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Sig Sauer wins NGSW contract

Sig_NGSW_LMG.jpeg
Sig_NGSW_Rifles.jpeg
Sig_NGSW_SPEAR.jpeg
 
To paraphrase someone's comment at TFB about this, "with the USMC's HK m27 and the Army choosing the Sig SPEAR, the future is looking piston".
 
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I don't understand the fascination with 6.8.
Or SIG other than that they have to be bidding these things damn near at cost.
You bid at cost and then you submit your change orders for the barrel, trigger , butt stock , chassis, scope and most important the firing pin. During this process you add summer home,car and yacht for said government official over seeing the contract. Easy Peasy Japanesey.
 
Sig still sells the 516g2 piston AR to LE/Gov, so I'd love to see that field stripped next to a SPEAR.
 
I don't understand the fascination with 6.8.
Or SIG other than that they have to be bidding these things damn near at cost.
If they don‘t make a huge profit, the sheer amount of marketing this brings them is huge.
 
So how does the warranty work? Like are dudes getting the green light to jump then a seperate SIG redlight turns on, jump master is like "WHOAAAAA hold up guys, just got another recall. We are going home, probably get our guns back in 1-2 months and we will try this again!" 😜
 
The single biggest technical improvement on the spear is it’s a side charger. That’s a game changer and should be the standard.
 
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The single biggest technical improvement on the spear is it’s a side charger. That’s a game changer and should be the standard.
Yeah, there's the option of using the non-reciprocating left side charging handle.
 
Interesting ammo. A 135ish grain bullet with 80,000 psi chamber pressure and a steel case head to handle the pressure. Supposedly about 3000fps.


Creed on the left and .308 on the right.

 
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How many .Mil rifles around the world are piston and how many Di?


Di:
m16/m4/ARs



Piston:
HK 416/417
HK g3 (blowback, not piston)
HK g36
FN SCAR
MCX SPEAR
AK
FAL
AUG
Tavor
Galil
SA80
ar18/ar180/South Korea's K2
Beretta ARX
M1
Howa 64, 89, 20
General Dynamics' NGSW offering
Textron's NGSW offering
 
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You bid at cost and then you submit your change orders for the barrel, trigger , butt stock , chassis, scope and most important the firing pin. During this process you add summer home,car and yacht for said government official over seeing the contract. Easy Peasy Japanesey.
That's something I learnt from a (very) wealthy friend.

Any plan with bad oversight (government or inexperienced clients), you can bid under cost. Charge through the teeth for changes.

This family declares a profit in the nine figures each year. Self made.
 
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Interesting ammo. A 135ish grain bullet with 80,000 psi chamber pressure and a steel case head to handle the pressure. Supposedly about 3000fps.


Creed on the left and .308 on the right.

If they can use barrel material close to Bartlein 400BB I think wear will be similar on the barrel at least.

If you thought military fails were funny before just wait till some oblivious kid gets handed one of these and expects it to kick like a 20” 556.

ETA: I’m all for innovation so I hope this goes well for them (and eventually civilians)
 
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How many .Mil rifles around the world are piston and how many Di?


Di:
m16/m4/ARs



Piston:
HK 416/417
HK g3
HK g36
FN SCAR
MCX SPEAR
AK
FAL
AUG
Tavor
Galil
SA80
ar18/ar180/South Korea's K2
Beretta ARX
M1
General Dynamics' NGSW offering
Textron's NGSW offering
Take a chill pill man. We get it , you hate DI, to the point of arguing about it with no one in a thread not really pertaining to it.

Also, add MAS49/56 and Swedish Ljungman (Egyptian Hakim/Rashid) to the DI list if you're counting obsolete rifles, and remove the M4 from the list since it's technically a piston rifle.
 
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If the Sig SPEAR and HK 416 continue to make inroads, we should eventually see the prices of Di ARs wane, which is good for consumers. 5.56 ammo should come down too. Eventually.
 
Can an AI AT action handle 80k+ psi?

The 6.8/.277 supposedly can do 3k FPS out of a 16" for up to 7k rounds.

That seems promising.
 
Can an AI AT action handle 80k+ psi?

The 6.8/.277 supposedly can do 3k FPS out of a 16" for up to 7k rounds.

