an unusually altered state. I normally don't essaypost like this.
This is somewhat similar to India which uses a lot of 7.62x39mm AK-203s and 7.62x51mm SiG-716, distributing them to different units. However, India is primarily concerned with protecting its borders rather than preparing for hypothetical military force projections so they have a more stable idea of what weapons will be used where.
For the US I still do not think making battle rifle specific units is a good idea. It presumes a fully battle rifle equipped unit is ideal in a given situation. I don't think that's right. While 5.56mm can struggle at 600-800m (depending on the weapon specifics, ammo specifics, and who you ask), the presumption that even in the mountains of Afghanistan that this was a debilitating problem is overblown. Full power MGs and DMRs can work on the longer ranges, and inside of the extreme ranges intermediate caliber just gets better and better compared to full power for a service rifle. It is not as if every firefight in Afghanistan was at 800m.
Now, something that makes sense and has been done in the past is creating accurized 5.56mm rifles for units specializing in longer ranges. The USMC made the SAM-R and the US Army's 3rd ID made the SDM-R. Both of them were 20 inch barrel, M16A4 derived weapons that were modified, assembled with care, and given appropriate optics. If you want a "Mountaineer" outfitted unit, such a rifle makes a lot of sense as the service rifle as it prioritizes range without sacrificing ammo and parts compatibility with everyone else, and those rifles are a lot more usable inside of longer distances than a battle rifle would be. And still assuming this hypothetical unit still has all the full power DMRs and MGs backing up the smaller rifles.
This was literally the TO&E in Vietnam. In WW2, there was a squad automatic rifle (usually the BAR) organic to squads. After WW2, the US first tried the idea of M14 equipped troops supported by an M15/M14E2 squad automatic rifle taking the place of the BAR. When the M14 was replaced by the M16, the squad automatic rifle role was removed because hey every soldier could do that job in a pinch with their controllable, full auto service rifle. This looked good on paper, but eventually resulted in the M249 SAW and that role coming back because a weapon that could be the base of fire organic in the squads was important. (This is partially btw why I am convinced the USMC is going to pull their M249s out of storage the second they deploy for force-on-force in the future)
If you are dismounted a lot, there's also a half decent chance you are on the strained end of the supply chain. You want to be able to carry more ammo per pound, not less. Suppressing fire is how firefights go. It is how people are trained. It is how they will fight. Dave Grossman is a fraud. The idea sometimes floated that soldiers with less ammo (because they are carrying bigger full power rounds) will compensate by firing more accurately and using fewer rounds is the opposite of pretty much every study I know of and of doctrine developed from studies and experience. More ammo is good, and a soldier can carry more intermediate ammo than full power ammo.
Guided 40mm exists...somewhere. The Raytheon Pike was hyped for a while. What I mean by these rounds not materializing is, that they are essentially cryptids. People have photos of them, and maybe even they'll drunkenly tell you a story of how they touched one once, but they aren't just out and about. If a US infantry unit deployed tomorrow, none of the grenadiers would have any.
... well I honestly don't know what to say other than 'holy shit, how do you know all this, off the top of your head?'
Uh.
Yeah.
Other than that:
No clue who Dave Grossman is, I am not an... adherent of Grossman thought, but uh yeah, what you've said makes sense, suppressive fire is... much more about the number of rounds, than their 'lethality'.
Also: Hope whatever you are altered on has a smooth edge to it, I would perhaps recommend chamomile tea?
Traveling and absorbing from people who knew a lot more.
The Dave Grossman aside wasn't a shot at you, it was more for those who know. He wrote a book where his conclusion was that soldiers in war intentionally miss. His methods for gathering data were sketchy to say the least. His name or book seemingly inevitably appears on comments any time the number of rounds fired vs kills in war comes up. It's a very reductionist idea that appeals to the sensibilities of what I might imperfectly call "mainstream Reddit culture".
Thanks but that isn't the direction I'm heading.
Ah, you're heading to Bat Country then.
Well, have a good trip!