What does this new caliber look like?
Key point: Warfare is a constant battle between better and better armor and bullets. In this case, America is looking to regain the upper-hand once again.
The Army is developing a more powerful bullet that’ll penetrate body armor capable of stopping 5.56 mm rounds, the Army’s Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told senators on Thursday.
“The 5.56 round, we recognize there is a type of body armor it does not penetrate, and adversarial states are selling that stuff on the Internet for about 250 bucks,” Milley explained during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, adding, “We think we have a solution … We know we have developed a bullet that can penetrate these new plates.”
The Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia, is testing different caliber rounds, which range between the 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm rounds used by U.S. troops, according to Army Times. Milley stressed that the focus is on increased lethality for the bullet, not on a new rifle. When asked if the higher-caliber round would require a new rifle, Milley responded that “it might, but probably not,” though he went on to say that there are off-the-shelf rifle options for the service.
With more than 70 percent of U.S. casualties coming from ground combat troops—mostly within the infantry and special operations forces—new body armor, along with a new weapon system, and a higher caliber round are “critically important,” Milley said.
Last week, retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee and stressed that the service needed to abandon 5.56 mm ammunition, along with the M4 and M16 family of rifles in favor of a new, more modular and lethal weapon system.
Scales has spent the last few years railing against the M4 and M16, and on May 17 said that thousands of combat troops have “died because the Army’s weapon buying bureaucracy has consistently denied that a soldier’s individual weapon is important enough to gain their serious attention.”
Definitely in need of a more effective round and modern upgraded rifle. An AR platform w/a reliable gas piston operation rather then the gas impingment system and a more effective round. That of course until they issue the plasma energy rifle.
The 5.56 or .223 was developed not to kill the enemy, but merely to wound him so two other combatants would have to drag him off the field, effectively taking three combatants off the field instead of one. It also encouraged poor marksmanship by the ability to ‘spray’ bullets everywhere instead off carefully choosing targets of opportunity. The 7.62 is a better round. Even a badly placed shot is likely to kill or break bones. Yeah, you have to carry a heavier combat load, perhaps. But marksmanship would necessarily have to improve.
I also have a beef with the 9mm over a .45. Why was the .45 developed? For pure stopping power. Remember the Moros in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. They were so hopped up on dope a .38 would just tickle them. In came the .45.
Besides, human ground wars are coming to an end. There will be drones, autonomous robots, lasers, sound weapons, bio-agents, and invisible air ships.