A leap forward or a step back? New US Army rifle and machine gun
Finalists of the Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) program. It is noticeable that the winner was not the most futuristic design.
On March 28, the US Army released a statement that soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 506th Regiment will begin receiving "Next Generation Rifles and Automatic Rifles" ahead of "new equipment training" (New Equipment Training, NET ), which will begin in April of this year.
We are talking about a rifle and a machine gun, developed under the program “Weapon next generation squads" (Next Generation Squad Weapons, NGSW). The winner of the competition for this program was Sig Sauer in April 2022, beating General Dynamics and Textron Systems in the finals. The systems of the American branch of the German brand were adopted by the army under the designations M7 (rifle) and M250 (machine gun).
The systems replace the M4 carbine and the M249 Squad Automatic Weapons 5,56 mm machine gun.
The US Army has been trying to replace the legendary Emka for quite some time. Various competitions and tests took place during the Cold War. Some designs were so futuristic and revolutionary that the weapon looked more like a blaster than a machine gun, while others, on the contrary, tried to mimic existing platforms as much as possible.
What hasn't the US Army tested? The photo shows participants in the competition for the US Army Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR) program. It all started in 1986, and the next year, 1987, it all basically ended. None of the presented samples came close in terms of the sum of their characteristics to the standard M16A2 rifle at that time. The $300 million spent on the program was simply written off.
The main thing in the current weapon, of course, is the ammunition – “6.8×51mm”. Ammunition developed for the US Army, introduced in 2019 and released to the civilian market later that year as the .277 SIG Fury.
The overall idea was quite simple - we needed ammunition that would penetrate all modern means of personal armor protection, and at the same time retain the ballistics of the old 5.56 ammunition... Well, at least approximately.
And in general, everything worked out. True, the ammunition turned out to be ambiguous. The amount of gunpowder had to be made very large, and the pressure in the barrel of the weapon increased accordingly; in order for the barrel to meet all army requirements for reliability, it had to be made very “heavy”.
The new ammunition is clear. The sleeve design is clearly visible. Promotional cutaway from Sig Sauer's booth at the 2020 SHOT Show.
The weapon casing was also not easy. In order for the cartridge case to withstand loads and at the same time somehow save weight when actually switching back to a rifle cartridge, it was made of two metals at once: the bottom is made of stainless steel, the body of the case is made of copper, and all this is connected together with an aluminum connecting washer. In fact, such a sophisticated cartridge case even looks boring compared to the ammunition of other competitors in the Next Generation Rifles and Automatic Rifles program; there were cooler things there.
The rifle and machine gun themselves, as Sig Sauer states, are basically one system - the automation works by removing powder gases from the barrel, which act on a short-stroke gas piston. A system that the US Army tried to sell more than once as a replacement for the M16 with its direct effect of powder gases on the bolt, but somehow it did not work out.
To say that Sig Sauer promoted the fact of participation in the army competition (that is, even before winning it), is to say nothing. In the photo from the advertising poster, both samples are still in the designation that they wore during army tests - XM5 and XM250.
I don’t even want to talk about ergonomics, similar to the M-series, a “floated” barrel, composite materials and M-LOK. The US Army apparently already views this as something basic and self-evident.
As icing on the cake, all this can be complemented by the M157 Fire Control Optic, designed specifically for these two systems. Although this is not exactly a sight, or rather, not only a sight. “Fire control optics” is, in fact, eight-fold variable magnification optics, a ballistic calculator, a laser rangefinder, an atmospheric sensor... and a compass.
A soldier from the 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, US Army, on the range with an M7 rifle, Alaska, 2023. The Army said 25 hours were spent testing systems under the NGSW program. It’s not very clear, however, it is in the form of “timekeeping” before the adoption of the M000 and M7 into service, or even after and before the delivery of the first systems into service already in 250.
It must be said that the reaction of the American weapons community was ambiguous. There were exclamations of admiration, skepticism, and outright misunderstanding of what it was and why every fighter in the field needed it.
