Airborne Combat Engineer

Considerations on a new military rifle cartridge

http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/bullet.html. Page from Phil West's Scrapbook.

Click on the link for some interesting dicussion on potential replacements for the 5.56mm cartridge, including the Remington 6.8mm SPC and the 6.86x35mm ARC (aka the.270 ARC), the author's preference.

Don't bother unless you're really interested in this stuff.

We've read the Remington 6.8mm SPC is based on the .30 Remington case, but J.D. Jones makes this observation:

"I fooled around with the 25, 30 Rem case a long time ago. It is simply a 30-30 case turned into rimless. Case head expansion was a problem before ballistics got interesting. I would expect the 6.8mm SPC case head has been considerably strengthened over commercial brass. I do not believe those ballistics will come from modified commercial brass safely."

Click on "return to Scrapbook" at the bottom of the page to find an index of other pages of possible interest.

Unofficial Bush ad

WED 31 MAR 04. Unofficial Bush Ad. Linked from Kerry Hater, who found the link at Instapundit.

This is a great IED (improvised educational device). The Bush Campaign should hire this guy/gal!

I'll give credit when I find the author.

WARNING: Has sound. You know if you're where you need to turn down your volume.

[private note to Pat at Kerry Hater deleted, since he's read and responded to it]

Iraqi dissidents & Marines getting to know each other

TUE 30 MAR 04. StrategyPage.

It appears the Iraqi dissidents read too much into earlier reports that the Marines were receiving training on how to be kindler and gentler.

"The marines have made their point in the Sunni Triangle ("don't mess with the marines") and are now patrolling frequently and getting a friendly response from Sunni Arabs. The anti-government Sunnis, who thought the marines might be an easier mark than the paratroopers they replaced [They obviously have not been subjected to all the Marine PR we have all these years. Paratroopers respect Marines as equals, not superiors.], are now laying low and rethinking their tactics. Four days of fighting in Fallujah left dozens of anti-government Iraqis dead and many more wary of shooting it out with marines. The marines are out making contacts and collecting information so they can make raids on the anti-government forces. This worked for the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne division, but the marines plan to try a tactic of working harder to establish contacts with less hostile Sunni Arab groups."

Perhaps the Iraqi bad guys read the 07 JAN 04 Al Jazeera article which nuanced a Washington Post article about the new "culturally sensitive" Marines, as reported in an 07 JAN 04 ACE post.

"The incoming Marines will be taught basic Arabic, counselled [SIC] on religious etiquette and told never to wear sunglasses when talking to Iraqis as part of a plan to show respect for the local population, the Post said.

The Marine planning document said platoons would live among the people in many of the occupied towns and villages to facilitate training of the Iraqi police and civil defence forces.

Army officers and others who saw the planning document viewed it as an implicit criticism of the Army's tactics and results in the region, the Post said."

The bad guys seemed to have overlooked one line in the Marine strategy:

"March 26, 2004; For the last three days, marines have been patrolling into the center of the pro-Saddam Sunni Arab town of Fallujah. Each time, armed Iraqis would fire on the marines and hours of shooting would commence until the Iraqis retreated back into their civilian guises. The marines [Strategy Page lowercase, not mine] just took over the area from the army 82nd Airborne division. The army had decided to stay out of the center of Fallujah most of the time. But the marines decided to resume patrols there to test the Iraqi capabilities and to let the pro-Saddam locals know who they were dealing with. The marines have returned to Iraq with some different ideas on how to handle the Iraqi resistance. For one thing, the marines will put more emphasis on establishing close relationships with friendly Iraqis, and being more aggressive with hostile Iraqis. This is because the hostile Iraqis are directing most of their violence at Iraqis who support the new government or work for the coalition forces. So the marines are in downtown Fallujah every day, hunting down the bad guys and fighting terror with terror against those who shoot at them. Today's casualties in Fallujah were 13 dead (including one marine) and many more wounded."

If you ask me:

Time will tell if the Marine strategy is more or less effective than the 82nd Airborne's. The results of the contrasting styles will provide key learnings for MOUT warfare. May the cost in life and limb for these learnings be minimal.