That seems promising.
This is the big question. The current wonder steels (HK) can't even handle 58-60K PSI with the M885A1 that is breaking bolts left and right. But somehow Sig with its abysmal track record is going to be able to make a gun that will not only run but not shoot itself or blow itself up at 80K+ PSI?

Barrels will wear faster, pressure events are going to send shit north of 90K and the guns will most likely disintegrate on themselves over time.

Bigger round so either more weight for the solider or they carry less ammo (Anyone who has been in a firefight loves this idea.........)

New ammo so new DODIC, Preposition ed stocks all over world have to be updated, new magazines, new training aids, probably new range infrastructure all while having a round that is not comparable with the rest of the squad unless the MG is fielded at same time with same support.

The contract announcement is written in a way that leads someone who understands these things, that the army has not commited to anything. They are making a small minimum buy with options to buy more. There is a 90-95% chance these will go to some test units and overtime end up getting shitcanned for a variety of reasons.
 
That's something I learnt from a (very) wealthy friend.

Any plan with bad oversight (government or inexperienced clients), you can bid under cost. Charge through the teeth for changes.

This family declares a profit in the nine figures each year. Self made.
There is a reason this picture is used in the contracting world on both the gov and contractor side.

change-order-vs-original-contract.jpg
 
80k PSI on full-auto or any kind of rapid fire is not going to be very kind to barrels or bolts.
 
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I will place bets on the fault.
The steel will separate from the brass of the case.
80k psi is significant, it will be a violent separation.

Yes I've seen the polymer cased shit too.
Same will happen there.

This will be shitcanned, quickly.
SIG has sucked hard since they left Germany.....nothing new.
 
You're counting your chickens before they've hatched. The CSASS was down selected. But never funded. Just because SIG won doesn't mean the gun will ever get fielded. It may. It may not.
The Marines have their shiny new HK rifles...Big Army won't let that go unchallenged.
 
With what? Except for a tiny percentage of spec-ops guys the Army is still M16/M4.
The army is smart enough to realize whatever small arm infantry and close combat support use is irrelevant since the vast majority of enemy casualties are from HE and over-pressure. Unless there is a revolutionary change in weight or power per recoil/weight/durability such as caseless ammo reducing the weight of the ammo carried, its not worth changing from the M4. As a platform it is mature and damn near perfected. Materials science is not there yet or atleast not where its economically viable. There is also the physics problem in that metal cases remove heat from the weapon system.

The marines could have put a Carl G in every squad, Updated to a modern LMG/MMG using constant recoil or developed better squad drone systems or developed a modern lighter weight mortar with lighter rounds or any number of ideas that would have been a better investment.
 
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The army is smart enough to realize whatever small arm infantry and close combat support use is irrelevant since the vast majority of enemy casualties are from HE and over-pressure. Unless there is a revolutionary change in weight or power per recoil/weight/durability such as caseless ammo reducing the weight of the ammo carried, its not worth changing from the M4. As a platform it is mature and damn near perfected. Materials science is not there yet or atleast not where its economically viable. There is also the physics problem in that metal cases remove heat from the weapon system.

The marines could have put a Carl G in every squad, Updated to a modern LMG/MMG using constant recoil or developed better squad drone systems or developed a modern lighter weight mortar with lighter rounds or any number of ideas that would have been a better investment.
So you spent a lot of typing to admit the Army hasn't done what you said they did.

The HK rifle allowed the Marines to issue suppressors to pretty much every person in combat arms. Which is a big thing.

You mean as in something like this?

Lo7CCnu.jpg


The Marines already deploy drones extensively. In fact iirc the Corps was the first Service to utilize the modern UAVs. I turned down an assignment to the unit.

The fielding of a new rifle hasn't prevented the Marines from also looking into new LMG/HMGs to replace the M240/M2. Weapons utilizing the recoil reduction technology shown in the NGSW trails. They are also looking at the .338 machine gun that SOCOM adopted.

Why inflict a heavier/more expensive weapon on a squad. The AT4 works just as well as the GarlG. Which until recently was only issued to Army spec-ops/Rangers and yes Marine Raiders.
 
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To paraphrase someone's comment at TFB about this, "with the USMC's HK m27 and the Army choosing the Sig SPEAR, the future is looking piston".

