IMHO - in the NGSW Rifle - SIG is the design worth winning the contract. Their ammo is cost effective and delivers the velocity/pressure in the spec without reinventing the wheel. The platform is less of a radical departure from the norm (less moving parts) and clearly looks like an easier weapon for manual of arms training due to its legacy controls layout..
I think I agree but for the main reason that Sig is the new Remington and in bed with the Pentagon. How else does Sig win EVERY contract?
1. No way the bullpup will win. No bullpup has ever won.
2. Textron rifle requires batteries to work IIRC. That's a no-go. There are other issues but I forget what they were.
3. The Sig is just an oversize MCX. Least amount of new shit to get used to. No batteries. The round looks promising too. It's also not as big or bulky looking as the other two. The Textron RIFLE is the one I like the least, I'd rather have the GD bullpup. That SAW is pretty nice though.
AND Sig also already won the contract for the new MG I think, it fires .338NM. They will select a new SAW I imagine but it's gonna use the same ammo as the new rifle.
weight savings aside, barrel replacement is needed more, another round to the stable which could lead to logistics issues, and the caseless ammo is prone to environmental issues. not really a fan yet
It's for infantry only so the POGs won't have to worry about that, they're getting all the old shit. If anything we had too much ammo and never had a problem getting it. And we're moving away from barrel swaps on SAWs --fact is it just doesn't really happen that often in the wild. They just get shot out and replaced.
I do think that removable chamber is the titties though. And that operating system? Shit. I'd loved to have had that thing.
They all fire a 6.8mm round with a penetrator supposedly capable of penetrating existing plates. I suspect it's a hot version of the 6.8Western with a penetrator and smaller, lighter case. High BC, better cross sectional density and same weight as typical 7.62 bullet. Wanna say it's supposed to be 140ish grains and ~3000+fps. They all require a suppressor but it's not for sound it's for recoil and to prevent damage to the internals as I understand it. One person did the math I guess and came to the conclusion it'd be a approx. a 100,000PSI load, so go figure.
The powder was one of the biggest hurdles I hear.
NONE of this shit is new. They've been trying to replace AR for decades. Go to the Ft Benning Infantry Museum, I bet in a few years these three will get added to the OICW display below the G11.
All we ever needed was a souped up Grendel with a penetrator (jesus, pick fucking platform at this point already, plenty of good ones) an aluminum receiver SAW w/o magazine capability and lower rate of fire, a longer barrel replaceable version to replace 240 with a higher rate of fire and we'd have been golden for another 20 years.