UPDATE (with an eerie time coincidence)

Just minutes after posting the above (and not before -- and I haven't changed any of the wording above afterwards), I saw on Fox News reports of a horrible attack, possibly on US Marines, in the Sunni triangle at Malahma, 12 miles northwest of Fallujah. Fox has footage of bodies being dragged through the streets, mutilated, and displayed; which it did not show. Here's the early Fox News report, which will no doubt be updated as the facts become more clear.

"Footage from Associated Press Television News showed one man beating a corpse with a metal pole. Others tied a cord to one of the bodies, attached it to a car and drove it down a street, surrounded by a cheering crowd. An Associated Press reporter saw two blackened bodies hanging from a bridge. "

If you ask me again:

This is reminiscent of some horrible treatment of US Soldiers and Airmen which we've seen in earlier engagements. The bad guys know the American people don't have much stomach for this sort of thing, and we're too good to retaliate in kind. This may signal a new, more brutal, psychological strategy to turn the tide in a battle the bad guys were losing.

I'm guessing the Marines are about to put a lot more emphasis on the second part of the bold sentence above, and rethink the idea of mingling with the locals.

We have to face the fact that nobody likes to be occupied, having to get approvals from foreign generals. We know we mean well, but some of their people have a different impression. If the US were occupied, I'm sure we'd be shooting at the foreign troops and blowing up their vehicles, no matter what they said about their intentions. [We'd not be parading their mutilated bodies, however.] The sooner we can have only Iraqi Soldiers and policemen on the streets, with Coalition troops on call for emergencies in bastions outside the cities, the better.

The Marine "sensitivity training" struck me as strange the first time I read about it, as I stated in my 07 JAN 04 ACE post. It sounded like a decision by a "desk jockey" in the Pentagon, with the help of a Consultant from Crystal City. You can't train a fighting Pit Bull to act like a Poodle. All you'll get is a confused Pit Bull, which could lead to unpredictable outcomes.

From everything I've read about people in that region, they only respect strength, and interpret any attempts to look less intimidating as a sign of weakness. Our soldiers should be profesional soldiers, following the rules of engagement, in keeping with the Geneva Conventions. We should use others for building relationships with civilians, in my (mostly ignored) opinion.

Fox News photo shows Iraqi youth celebrating

10AM EDIT: At first I thought that looked like the anit-RPG slat cage on a Stryker, viewed at a distance. Looking at live video footage, I can see the rectangular shape is actually a bumper guard on the front of a civilian contractor truck. Murdoc is correct in his comment. Updated reports are only mentioning civilian contractors (3 of which were Americans), and not US Soldiers. The 4th contractor's country-of-origin is not yet known.

Let's all pray for the families of the four contractors (3 of which were Americans) whose bodies were abused. May those who did this be brought to justice, or may justice by delivered to them.

Pls. pardon rare sports post: GT in Final 4! Hooah!

SUN 28 MAR 04.

Sorry. Couldn't resist it just this once! It's been a while ('90) since GT was in rare air in basketball. We have four NCs in FB (the latest also in '90), but have only been to the Final Four once before, in '90, and didn't accomplish the mission. (We led UNLV by 7 at the half, but got overconfident.)

They played like Marines (that's for you, Murdoc) Sunday (with great D and signifigcant O, despite their top scorer being out with an injury from the previous game) to beat a Kansas team which has been to the last two Final Fours, and scored 100 points in its previous game.

Few give GT much a chance in the Final Four (perhaps they should call it the "Final 3 + A Loser"), but the Ramblin Wreck will play with the intensity of the AIRBORNE! "Death from the sky!" (which is a fitting description of an "Ish" dunk or a "BJ" trey).

If OK State somehow beats GT, they will deserve to be in the championship game, and I'll be the first to congratulate them.

I'm waiting to hear if GTAA will allocate two tix to me. If so, we'll be in San Antonio, home of the Alamo, ready to fight to the death (of the team's hopes for this year).

GWB went to war for oil, and caused high gas prices?