While I was pretty biased at one point, but I think that piston guns are the logical step forward. i think over the past decade or so, pistons guns have gotten really good to the point that they are just as smooth as their DI counter parts and the difference in weight is not as significant as it once was. With that being said, i think the MCX platform still has a way to go and if somehow somebody other than sig could pick up the ball and run with it, it could be very good.
 
You bid at cost and then you submit your change orders for the barrel, trigger , butt stock , chassis, scope and most important the firing pin. During this process you add summer home,car and yacht for said government official over seeing the contract. Easy Peasy Japanesey.

These days, cost is not really the number one factor, things like user input can be used to tip a contract one way or the other. They have more than once said, well this stuff is really close but despite gun A being 2 percent cheaper, the end users seem to like Gun B a little better so its worth going with gun B.
Interesting ammo. A 135ish grain bullet with 80,000 psi chamber pressure and a steel case head to handle the pressure. Supposedly about 3000fps.


Creed on the left and .308 on the right.


I really like the bi metal case concept but I wonder what the practical advantages are .277 are over the 6.5CM. Yeah, you can hammer a lower BC 135 at 3000fps out of a 16 inch barrel, but how does that line up with a higher BC 140 at 2600fps out of a 16 inch barrel.

IMO I think the spear is interesting in 6.5cm, but I don't think the commercial markets sees that for a while.
 
How many .Mil rifles around the world are piston and how many Di?


Di:
m16/m4/ARs



Piston:
HK 416/417
HK g3
HK g36
FN SCAR
MCX SPEAR
AK
FAL
AUG
Tavor
Galil
SA80
ar18/ar180/South Korea's K2
Beretta ARX
M1
General Dynamics' NGSW offering
Textron's NGSW offering

Add to the piston list: Howa Types 64, 89, and 20
 
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It's a shame the Army and Marine Corps didn't just go m16-a4 equipped with collapsible stocks- after all the a4 is the most reliable and durable Direct Impingement rifle used by American troops.
 
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This is just yet another big fat cost-plus and change order ridden contract waiting to happen and it will fail miserably. I find myself thinking back to all of the fiascos in picking weapon platforms, fulfilling orders, and having zero support.

There were rows of SCARs at Group that weren't touched, and even the Batt Boys thought wiser of it when they force-issued the SCAR to all of their joes. I remember the shitshow around Glocks. Around the M110. The M110A1. The URG-I/Block 3 program. Hell, even going from various GMVs to using M-ATVs was a fucking shitshow.

I'm not completely finishing my thoughts, and really shouldn't be annoyed since it does not effect me, but all this is is yet another pissing match by the Commissars at Big Army and DOD having to always try to make it look like they're doing something. You'd think someone with slightly above room temperature IQ would go "Huh, the USMC has a perfectly fine truly LIGHT machine gun, we could just use that..."?

You'd think with nearly 3000 years of well documented military history from all around the planet that we'd realize that logistics surrounding the militarization of armaments is what makes or breaks long term success. Yeah, we're in a "5th Generation" of warfare, but tweets and cyber attacks don't hold terrain.

What I do find funnier is seeing all of the weekend warriors of active duty shitkickers on social media whine about how heavy the weapon is - just weak shit all around the board.

That said, it does look cool, which is...something?
 
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So you spent a lot of typing to admit the Army hasn't done what you said they did.

The HK rifle allowed the Marines to issue suppressors to pretty much every person in combat arms. Which is a big thing.

You mean as in something like this?

Lo7CCnu.jpg


The Marines already deploy drones extensively. In fact iirc the Corps was the first Service to utilize the modern UAVs. I turned down an assignment to the unit.

The fielding of a new rifle hasn't prevented the Marines from also looking into new LMG/HMGs to replace the M240/M2. Weapons utilizing the recoil reduction technology shown in the NGSW trails. They are also looking at the .338 machine gun that SOCOM adopted.

Why inflict a heavier/more expensive weapon on a squad. The AT4 works just as well as the GarlG. Which until recently was only issued to Army spec-ops/Rangers and yes Marine Raiders.
The army has not changed their service rifle, they haven't replaced the only squad organic suppressive fire weapon for a semi auto that breaks at a rate far higher than any other weapon within the squad.

