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Posted on 04/08/2008 5:33:15 PM PDT by LSUfan
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How stupid is this? The HK416 is demonstrably a better carbine and it is completely familiar to anyone who has used an M4. It’s just an improved M4. It’s not like they have some wierd, nonstandard rifle, it just doesn’t have the stupid direct gas tube problems. I can’t see any possible reason they can “require” the M4 after they have bought better weapons. Stupid, stupid, stupid. They should be replacing all the M4 uppers instead.
I am awaiting your words of wisdom as displayed in your latest post to me...
“Follow the Murtha money..”
Yeah, trace that greasy money right back to the buttered palms...
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Pig Pig Pig Pig
I wonder if this is some kind of weird fallout from the Boeing tanker deal.
If that's correct, the decision to take away this weapon is even more bizarre. It does need much less attention than the M4'
Also what is the timetable for the introduction of the new 6.8 MM Remington round, designed to improve the M16's longrange lethality. Does anyone know? If I interpret correctly, present rifles can be re-chambered for it without much problem. Anyone know?
Did you see this?
The HK416 works better than the M4 because it is piston operated rather than gas impinging operated. It uses the same magazines as the M4, and the HK146 upper can be mated to an M4 lower, thus converting our existing weapons economically.
These rifles are already bought and paid for. The only reason to remove them from service is because the Army doesn't want the world to find out how superior a gas piston operated weapon is to the gas impinging operated M4/M16.
The Army is also in the process of purchasing even more M4s without any competition.
The USA’s M4 Carbine Controversy
What is the story on the FN SCAR that SOCOM adopted?
What’s funny is Eugene Stoner, the designer of the M-16 (grandfather of the M4), later developed the Armalite 180, which incorporated the gas piston design, and a folding stock.Reliable as all heck, but the M-16 was in motion and committed to already, so it was brushed aside. Contracts are all about politics and money.
beat me to it ... MONEY ... deep pockts .... filling empty pockets!
Yep total BS , bean counters BS’d & bribed .......the H&K 416 is IMHO the best thing that has happened to the M16 family since it was introduced.. I have carried everything from the old XM177’s to the M4 when I retired and our company uses the HK416 now for a reason. They work. And we really really tried to make em fail, we hate new and improved with a passion thus a lot of the folks desire to pack M1A’s until we ran the 416 thru it’s paces. Good weapon albeit critics who have never carried one or relied on one seek to trash it........
The HK416 isn’t going anywhere IMO. This is a bump in that procurement road.
Thanks for the ping Eeeeek !
Stay safe !
This is the kind of $%#@ that burns me to no end! WE ARE AT WAR! Use the tools the get the job done the best, bottom line!
Apparently the puffed shirts at the Pentagon think sticking with the M4 is just fine and dandy. Let them use it outside the wire for a change.
It is totally awesome. But it’s not parts compatible with the M16/M4. The 416 is an obvious upgrade to the M16. Well, lets see, the grip, trigger, and magazine are the same as the M16, but that’s about it I think.
The impressive thing about the SCAR is that it is available in 308 caliber and this version of the rifle can be FIELD MODIFIED to shoot AK 30 caliber ammo and mags taken off the killed enemy combatants.
SOCOM has bought a bunch of HK416s as well in recent years, however.
Right on! Another stupid decision by the Brass. Listen to the soldiers, not the chair-polishers.
The Army wouldn’t let my son carry his own personal handgun when he went into Iraq, as a backup weapon. Now, he liked the M249 and used it effectively, but what happens if it jams? He might have had an M-16 around, but it is not the most reliable weapon either.
Oh, about that knife in his boot!
[PS: Heard the same complaints about military policies in Vietnam. Most guys on “point” used sawed off shotguns, often sent from home, because they were more effective for close-in fighting, esp. in an ambush.]
What is wrong with our military leaders here at home?
Ba$tards!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LWRC_Infantry_Automatic_Rifle
Im actually more impressed by this rifle than by the SCAR or the 416. The LWRC IAR should be the next rifle adopted by all branches of the military. The IAR also uses a piston mechanism as in the 416 and is also an M16 variation. But is has a finned barrel, kinda like the old tommy guns did, and also has a selector switch that allows it to fire from an open bolt as in the FN minimi.
REMFs at work.
The following is simply an observation: The US Army desperately needs to upgrade the weapons systems of the infantryman as well as any sidearm carried by support personnel and officers.
The M16/M4 series has had it's day and so has the 5.56mm cartridge. The basic platform is okay as it goes as can be seen in the somewhat derivative H&K 416, which is still a huge improvement in the reliability factor. But the 5.56 isn't doing the job. Perhaps the 6.8mm would be a better choice. If the operations anticipated in future war will be engagements at less than 300 meters than perhaps one answer could be found in the .300 "Whisper." Perhaps not, but it's a suggestion. Maybe the 300 Whisper could be a specialty cartridge for SOF folks but then they'd only fall victim to those same bottom feeding bureaucrats. In any case, there must be trials to discern what might be superior and then to seize that information and actually act upon it.
I also think that suppressor technology can be advanced to the point that a suppressor can be attached to all battle rifles lowering noise signature and flash. Probably make BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) easier to teach, too. But that's a side issue and I certainly don't have the knowledge to speak with authority.
Speaking of sidearms, now: IF we weren't constrained by the Hague accords on ammunition and could employ JHPs with our 9mm sidearms they'd probably be fine since technology makes the expansion properties of the 9mm and the 45ACP nearly identical while still allowing for the single most important factor in a handgun encounter at any range: SHOT PLACEMENT. Still if we're stuck with BALL ammo then the 9mm becomes wholly inadequate. Cross sectional density and velocity almost dictate the tried and historically proven 45 ACP, but NOT the 1911 platform. I know a lot of folks will consider that heresy, but I think that the H&K 45 should be the sidearm of the future armed forces. Just MHO.