TUE 30 MAR 04. Reuters. Patricia Wilson. Kerry hits Bush on Gas Prices, Has Plan to Cut Cost

Remember all the lefties saying the war on Iraq was all about oil, earlier in the year?

Well, now Bush is being ALSO blamed for high gas prices:

Blaming the spike on the "failed policies" of Republican President Bush -- a former Texas oilman -- Kerry would pressure oil-producing nations to increase production and temporarily suspend filling the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, campaign aides said.

Kerry, master of "nuance" (codespeak for spin, half truths, selective truths, and even outright lying) stretched the truth just a bit (41.5%), as the Hater notes:

Kerry has chosen San Diego, which has the highest gas prices in the country -- $2.12 for a gallon of regular unleaded -- to lay out his proposals.

"I happened to notice that gas is now close to $3 a gallon here in California."

If you ask me:

Since when was 2.12 close to 3? If it were $2.51, it would still be a stretch to call it close to $3, but at least he'd be using proper rounding rules.

A mere 40% exaggeration is considerably closer than he's been on many statements, so perhaps he's improving.

Just a few days ago, I read some blog post (wish I could remember who, so I could give credit) which predicted the Bush Administration would be blamed for the high gas prices. Any of us could see that coming, as Kerry is going to blame anything negative on Bush, but that blogger's timing was nearly perfect.

Suspending filling the strategic reserves is yet another example of softness on national security.

Armed Liberal at Winds of Change says he's still undecided, but this clear lack of comprehension of the seriousness of our current situation just might be enough to swing him toward Bush.

NO, WAIT. Let's be fair.

Kerry, being wealthy by marriage, probably never buys anything but SUPER PREMIUM, which is probably closer to $3.

It's yet another example of how JfK can't relate to "Joe Six Pack" (a term a wealthy DuPont aire -- if I recall correctly without googling it -- once used to describe most voters while running for office). He's no Bill Clinton.

I'm sure his concept of the average cost of wine is not even in the same ballpark as mine.

Should, by some disaster, Kerry get elected, and the cost of food goes up, he can always say: "Let them eat cake."

THIS JUST IN:

Once again, taking the low road, Bush Campaign fights back unfairly with facts

According to a new (but old fashioned looking) Bush ad, John Kerry wants to tax people more so they will drive less. He has voted to raise taxes on gas ELEVEN times. Here are the facts behind the ad.

Use this calculator to determine how much more you would be spending a week on gas if the 50 cent per gallon increase he supported had become law.

To be fair, FactCheck.org says Kerry only briefly supported the gas tax before changing his mind:

"Kerry's support for a 50-cent-per-gallon increase in the federal tax on gasoline was so brief and lukewarm that it was barely noted at the time -- a decade ago."

Kerry Campaign nuances

dBUNKer needs to look up "tax" in the dictionary

Ignoring the tax increases Kerry voted for, dBUNKer calls a free market increase in gas costs a "tax."

Realty keeps getting in the way of nuancing

Castle Argghhh! explains how the Left Coasties brought higher gas and energy costs upon themselves:

"Guys, you pay more for gas because you have what, three refineries left on the left coast? So, out here in the midwest, we crack your gas for you and then ship it to you. Cost of transportation, people. I don't have to pay what you do, gas is cracked all around here. You've decreased your local spot-capacity, increased your demand, and have dumped a lot of tax on it (so has everybody else, the roads gotta get paid for somehow), and so your gas costs more -because of choices YOU guys made, in that collective state sort of way. Don't gripe at us in the fly-over if we make money because we have the excess capacity to meet your demands. That's simple Econ 101.

The same thing is true for power. You aren't building new capacity, you are adding demand, you have to buy power from... us. Because we are building the plants, and again, we ship off our excess capacity. There may be some gouging that goes on, not an area of my expertise (nor Gray Davis's apparently) but that wouldn't happen if you matched your demand with capacity.

Since you have chosen not to... guess what? Your costs go up."

Has Lowell (MA) police chief forgotten '72 break-in?

TUE 30 MAR 04.

