Should the Army still replace the M4?

2014-05-12T08:14:49-04:00

The Army announced that it concluded its Individual Carbine competition without selecting a winner to replace the M4 Carbine.
“None of the carbines evaluated during the testing phase of the competition met the minimum scoring requirement needed to continue to the next phase of the evaluation,” according to a June 13 Army press release.
This was done on the heels of another round of budget cuts; however, a bill was passed to continue funding the project in Oct 2014.
What do you think, is the M4 the best or is the best just too expensive?

Response by CH (MAJ) Private RallyPoint Member made May 12 at 2014 8:19 AM

2014-05-12T08:19:51-04:00

Don't forget to comment or your preferred caliber and essential options.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made May 12 at 2014 8:44 AM

2014-05-12T08:44:00-04:00

Sir,

For general use I really like the M4 with PEQ 15 and a reflexive sight, or an ACOG. I wish we had adopted a more modern bolt design... Wasting half a day scraping carbon out of a weapon is pointless.

Armalite already makes a beefier variant in 7.62, and I think that has applications in a weapons squad.

Should we spend any money on new rifles, to what end? Unlike a joint-strike fighter, we can use the M4 platform to create the general purpose rifle we need.

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made May 12 at 2014 9:01 AM

2014-05-12T09:01:03-04:00

I think we should just equip every Soldier with an M1 Abrams Main Battle tank and a crew!!

Response by 1SG Mike Case made May 12 at 2014 9:25 AM

2014-05-12T09:25:05-04:00

I think for the everyday Soldier, the M4 is an adequate weapon. The arguement for gas impingment or piston driven is the old "carb vs fuel injection" in the car world. I would prefer a gas piston as there is less gumming up of the bolt area and it tremendouosly cooler. I can't speak for the combat arms world but I wouldn't mind a 7.62 round in a firefight in like a SCAR platform or something. But to answer your question, I think for outfitting the Army, the M4 provides what we need.

Response by MAJ Jim Woods made Jul 6 at 2014 1:10 AM

2014-07-06T01:10:53-04:00

I kinda' wonder what would have transpired if the Mini-14 was around at the time we adopted the M-16.

I am not a big fan of the 5.56 and think there are other cartridges out there that are much more efficient, accurate, and higher muzzle energy ....... .280/7mm family as an example. We have gone, over the years, from a marksmanship oriented training program to a "spray and pray" (my observations) reality in combat. EM2 and the FAL were both set up for .280/7x43, originally.

An interesting study would be to compare the # of rounds fired down range & effectiveness between a USMC Rifle Co and a US Army Rifle Co in combat. I am not taking sides but I don't think that the study would be anything to brag about from either branch. The Spec Ops guys have always stressed Marksmanship over Rounds Down Range..... they might be on to something.

I would hope there are Lessons to be Learned coming out of the Iraq & Afghanistan AO regarding this issue.

According to the British Daily Mail the SAS are looking at switching from the 5.56x45mm NATO round to a 7.62mm round. They seem unimpressed that their US counterparts have access to 7.62mm FN SCAR-H rifles and they are stuck with the M4-like 5.56mm Colt Canada/Diemaco C8 Carbine. An “insider” said …

A regiment insider said: ‘The old shoot-to-wound policy was based on the assumption that once he was wounded an enemy combatant would stop fighting, and so would his comrades to give him first aid (this was also the case in Vietnam).

‘But this backfired. The 5.56 mm rounds did not take a big enough chunk out of them, allowing fanatical insurgents to keep on fighting despite their wounds. As a result, more soldiers were shot and badly wounded.

Regardless of the merits of the 7.62mm over the 5.56mm, and I do believe 7.62mm is superior, I wonder how much of this is classic fighting-the-last-war thinking. I wonder, would the Taliban have equipped themselves with cheap Chinese Level III body armor if the troops had gone in with 7.62mm NATO Ball ammunition?

Response by SGT Richard H. made Aug 25 at 2014 9:15 AM

2014-08-25T09:15:56-04:00

I think the M4 is a great platform that just needs some tweaking. The Army could improve the platform and save a ton of money by dropping M855 ammo in favor of MK262 open tip match rounds (as used in the Mk 12) and replacing the trigger group with something a little closer to match grade. I shoot similar ammo from my AR's exclusively, and have them equipped with TAC-CON triggers. Full floating forestocks are a marked improvement as well, and Nickel Boron coated bolt carrier groups also increase performance and make cleaning a breeze. I bet just about any infantry guy would trade his M4 for mine in a heartbeat after a few shots.

Response by SFC Mark Merino made Aug 26 at 2014 4:32 PM

2014-08-26T16:32:24-04:00

Personally, I want a weapon like the one from the original Robocop....."State of the art bang bang"

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 26 at 2014 9:17 PM

2014-08-26T21:17:45-04:00

I thought we were still in the middle of upgrading the weapon system with the A1 modification?

