The Army's new battle rifle.
Today I’d
like to talk about the Army’s new battle rifle, the SIG Sauer XM5. I’ve been
researching it a lot lately since it’s the rifle that all my soldiers will be using,
and honestly, it’s pretty cool. I never thought they’d replace the M4 in during
my career in the military, and it’s interesting to see. A lot of research went
into making this rifle and making it the perfect weapon for future conflicts.
The first,
and probably the biggest thing to talk about is the new 6.8 mm cartridge. It’s
one of the many steps the Army is taking to prepare for near peer conflicts. During
WW2 the Army used several different types of rounds and it was a logistical
nightmare. So, after the war ended the Army looked for a single round that
could be used in all their weapons. Ideally you want a round that is light enough
that you can carry a lot of it but heavy enough to drop your target. They settled
on the 5.56 mm cartridge. It was a good round for the wars of that time, but it
had a few issues. First, it’s not a very big round, so it’s entirely possible
for a person to get hit by it and continue fighting for at least a little
while. On top of that it’s also not strong enough to punch through modern body
armor. This is fine if you’re fighting poorly funded insurgents, but not so
good against a near peer opponent. Secondly, lower caliber rifle rounds don’t
work very well in machine guns, as most SAW gunners can tell you.
So now after
over fifty years the Army has finally switched to the 6.8 mm cartridge, and it’s
a very interesting round. The round is so high pressure that SIG had to give it
a steel back or else it would literally explode every time you shoot it. This insanely
high pressure is also hard on the rifle. So, to keep the rifles from getting
worn out to quickly they created a lower pressure cartridge that can be used during
training, and the steel backed cartridge will be used in combat. This means
that these rifles will have a limited shelf life when deployed in combat zones,
but years of research have shown that combat rifles don’t usually Last that
long anyway. Regardless, transitioning to this new rifle will be an interesting
process for new leaders in the Army. Ensuring that everyone is properly trained
to use this new weapon and making sure that they know how to maintain this
rifle, even when using the combat cartridge. It will also be interesting to see
how this weapon fairs in conflicts to come.
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