The Kerry blog is quoting the Lowell, MA police chief's praises of John Kerry:

"As a law enforcement officer, I have worked with John Kerry since he was a prosecutor here in Lowell. From his years as a prosecutor to his fight to expand the crime bill to add more police on the streets right here in Lowell, across the state and the nation, he had been a fighter for protecting our neighbors."

He doesn't mention "Lowell Watergate," the political break-in by the Kerry Campaign of '72, as mentioned by Captain's Quarters and Kerry Haters. From a Boston paper at the time:

"On Sept. 18, 1972, the evening before the primary election during his second attempt for Congress, Kerry's brother Cameron and one Thomas Vallely, both part of his current campaign team, were arrested by Lowell police at 1:40 a.m. and charged with breaking and entering with the intent to commit larceny. The two were apprehended in the basement of a building whose door had been forced open, police said. It housed the headquarters of candidate DiFruscia. The Watergate scandal was making headlines at this time, and it was called the Lowell Watergate."

If you ask me:

Makes one wonder about the recent break-in in the Bay Area to steal FBI records on Kerry from '72, doesn't it?

Commie Map of Bloggahland

MON 29 MAR 04. Politburo Diktat. Bloggahland Map.

The Commissar at Politburo Diktat has posted a newly discovered map of Bloggahland.

"Bolshoi Russian explorer Boris Kutzhisnutsov discovered Bloggahland.

He mapped it at time of Great Bloggah War, when tribes of Vast Right Warlike Confederation (Milguns, Ranters, Comics, Amazons, and allies) warred with Moonbat Colony of Leftie Land.

Here is map of Bloggahland based on Kutzhisnutsov' original manuscript.
Borders between allied VRWC tribes shown in dashed brown lines. Main thrusts of four leading warlike tribes into Moonbat Colony shown in red arrows."

ACE, being a Special Operations blog, has successfully evaded detection thus far, despite operating on multiple fronts in the region. (The Commissar has noted in a reply that even our link is stealthy, evading the antiquated Soviet bloc trackback radar.) I'm sure the same must be true for Murdoc, who seems to have some sort of mind-meld with me on most subjects (with a few notable exceptions).

Click link at top of post for readable version

Seven new NATO members from old Soviet-bloc

Mon 29 MAR 04. AP. Tom Raum. via Yahoo News.

President Bush welcomed seven former Soviet-bloc nations into NATO Monday: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

NATO now has 26 member nations.

RifleShooter field review of the Remington 6.8mm SPC

Mon 29 MAR 04 0630 EST. Rifle Shooter Magazine. Gary Paul Johnston.

Gary Paul Johnston of Rifle Shooter Magazine provides one of the first civilian field tests of the new Remington 6.8mm SPC cartridge, using a modified Custom CZ Model 527 bolt-action rifle. He dropped a mule deer at 75yds (which doesn't really tell us much).

External ballistics at 300yd effective range: 2000 fps and 1000 ft-lbs

The included ballistics table for 115gr bullets fired out of 24in. barrels (does any military use barrels that long anymore?) look good: 

Velocity: 2800fps at the muzzle and over 2000fps at 300 yds.
Energy: 2000 ft-lbs at the muzzle with 1000 ft-lbs retained at 300 yds

This gives the new round an effective range of 300 yds against deer, since experts say a minimum of 1K ft-lbs of retained energy on impact is needed for deer. The range for mule deer would be less, and if I still hunted, I wouldn't use this little round for elk or larger animals.

L to R: .30 Remington, 6.8mm Rem SPC, .308 Winchester, .223 Remington.

A 11 JAN 04 ACE post discussed the three 6.8mm cartridges Remington is offering.

The next popular hunting round, or just another flash in the pan?

Johnston predicts it will be extremely popular as a hunting cartridge for small- to medium-size game at ranges out to 300 yards or more as it is extremely flat-shooting, regardless of whether it is selected as a military round. 

