New High Tech Army "Rifle" ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Hard Ball

New member
The Army is developing a new high tech infantry "rifle" planned for initial issue to troops in 2005*.
The new weapon is called the Objective Individual Combat weapon. (OICW) It combines a .223 (5.56mm) automatic rifle with a semiautomatic 20mm (.84 caliber) semiautomatic rifle. The 20mm high explosive rounds use laser range firing and have a fuze which is set to explode at the range determined by the laser range finder.
Accuracy firing 5.56mm ammunition is to be "equal or better than that of the M16A2 ."
20mm ammunition is tp be accurate at 1,000 meters. The weapon is supposed to weigh 12 ponds or less and incorporate "recoil mitigating features."

*having checked some Army PR sites they are currently saying that initial issue to troops would be in 2007 not 2005.

[This message has been edited by Hard Ball (edited February 20, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Hard Ball (edited February 24, 2000).]
 
Hard Ball, Army Times had a small article in it a few months back about a couple of the prototypes blowing up and injuring the testers. Sorry but I can't provbide more info. From MY point of view, the OICW IS NOT the greatest idea in the world. ;)

------------------
Walk softly and carry a big stick (Yeah I know I stole it)
 
Yeah I don't know I'd love to see them try to figure out how to do close order drill with them. :rolleyes: I looks a little bulky and you know what the problem with electronics and the military is. "what can go wrong will".

------------------
"Guns don't kill people the government does", Rusty Shackleford.
 
How much does the darn thing weigh?? I wouldn't want to carry that thing around for miles and miles, even is it is made of "lightweight materials." Plus, I'm sure extra ammo for the 20mm is pretty heavy too. Heck, I start whinin' if I have to carry more than six boxes of .45 ammo in my range bag. :D Besides, isn't the projected unit cost something like $10,000 a pop?

John
 
Gopher, I doubt that 12 lb weight figure; probably Army propaganda. I seem to recall reading a number more like 15. of course, the production version may come with a helium weather balloon as a "gravity compensator"... ;)

in my not-very-humble opinion, we need a rifle for riflemen, a sniper rifle for marksmen, and a repeating grenade launcher for grenadiers. add a folding-stock carbine for tankers, REMFs, etc. for short-range engagements, the main thing wrong with the M16 is the cartridge; might want a bit more bullet mass for getting thru foliage. for longer range, its a question of remaining downrange oomph and using a rugged optic sight.

along with weight and reliability, how do you hold the darn thing? its not "rifle-shaped" at all. look at every issue rifle over the last 200 years, they are all vaguely stick-shaped for a good reason; plenty of handholds. how many of these things are going to go skittering across rocks, and dunked in water and mud, because they're hard to hang onto?

the Army's Ordnance crowd keeps trying to make quantum leaps, when it should be moving along an evolutionary path. there's not a whole lot wrong with what we've got now. all we need to do is go to a Kalashnikov gas system, go to a slightly heavier cartridge (lets say a .257" 100gr bullet at 3300 fps), and add a rugged dot scope on a QR rail system. then add a pump-action grenade launcher and a marksman with a scoped M1A or AR-10 to each squad.


[This message has been edited by Ivanhoe (edited February 20, 2000).]
 
I agree with Ivanhoe. 12lbs? Wasn't one of the reasons for dumping the M-14 its weight?

Methinks the boys in the Pentagon have seen Star Wars one time too many. :rolleyes:
 
I think someone in the Pentagon is in love with "Aliens"! Damn thing looks like a "pulse rifle" to me.

------------------
Somedays you eat the bear...somedays the bear eats you.
 
As it stands the OICW since, it is so heavy and expensive will replace the M203. Those non-grenadiers will get the HK rifle that is part of the OICW sans 20 mm grenade launcher. Whether it is a good idea or not its our tax dollars at work. Since apparently our 5.56 rifle has to replace by a totaly seperate 5.56 rifle, of course meaning purchasing millions of new rifles.

------------------
God truly fights on the side with the best artillery

[This message has been edited by STLRN (edited February 20, 2000).]
 
We're going to lose a lot of men if they have to use that piece of crap. That 20mm rifle with the range-programmable fuse is a great idea, but should have been a separate weapon. What a military needs is an accurate, dependable, hard hitting rifle, and most importantly, men who are well trained to shoot. A good service rifle can't cost the military more than a few hundred dollars - these morons should use the balance of the $10000 on training the rifleman.
 
The 12 pound weight is probably the weight specified in the development specification.

One concern I have is the 20mm round. A typical 20mm cannon HE projectile weighs approximately 4 ounces. I wonder just how efective this will be as an air burst(AB) round. The Army has said that a single burst will "produce hundreds of lethal fragments capable of defeating Kevlar type body armor resulting in a large lethal area."
Perhaps the miricales of modern science will save us.
 
