New Assault Rifle

Here’s a detailed article on Heckler and Koch’s design for the next US Military asault rifle.

It is extremely versatile: carbine to lethal shotgun to non-lethal shotgun (read: crowd control shells) with all kinds of fancy optics, laser sights, grenade launchers, etc.

Also has what’s called a “flat butt” which I believe means the stock can be shortened: in any case, once the weapon is shorter, it becomes ideal for close-quarter combat.

Fascinating, but seems way too complicated for mass usage.

I don’t see the M-16 going anywhere. This weapon might have possible apps on a smaller scale much like the H&K SOCOM .45. Nonetheless, H&K rocks, or at least from a tactical weapon perspective. I am much more a Sig fan for handguns.

MUST… HAVE… ONE… NOW…

m-16 not going anywhere? heard of the m4?

[quote]slimjim wrote:
m-16 not going anywhere? heard of the m4?[/quote]

m-4 is just an m-16 variant. More than 80% of the parts are completely interchangeable without altering the rifle, and close to 100% are interchangeable if you don’t care about appearance.

Wow! That thing is awesome. I’m a big HK fan. Maybe they’ll come out with a civilian version…(not that there should be a distinction, but that’s another thread…)

The M-16 was outdated before it came out. Designed for a NATO implementation, its horrible in any environment that isn’t “clean”. I guess as long as you like cleaning your rifle 8-10 times a day in combat its ok. I have an AR-15 and I love shooting it but there are other things I would rather have in combat. Its about time the government is looking at replacing it. With the advances in weapons technology, this framework looks fantastic. From what I saw it has a highly modular design and can be configured for any squad-level application.

Maybe I was just nitpicking a little, but by and large the 16 is on the way out-even if it’s replacement is the same gun with a collapsable buttstock and shorter barrel.

Yup the Army is getting the new XM-8s. Meanwhile the Marine Corp is still going to have M-16s(A4s), the M4 is an M-16(A2, or A3) with a short barrel and collaspable stock. I think you meant to say A4. We have M-16A2s now. Basicly the A4 is the fourth genaration of the M-16. It’s got a few changes, mostly to the upper reciever, the big changes are a flat-top upper reciever and a rail mount system. Nothing really new, you could get all this stuff on the civilian side a while ago on the AR-15s(busmaster makes some quality ones). It’s just now colt is adding some of these accesories standard to their model. The Corps won’t see the new XM-8s for a while. I think because of the expense of the change-over, the Army with it’s much larger budget will incure most of the startup expenses since they will do it first. Anyway we do more with less right. But I can’t complain we got cool new MARPAT camies and they got berets.