US Army's new rifle: the XM7

[DougK]

28 minutes ago, Rick said:

Your basement?

The old arms vault at APG. Since Ordnance has moved to Ft. Lee/Gregg-Adams they got a nice new one...almost sterile

[Yama]

On 5/14/2025 at 3:19 AM, Stargrunt6 said:

Did stuff like this happen in medieval times btw?  "The Crown has decided to forgo longswords and replace them with 10" daggers. You see, it's not important to break armor but to find gaps in it..." I'm sure some baron got strumpets and mead out of it.

Side note, but Romans did bit like this. The Gladii were (slightly) shorter than could have been made with available technology, because longer ones were not needed with their tactics. Cavalry, OTOH, had longer swords. Later, composition and tactics of the legions changed and longer swords were favoured. Actual dagger, coincidentally, seems to have been dropped at some point from standard equipment.

Medieval armies for the most part were not equipped by Kings, people made to serve in them acquired best weapons they could afford.

Edited November 6, 2025 by Yama

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, DougK said:

The old arms vault at APG. Since Ordnance has moved to Ft. Lee/Gregg-Adams they got a nice new one...almost sterile

Boring! 

[seahawk]

6 hours ago, Yama said:

Side note, but Romans did bit like this. The Gladii were (slightly) shorter than could have been made with available technology, because longer ones were not needed with their tactics. Cavalry, OTOH, had longer swords. Later, composition and tactics of the legions changed and longer swords were favoured. Actual dagger, coincidentally, seems to have been dropped at some point from standard equipment.

Medieval armies for the most part were not equipped by Kings, people made to serve in them acquired best weapons they could afford.

Or the 'Almain Rivets' - infantry armour for British soldiers ordered by the crown in Northern and Western Germany and known for being cheap but also of indifferent quality. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almain_rivet

[Yama]

2 hours ago, seahawk said:

Or the 'Almain Rivets' - infantry armour for British soldiers ordered by the crown in Northern and Western Germany and known for being cheap but also of indifferent quality. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almain_rivet

Oh that's what it is called, cool. Not dissimilar to lorica segmentata.

[Ivanhoe]

9 hours ago, rmgill said:

Boring! 

Never trust anyone with a clean work area. 

[bojan]

12 hours ago, Yama said:

Side note, but Romans did bit like this...

Romans in their "stereotypical" period were actually one of the few aberrations where army relied on swords instead of spears (pilums were for throwing). That was because they have managed to drill their troops to a degree that could form continuous protective shield wall. But this required very good training, and hence as legion training standards dropped you could see them transitioning to spears and wider combat formation.

You could see brief revival of troops with sword as main weapon, fighting in close formation in Spain in 15-16 century (rodeleros), first independently, then as a part of the tercio. Through those were more specialist troops, designed to break "deadlock of pikes", just like halberdiers/2handed swordsmen were. They were also used in even more specialized role as late as 30 years war (as specialist during siege). But their main problem (as with all short hand weapon armed troops) was vulnerability to cavalry, even light one.

[shep854]

"Whatever became of the Next Big Thing, the XM-8? Big splash on arrival and I heard not a word when it was cancelled."--DougK

Budget; not enough better than M16/M4

[bojan]

Worse than M16/M4 in majority of roles in fact.

[DougK]

In the realm of other awful ideas, I present the SPIE (Spec Purpose Individual Weap). Fires flechettes, themselves a monumentally bad idea unless you're firing 10,000 of them at once out of a M81 152mm gun.

[James1978]

13 hours ago, bojan said:

Worse than M16/M4 in majority of roles in fact.

Can you elaborate on that?

[bojan]

No effective automatic fire, heavier, heavier ammo, worse recoil hence slower follow up shots, worse reliability, more complicated weapon, etc, etc.

[Josh]

Just caught up on the thread. In the days of UAV and anti UAV equipment, picking a new caliber seems like an exercise in rearranging the deck chairs of the titanic. There still is no commonality, and I’d wager the pressure of that round is going to wreck guns at an exorbitant rate in actual combat.

It seems like a weapon developed for the last war, where personal weapons actually mattered somewhat. Even then, I agree with Bojans assessment of having a different caliber for MG and DMR, and just make it 7.62 because that’s what’s in inventory.

[shep854]

 Around a pound lighter, 11 in barrel, among other refinements.  Mike and John both say easier to control:

 

[bojan]

super magnum round

11 inch barrel

Beyond stupid.

[shep854]

Would the M7 TDP have to be changed for adoption? If so, how extensive would the testing have to be?

Edited November 16, 2025 by shep854