It will be interesting to see if it can significantly steal business from the existing very popular .270 and 7mm hunting rounds, not to mention the new stubby short magnums and super short magnums which are all the rage right now. It's not filling a gap. It's offering competition. The hunter (and "assault weapon doll" collector and plinker) has many choices in the 6.5mm to 7mm range, and is not limited by consideration of the weight of a battle compliment of rounds he has to carry around. A decade from now, looking back, we'll know if the Rem 6.8mm SPC joins the top 3 hunting rounds in this range, or fades away after a hyped 2-3 year run. My opinion, for what little it's worth, is this cartridge will not achieve that vaulted status.

If Remington really expects the 6.8mm SPC to compete as a hunting round, it would have been better served (at least in the US) to give it a name using caliber intead of metrics an a military acronym (SPC = Special Purpose Cartridge, which pretty much tells us NOTHING). Metric designations are out of style in the US domestic market, at the moment. But, Remington is certainly getting a free hype ride on the net, where many search often for news on the 6.8mm.

Johnston says he has been "one of the few in the loop during the development of the round during the past two years." While testing the military versions of the 6.8mm Rem SPC, he was offered the chance to hunt with a custom bolt-action rifle converted to fire the new round.

Is a military conversion from 5.56mm to 6.8mm justified?

History tells us we don't change the primary service round very often, and new decisions are often impacted by past decisions, so it behooves us (the big US) to optimize any change made.

The Marines have already ordered new M16A4s and M4s chambered for 5.56mm. I'm inclined to think they made a "jarhead" decision (with apologies to all Marines and to Murdoc, who thinks the Marines are less hampered by desk jockey general/civilian decisions -- he's overlooking the fact the Marines are the amphibious step-child of the Navy, which is as bureaucratic as any Service), but it all depends on the weight they gave to different parameters.

The Army (which has about 10 times as many rifles) is still considering several options. If it elects to go with the new HK-USA XM8 "assault" rifle, it would seem a "no-brainer" to go to a more potent cartridge, given all the complaints re. the 5.56mm stopping power and range by Soldiers since Somalia.  But, the test rifles are chambered for 5.56mm. Yes, the XM8 allows for field changes of barrels, but the Army is not likely (given budget constraints) to buy a half-million 5.56mm barrels then turn around and buy another half million 6.8mm barrels. Whatever it buys in the initial order will define the standard battle cartridge for YEARS (probably DECADES, if the past tells us anything) to come.

A decision to upgrade the half-million existing 5.56mm rifles to 6.8mm, or to phase in the new round (requiring supply and support of two cartridges for years)  is a tougher decision.

Costs, rather than needs of Soldiers, have been the driving force many times in the past, going back to McArthur's decision to chamber the new M1 in .30-06 rather than .276 Pedersen back in the 30s (since several billion .30-06 rounds were left over from WWI). See a previous ACE post for details.

USAF Gen. Curtis LeMay committed to order 80K 5.56mm rifles after bursting watermelons at 50, 100, and 150 yds at a July 4th picnic. His order was held up by the Ordnance Dept. McNamara would order the military to go with the M-16 [with many minor design changes] after hearing good things about some civilian rifles which had found their way to Vietnam.

SoD McNamara and his "whiz kids" selected the M16 chambered for 5.56mm

Yes, McNamara did serve in the AF, but he had a desk job even then, as his bio states:

Following his involvement at Harvard in a program to teach the analytical approaches used in business to officers of the Army Air Force, he entered the Army as a captain in early 1943, served under Col. Curtis LeMay with analysis of U.S. bombers' efficiency and effectiveness as a major responsibility, and left active duty three years later with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Light colonel in three years.  Hmm ....

Now, desk jockeys with spreadsheets on their computers are deciding whether we can afford to go to something better. Meanwhile, Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are being instructed to place two rounds (aka a "double tap") in the torso to insure adversaries are rendered ineffective immediately.

The often-repeated "wisdom" that it's better to wound an adversary than to stop him from further action (because it ties up 2-3 other people helping him and demoralizes his comrades) is a strategic concept developed by think-tank professors who never had to worry at the tactical level about a guy you just shot continuing to fire back at you, or the guy you shot and moved past finding just enough strength to shoot you in the back.