Suppressors could have been used on the M4. They could have put new uppers on existing guns like SOCOM does if they really cared about longevity and ran cans while keeping all commonality and not sacrificing their lmgs.

Looking at shit when you replace a weapons system and have a capability gap is not very wise. You go to war with the shit you have, now what you may have in 5 or 10 years.

The Marine Corps is already getting gutted because DOD is finally realizing they are a redundant and obsolete in many ways. Their marketing and "brand" is the only reason they still exist. They already took away their tanks, whats next?

The AT4 is not even close to the Carl G for a variety of reasons. The sheer amount of different types of rounds that can be used on demand, space, range, accuracy and payload delivery are not even close.

You put this heavier more expensive weapon in the squad becuase its a force multiplier and brings organic fires that actual inflict casualties vs spray and pray suppressive fire. HE and over pressure is what kills on the battlefield.
 
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This is just yet another big fat cost-plus and change order ridden contract waiting to happen and it will fail miserably. I find myself thinking back to all of the fiascos in picking weapon platforms, fulfilling orders, and having zero support.

It's somebody's wet dream. The appearance of the rifles, the caliber choice etc. Eventually the US will switch to something else but I don't think it will be this particular rifle.
 
Anyone have the latest numbers of HK m27 rifles delivered to the Marine Corps?
 
The funny part about piston guns is who actually used them. The 416 is used buy JSOC and if you actually know why it was chosen you would not bring up the piston. Because that is not why it was chosen. It was the barrel and only the barrel. At the time it was the ONLY one that had the CHF and heavy chrome lining. It was a cost thing. JSOC fire a shit ton of ammo and buying new guns/barrels all of the time cost a ton of money. So the bean counters thought that they could save money with the 416.

Most every country that has piston guns for their conventional forces uses an M4 for their Tier 1 units. Why is that? Because, they usually have some input in what they use. Look at the British SAS.



AND FYI......... Anyone that has never used a Gustav would think that it is the same as an AT4.... and they would be absolutely wrong. Can anyone tell me how to set the AT4 to airburst?
 
The funny part about piston guns is who actually used them. The 416 is used buy JSOC and if you actually know why it was chosen you would not bring up the piston. Because that is not why it was chosen. It was the barrel and only the barrel. At the time it was the ONLY one that had the CHF and heavy chrome lining. It was a cost thing. JSOC fire a shit ton of ammo and buying new guns/barrels all of the time cost a ton of money. So the bean counters thought that they could save money with the 416.

It's been said for a while, but not widely shared that HK could've made it as a standard gas system and achieved similar results. The 416 succeeded despite the op-rod making it a harder-recoiling, lug shearing, disconnector smashing pig that could churn out more rounds than a Mk18 before the barrel got toasted.

Love 'em or hate 'em...HK knows how to make a good fucking barrel.
 
Budget cuts appear to be the only thing that'll impact the DoD's slow move toward Piston and away from SWIE old school design.
 
How many .Mil rifles around the world are piston and how many Di?


Di:
m16/m4/ARs



Piston:
HK 416/417
HK g3
HK g36
FN SCAR
MCX SPEAR
AK
FAL
AUG
Tavor
Galil
SA80
ar18/ar180/South Korea's K2
Beretta ARX
M1
Howa 64, 89, 20
General Dynamics' NGSW offering
Textron's NGSW offering

The G3 is a "piston" huh?
Hint: it's not

All but a few named are AR18 or AK pattern derivatives.

The operating mechanism does not a good gun make.
 
It's been said for a while, but not widely shared that HK could've made it as a standard gas system and achieved similar results. The 416 succeeded despite the op-rod making it a harder-recoiling, lug shearing, disconnector smashing pig that could churn out more rounds than a Mk18 before the barrel got toasted.

Love 'em or hate 'em...HK knows how to make a good fucking barrel.


That is absolutely true....... back then. Now there are others that make a barrel as good or better then the HK. It was a timing thing and HK won in that category. As anyone that has anything to do with money and acquisitions in the DoD, once you have your teeth into the DoD it is had to get them out.
 
Umm isn't this supposed to be the replacement for the "Machine Gun" at the sqaud level and not the individual soldier rifle? Cause as a MG, could be interesting.

As an Individual Rifle? Step Backwards 100 years.
 
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