Response by CPT Ray Doeksen made Aug 27 at 2014 1:04 PM

2014-08-27T13:04:13-04:00

The Army (and all the services) should keep testing candidates for new personal weapons, and never stop. There's a benefit to keeping a good piece of gear around, but there's also a benefit to keeping up a process of continuous improvement. When to pull the trigger on procurement though, that's another issue.

The M-4 isn't the worst, but it isn't the best, just something we've gotten very familiar with for the past fifty-plus years. 52 yeas since the M-16 was first fielded!

I'm sure everyone will bicker and armchair-general about what the "best" is ... but you all know that there isn't any one best tool for all situations, and we're going to need to think about weapons in the same way as uniforms... take what's appropriate for the environment. Do they still teach METT-T?

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 28 at 2014 9:48 AM

2014-08-28T09:48:05-04:00

The Army needs a fundamentally new rifle, particularly if it is going to pursue fielding ammo such as the M855A1 (which the 101st fielded in 2010, and from the ballistics charts I saw in Afghanistan, beat a standard 7.62 round in nearly every metric). But the new round is definitely harder on the M4 platform, and can exacerbate the M4’s (already well documented) deficiencies. The round burns hotter (which is a big problem for the M4’s gas tube and barrel), and kicks harder (which wears buffer springs, etc).

The biggest deficiency our Soldiers identified in 2010 was that the new round did not always separate the tip from slug, causing the bullet to pass-through the target (“through-and-throughs”).

This is just my opinion, but I think Army R&D (and the competition-based contracting that underpins that research--JCIDS) needs to be revamped. At this point, I have no faith, trust or confidence in that process, because I know of at least two projects (the ACUs most of the Army currently wears, and a project to replace the water buffalo) which were flawed from the start, but which the Army has spent millions on.

Still broader, we need to deeply consider this phrase: “Military Industrial Complex”, and we need to deeply consider the efficacy of O-6’s and GO’s who leave our ranks to become business contractors and CEOs of businesses, who then “sell” us their whiz-bang products through the flawed JCIDS process (and capture millions of dollars in R&D funding).

Most Soldiers are unaware of the very close working relationship the Army has with its retired Senior Officers who become government contractors. But if you want to know where all of our R&D is going…and if you want to know why we haven’t seen a new rifle since…what? Vietnam?...then you can look no further than the Military Industrial Complex that we’ve helped create, and JCIDS.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 28 at 2014 9:48 AM

2014-08-28T09:48:08-04:00

Response by SPC Keelan Southerland made Aug 29 at 2014 12:40 AM

2014-08-29T00:40:47-04:00

I do not think the military is going to go through with getting a replacement for the M4 for several more years. They have been having "trials" for the last 10 years. More often than not it comes down to the bean counters. If the average M4 unit cost is 600.00 (600x300K = 180,000,000) dollars and the new rifle is 650.00 dollars (650x300K = 195,000,000), by the time you have outfitted 300,000 troops with the latest rifle you have already spent 15 million more. This is how they look at it. Forget the fact that the extra 50 dollars would provide better reliability and longevity, all they care about is the end price tag.

There are many rifle out today, which would serve our Military better than the M4. However, getting those rifles into the testers hands and convincing the bean counters of the merits of the weapons system is the real trick.

Ammo/caliber selection is always going to be a point of strife. In the end well place shots is all that matters. Everything else is smokehouse crap. Give the guys what they need to complete the mission. If you want to know what equipment works the best talk with the guys in the the SMU's and get detailed reports about their weapons systems and ammo.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 19 at 2016 10:21 PM

2016-04-19T22:21:01-04:00

The U.S. Military needs to go to a rifle that fires the 7.62mm round. The M4 and the 5.56mm round are not up to the task unless fired in close quarters combat.

Response by SSG Jeremy Kohlwes made Apr 19 at 2016 10:52 PM

2016-04-19T22:52:30-04:00

I was kind of rooting for the HK 416. Heard good things about that one fixing all of the M4s issues. I know there has been talk about using a system that could have interchangeable upper receivers designed for different uses and calibers.

Response by SFC Marcus Belt made Apr 20 at 2016 1:26 AM

2016-04-20T01:26:13-04:00

I like my M4 well enough. It's a mature technology. I know where problems are likely to arise, and how to fix them. I can hit what I aim at and if I hit it, I'll probably stop it. The M14 platform is good, but it is very heavy, and heavy is bad. Very bad. After all the attachments and stuff, my 8 pound M4 weighs more like an M249. Take an M14, add a light, a laser and an optic and it will weigh just short of an M240.

As always, the biggest hindrance to the lethality of an individual weapon is the restriction on hollow-point bullets.

To be clear, I'm not saying that the US shouldn't seek to improve, but after almost five decades of incremental improvements, we have a competent if unspectacular weapons platform.

Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, the Airborne community has only recently shifted from the T-10D to the T-11 parachute; a mature technology versus a new design, and the teething problems with the new design have cost us the lives of several Paratroopers.

Recall the problems associated with adopting the M16?