SOCOM is free to make its own decision, and might be the only military group to embrace the 6.8mm, when all the smoke clears.  It's possible even one sub-group of SOCOM in one service will select the 6.8mm.  In terms of % of the total rifles in the US military, this will be a small percentage.

To debate the 6.8mm SPC's value for military use (which is purely academic, since nobody in the military is asking for our opinion); we need to see the ballistics for the shorter M16, M4, and XM8 barrels. For the really short barrels of the M4 and the shortest XM8, the ballistics will be less impressive, as a significant % of the powder burns outside the barrel.

Is the 6.8mm SPC the optimum choice for the military?

Apparently the development group, which reportedly tested a range of calibers, thinks so. It looked at a range of bullet calibers, from 6mm to 7.62mm, and bullet weights from 90 to 140 grains, in various shapes.  But also reportedly, it started with the .30 Remington as the parent case.

Did it look at other potential case designs? We need a head-to-head comparison between it and other cartridges which can be loaded in AR cartridges, eg. the 6.5mm Grendel (covered in an earlier ACE post), which allows for the use of longer, streamlined bullets with much better BCs, giving it longer range before it drops below 1000 ft-lbs energy.

  6.5mm Grendel on right

The article provides no terminal ballistics, but earlier ACE posts on the round have linked to some gelatin tests.

Johnston reviews the development of the Rem 6.8mm SPC (old news by now):

The 6.8x43mm SPC was conceived by a U.S. Special Operations soldier in a quest to improve the terminal ballistics of the M4 Carbine. The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit and others assisted the Spec Ops team heading the project. Although the main objective was increased lethality, the new cartridge would go far beyond that in terms of accuracy and performance.

After selecting the .30 Remington as the parent case--a decision that required only slight modification to the M16's bolt face--the case was shortened, given a new shoulder and blown out to maximum capacity for a new high-performance propellant. After testing a variety of bullets in 5.56mm, 6mm, 6.5mm, 7mm and 7.62mm, a bullet of 6.8mm was selected. This .270-caliber, 115-grain projectile has a ballistic coefficient of .350, offering optimum lethality and range.

Some 6.8mm rifles are here already, and more are coming

Remington is expected to introduce rifles for the 6.8mm SPC soon, but at press time no specifics were available. One rumor is that a heavy-barrel tactical rifle will be introduced and possibly a Model Seven. Others, including Barrett, are already offering ARs chambered for the round, as covered in earlier ACE posts.

Be careful heading into the woods carrying something that looks like an "assault rifle" as somebody is liable to call 911 on you, and you'll find yourself surrounded by a SWAT team.

Custom CZ Model 527 with Mauser-type action and Hornady 110-grain V-Max bullets

Want to learn more?

Here are some calculated ballistics graphs comparing the 6.8mm to other military cartridges, based on the information the person developing them had in hand.

If you really want to dig into this subject, there are 16 pages of comments (357 replies as of this posting) re. the 6.8mm SPC at Tactical Forums. Just remember that much of it is speculation and opinion.

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Standard ACE disclaimer: I make no claims to be a firearm expert, but I do thorough internet research and provide links, which can save you same time.  Corrections/additions via comments are appreciated. Pls. include links. You are, of course, free to ignore my opinions, which are in italics, disagree with them, or add your own.

What is Kerry's mark of distinction?

Sun 28 MAR 04 9:55 AM ET. Washington. Washington Post. Dan Balz. "Kerry Under Pressure for a BluePrint"

Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 as a New Democrat, and eight years later, George W. Bush ran as a compassionate conservative. But even after presumptively winning the Democratic nomination, Sen. John F. Kerry has yet to put a distinctive stamp on his candidacy, his party or the shape of a Kerry presidency.

William Galston, a University of Maryland professor and former Clinton domestic adviser, expressed the concern held by many Democrats:

"My greatest worry about the Kerry candidacy is that the competence and confidence it's demonstrated early on in rapid reaction to news of the day will come at the expense of an organized and systematic effort to tell the American people what John Kerry would do as president of the United States. By the end of the campaign, if people can't spontaneously name two or three things that are big things that he would do differently, then I think the campaign will not have succeeded in getting across the whole message."