The OICW weighs 19 pounds without ammunition. It's nothing really new. Back in the '60s there was a program called the SPIW (Special Purpose Individual Weapon) that was almost identical. They couldn't make it work then and they won't get it to work now. The technology just isn't there yet.

The prototype did blow up a couple of months ago, injuring two civilian employees of Aberdeen Proving Ground. Cost is projected to be about 10K per copy. I can only imagine that the electronically fuzed 20mm round will cost 25-30 dollars a piece.

Jeff
 
m16a2 and a m203 launcher would be a better choice use the $10,000 for ammo for training but hey its the gov. they by $2000 toilets and $200 hammers ? go figure
 
Ivanhoe, with a 100gr bullet traveling 3300fps you might want 12 pounds to mitigate recoil, especially in autofire. Personally I think the only thing lacking with the 5.56 cartridge is penetration but the only way we will get that back is with a full power rifle round. What we need to do is dump the money into training time and ammunition but I don't think that is news to any of us. I do wonder what would have happened if we didn't cram the .308 down the throat of all nato countries. I always kinda liked what I read about the 6mm saw round, 7mm mauser is underrated as well but a bit much for an assault rifle.

Another thing we lose with the smaller grenade round is the ability to stop light vehicles, I don't think the 20mm frag will ever be able to do what the HEDP round out of a 203 will do. Not to mention all the time lost programing the damn thing before you lob that 20mm round out there. If the soldier remembers how to while experiencing his first trip to the two way rifle range. Even if it only takes a few seconds, how many rounds can be fired by a squad in four seconds? How long does it take to stop one of those rounds if you happen to be in it's way?

If the army wants to enhance the soldiers ability to fight they shouldn't saddle him with a heavier rifle. If they want to give our fighting men more firepower include one or two rifle grenades (at about $25 each) in the basic load and plenty of range time (with ammunition). If they want to waste our tax dollars they got it right. Might have some good spinoffs but I won't hold my breath.
 
I loved reading all of your replies on this piece of junk. I saw this weapon on Tales of the Gun the other week. I would take the M-203 any day thanks! Speaking of wild ideas, did anyone see that new 50 BMG single shot that bolts to your AR-15 ( under barrel like the M-203 GL)???? " simply use your AR-15 sights for the 50!" YEA RIGHT!!!! no thanks!
CJB
" IM THE NRA! "
 
Say what you will...If this weapon works it will change the course of modern warfare drastically.With a fused 20mm he round that can be set, there will no longer be any cover short of firing from a port..the ability for an accurate overhead or side burst will eliminate most cover in all but the densest areas...A squad with two of these could lay down incredible firepower...In conjunction with the renewal of the designated marksman program and the use of both the SMAW and the squad auto weapon it could be very devastating.
Pretty soon they'll probably bring the hand held mortars back into regular use. rock on-johnny
 
Hard Ball, you're probably right; 12 lb may be what they *wanted* it to weigh, 15+ lb is what the prototypes weigh (and any weight savings from production design will probably be offset from having to do the inevitable beefing up here and there). maybe they are secretly cloning Ahhnold for use in the next ground war.

shame on you guys for using the "T" word (training). with the new magic rifle, it won't be needed. after Natick finishes the magic boots, PT will be eliminated also! ;)

ganderlander, if you saw the specs that the USAF required for things like hammers, you'd understand why they cost $200. it probably cost the company (typically Lockheed) $300 per hammer in salary for the lawyers, contract admins, engineers, and whatnot to deliver 50 spark-free hammers. the spec for the coffee-maker for the C-5A supposedly requires that it operate safely during all operations, including +2 Gs and -1 Gs. when you design an invertable 2G coffeemaker from scratch, and only build 50 of them, the unit cost is pretty extreme! the Navy wrote a mil spec for a whistle for downed aircrewmen; more than 10 pages long, including an acoustic analysis of the sound produced.

Jake, haven't head of the 6mm SAW round. sounds like a good idea, but I would think it wouldn't be accepted unless the issue rifle used the same cartridge. given that most A2 rifles have the 3-shot autosear setup, I wouldn't think recoil would be too big a deal in my dream assault rifle. I figure it ought to go about 8-8.5 lb empty anyway.
 
"Generation II Soldier System Data Interface"?!?!???

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:!!!!

Why do I suspect that any attempts toward a Smartgun will die in testing, very, very quickly??
 
The 6mm SAWS round certainly seemed to be an outstanding concept. It was dropped primaraly becausw long range capability in the SAWS was not a high priority and Army Ordanace was against having two different rifle calibers in the squad. Also the 6mm SAWS was not a NATO standard cartridge. Therefore SAWS development was concentrated on .223 caliber weapons.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top