Absolutely everyone who has had the opportunity to get acquainted with new types of weapons identifies several big disadvantages of the new systems.
The main “testing ground” for testing the tandem M7 and M250, already adopted for service, was the 101st Airborne Division. It is not surprising that the first unit fully armed with these systems was chosen from this division. In the photo, soldiers of the 2nd battalion of the 502nd regiment of the 2nd brigade of the 101st airborne division are in a training class studying new equipment.
Despite all the designers' tricks with materials and layout, the rifle turned out to be heavy, noticeably heavier than the M4 carbine. An “empty” M7 weighs the same as a full-size M16A4 rifle with a 30-round magazine and a standard belt, let alone an M4 carbine.
The situation with the machine gun is a little different; it came out quite in the weight category of the SAW, which it should replace.
But the question arises with the mass of portable ammunition. Again, despite all the “dancing with a tambourine” around the “composite” cartridge case, fighters with the M7 and M250 will have to carry almost full-size rifle cartridges with the corresponding weight and dimensions. From this follows the standard capacity of the M7 magazine - 20 rounds... Hello M16A1 and “Charlie” in the trees.
Fort Campbell garrison commander Colonel Christopher Middleberry inspects the M7 rifle with the M157 sighting system installed, September 2023.
Both the rifle and the machine gun are standardly equipped with silent and flameless firing devices. That is, they are not just included with the weapon, but are intended to be used constantly, and, apparently, other muzzle devices (for example, a muzzle brake-compensator) are simply not provided. It seems like nothing of the kind, but even a small weapon becomes even larger, and such a lack of variability on a rifle, and especially on a machine gun, looks somehow strange.
That is, if the machine gun has become closer to the “full-size” machine guns that were previously located at the platoon and company levels, and at the same time has practically not gained weight, then with the rifle everything is not clear. The M7 lost those advantages for which the 5,56x45 mm ammunition and the M16 rifle, and then the M4 carbine, were created - the low weight of portable ammunition and the compactness and lightness of the weapon itself.
A soldier of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division fires an M250 machine gun, 2023, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, USA.
Perhaps this explains that the terms of the contract concluded with Sig Sauer when accepting the rifle and machine gun for service were initially quite modest - 20,4 million US dollars. For this amount, 15 machine guns and 35 rifles were supplied. Yes, yes, that’s right, 40 units.
No, this is not a megacut or an ingenious corruption scheme, it’s just that most of the funds were intended to set up mass production and build a separate production line, and 40 is just an installation batch. But the contract has a “ceiling” of $4 billion, with the potential to supply the army with 250 rifles and machine guns.
Judging by declassified documents, 2022 and 2023 thousand units of rifles and machine guns were to be produced in 9 and 16. True, the actual production volumes are not yet clear, and the program itself has been stalled from the very beginning. The first requirements for new systems appeared back in 2017, and the first unit equipped with new weapons was supposed to appear in 2022, as a result, adoption into service only took place in 2022. But violation of deadlines and huge budgets spent but not producing results are, in general, commonplace for the US Army.
Be that as it may, it will be interesting to see what “they” get, because our military is also looking towards the “six”.
The American military themselves, apparently, have not fully decided for themselves whether they are ready to completely abandon the 5,56 and the legendary Emka. In the meantime, it has been announced that in May of this year another unit will begin to receive M7 and M250, this time the National Guard and armored units.
Be that as it may, we will be interested to see what they come up with and where it will lead them, given that our gunsmiths and military are also looking at new calibers and ammunition for small arms.
New weapon systems have generated a lot of controversy and discussion, a huge number of video reviews from weapons bloggers and even cartoons. “Look, the US Army has adopted a long, heavy automatic rifle that uses full-size rifle ammunition and a 20-round magazine.” And then there was John Moses Browning with his BAR in his hands. A subtle hint that the new weapon system is not a step forward, but a return almost to 1918. Forgive us, John Moses.
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