Bureaucrats lining their pockets.
Follow the money!
The big difference is instead of the hot gases and dirt being vented directly into the receiver to push the action back, there is a gas piston inside the front handguard. That way the hot gases and dirt don't get blown back inside the receiver into all the working parts, they just exit into the air through the handguard. The receiver parts stay clean and cool and oiled. It's a simple, subtle change borrowed from the Kalashnikov, which is proven to work better when dirty or without maintenance. So you get the best of both worlds; you get the elegant, accurate M4 with AK reliability.
But hey, let's not upgrade the rest of them, let's go back to the devil we know.
For a sidearm, I’d vote for something along the lines of a sig 250 modular setup. For caliber, a 10mm.
Someone may have already touched on this, but you are correct. The 416 uses the same exact lower receiver, stock assembly, and magazine as the M-16/M-4.
The only thing that gets changed out is the upper reciever assembly which will be the same thing that happens IF and when the Army goes with the 6.8mm round. That is a big if since we would have to get NATO on board to do that because the current 5.56mm is the NATO standard for rifles.
I’d like to know the price tag on the HK compared to the M4.
My guess is that it’s close to double.
Someone (Bushmaster, I think) has recently reintroduced the AR-180 with a plastic lower. I’ve never known anyone who owns one.
It was ever thus. 
wonderful...
SOCOM is getting them.
There are 2 versions of the SCAR. One (SCAR-L) uses the standard 5.56mm round, while the other (SCAR-H) has an “open architecture” that allows for the possibility of different caliber rounds. The baseline of the SCAR-H is chambered for 7.62mm
So.... Since these are now surplus, where could a guy pick one up?
Nothing wrong with a little black powder properly applied by folks with certain skills......:o)
I read most of the replies so far-generally of the opinion that the 416 is head and shoulders above the M4/M16.
Well, how about some reality?
The only benefit is that of the “propellant gases channeling back into the upper reciever, tending to dry lubricant and gum up the works”
In a dry dusty environment, the prescribed lube level is DRY (hence the dry film lubricant applied to the inner upper surfaces and the bolt carrier) If this coating is compromised, unit armoers are equipped to re-apply it in the field, it works. End of arugument.
I routiinely had to make a point on the proper lub of weapons in dry dusty enviroments-Soldiers from BCT through senior levels have been trained by (poor)example to pump CLP into every opening of the M16 family to make it run-wrong.
The M4/M16 is a fine weapon, is very efective within its design parameters (300m) and is very reliable in its current format.
The dust test required somewhere around 8000 rounds fired w/o maintenance-try that with anything and the performance will suffer(much). The rate of failure of the “worst” weapon, the M4, was somewhere in the range of a larger handful, compared to smaller handfulls of failures of the others.
Statistically stupid. No trooper is ging to run his weapon for 8k rounds sans maintenance, and then wonder why it don’t work.
The BS is the criticsim and the resultant testing protocol.
Why not get a ball park range of combat use/rounds fired per day and then test on that more realistic number-that way, when a bullet launcher fails to launch, it IS statistically significant.
The 556 M855 round is very lethal, only thing is you must actually hit the target-always a problem when the doo doo hits the fan (trust me!)
The 6.8SPC is about as powerfull as the 762x39 or 30/30 win-with a trajectory of a rainbow past 300m-so we are back to the same result (if it was a super round, the High power community would use it-not a one will touch it as it is a turd in a punchbowl long range performance wise toooslow and too light bullet balisitally speaking).
Up the caliber to 762x51 or so, and you get a weapon with more terminal enegery, but at the expense of additional recoil and load mass.
No free lunches for the dogs of war!
I trusted my life for many years with the M16A1, A2, M4 and M4A1, and they always went bang, accurately.
This test is akin to telling us a Soldier’s uniform smells, and then blaming the manufacturer for the troopers poor hygiene....
God Bless
MOLON LABE
Remember PO2 Monsoor, SEAL, USN CMH
I was in the AF when they were the first to procure the AR15. As it evolved into the M-16 and caused so many problems in the Army, I have always mistrusted the system, even though it demonstrably improved.
Guess I also never quite understood the .223 as a military round. My prejudice was that it was a varmint round ... wouldn't dream of it on deer! Plenty lethal at close range, I never though it could do the job down range, or against a skinned vehicle, for example.
As a kid, I hunted everything in Maine with a 6.5X55 surplus Swedish Mauser, which I still have and still use occasionally with commercial sporting ammo. Just the handiest damn weapon, excellent at long range and extremely accurate, deadly even on a moose! So when the Army announced the 6.8, I thought "Hey that's more like it!"
I have two youngsters ... a niece and a nephew ... in Iraq and Afghanistan. I want them to have the most powerful reliable weapons they can handle ... even if I have to buy them.
I don’t feel undergunned with my M-4gery Homeland Defense Rifle.
The best you can do for your kin in those places is get them Trijicon sights, if they don’t have them.
The M4 suffered more stoppages than the combined number of jams by the three other competitors — the Heckler & Koch XM8, FNH USA’s Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR) and the H&K 416.
Follow the money. Polticians, defense contractors, and military officers are lining their pockets. Idiocy like this can always be explained if you just follow the money. I hope somebody with more resources than me - - and somebody who cannot be purchased - - will do so.
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