Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) Machine Gun

[KevinB]

My point was that IF we (I mean ABCA) adopt a new weapon, we are going to spend a metric buttload of money testing it.
Rather than us (USA) run M4PIP and ICC, and Canada run SARP XIV to the tenthpower, the Brits run 'damn get me out of this SA80" and the Aussies run "damn get me out of this Aug" (note both their SOF entities use the C8/M4 series guns - and Canada has some crazy idea of a bullpud that everyone else is trying to get out of...)

Why not play lets look together - determine what you need for a platform, design the round to perform to the requirements, and then design weapons.

For those who have seen Trey Knight and I on some of the TV shows and interviews, Trey makes a great analogy about NASA and programs, you don't first build the rocket and then figure out where you want to go.
You figure out where you want to go, develope the fuel to get there and the rocket to take you.

I am of the opinion that the 70gr OTM "BrownTip" load or the 62gr SOST round would add a lot to the capabilities of the soldier with 5.56mm ammuntion.
  However that ammo is expensive currently -- BrownTip and SOST are around $1 USD / round.

But Soldier Load especially in the dismounted fight is a player.
What if you can shed a lot of the size of the round?  A lot of the weight?
With new propellants, you can get effective muzzle velocities from some longer heavier rounds that have great downrange performance (both exterior and terminal ballistics)

A muzzle brake allows the soldier to fire faster mutliple shots accurately, and a suppressor to cover the flash at night (improved soldier survivability in ground combat)


Of course keep in mind we are involved in both M4PIP and ICC, so while I know we can make the C8/M4 better (5,000 rds suppressed 11.5" DI gun currently - no additional lube from start of environmental endurance test), I feel its an incremental improvement, not a exponential improvement.

My 0.02 USD

 

[SeanNewman]

I am fairly certain that the new version of SARP2 (broken into three parts to be managed easier) is going the direction that you're talking about.

We in ABCA certainly talk among our peers, I can personally vouch for that.

Every once in a while I'll get an e-mail that started off from a very senior officer in another town who works in a multinational environment, and after he gets to talking with his foreign peers an e-mail will filter its way down down the chain to little old me asking what Canada's view of X is.

Then I ask the people who really know what they're talking about, and I staff up a beautifully eloquent briefing note that climbs its way back up the chain.

Interestingly enough the last one I did was for an intermediate calibre.

 

[a_majoor]

A recent presentation:

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2010armament/ThursdayLandmarkBKoriPhillips.pdf

Enjoy

 

[SeanNewman]

Thuc,

Great link, thank you.

As someone joked about earlier though, sadly the end result of that 16 pounds in weight savings will probably not mean 16 less pounds on the soldiers' spines, but 16 pounds of room to carry other things.

I always imagine those VC you see in movies, covering 50km at night with nothing more than a rifle, spare mag, rice pouch, flip flops, and that funny hat.  We have gone so far past the point of comfort that it's absurd now.  It's nice to see technology actually saving weight because all it has done is add weight in the past (more radios, NVGs, plates, etc).

I am a firm believer that we have made ourselves less effective, less combat ready, and easier to kill because of the weight burden.

Now that the ammo is getting sorted out though, what we need to work on is inventing a lighter water.

 

[ArmyRick]

Leave it to medical science. Maybe they will invent a new drug that makes the human body require only a fraction of the water it does now?

On weight reduction, I think commanders need to really start thinking about not adding more. New technology in the next ten years might make it so that our essential kit we have gotten used to gets lighter and lighter but it becomes important for commanders to realize thats not a licensce to add more kit/ammo/water.

 

[SeanNewman]

AR,

You'd be impressed if you saw some of the staff work coming out of the people in charge of the soldier systems project.  There might be a perception that Ottawa officers are far removed from the realities of hardships facing modern fighters but they are fully up to speed and all of their future plans are headed toward lessening the weight burden.

Lighter ammo is just one of the steps, they are also working on lighter armour, integrated battery systems that will power everything the soldier carries, integrated comms/nav/SA products, etc.

Eventually every soldier will have a 1-pound unit that does everything an encrypted radio and GPS does in their pouch, with a screen on their wrist or rifle.

 

[ArmyRick]

Cool. Hope its before I have 35 years in (I have 20 now!)

 

[a_majoor]

Eventually every soldier will have a 1-pound unit that does everything an encrypted radio and GPS does in their pouch, with a screen on their wrist or rifle.

If every soldier goes to this site, they can have that right now.

(OK, no encryption, but we know how to use veiled speech)

 

[PuckChaser]

If every soldier goes to this site, they can have that right now.

(OK, no encryption, but we know how to use veiled speech)

Without encryption, that's a EW Operator's wet dream. Clear voice and position reported data. Its a great demonstration as to where our technology is at. Image the capabilities you could plug into a Rhino with the backing of a major defense research group like DARPA.

 

[vonGarvin]

(OK, no encryption, but we know how to use veiled speech)

The dogs are barking.  John has a long moustache.  The Crips are raiding the liquour store.

 

[Infanteer]

Thuc,I am a firm believer that we have made ourselves less effective, less combat ready, and easier to kill because of the weight burden.

I did a bit of an informal experiment with kit overseas.  The fact of the matter is that an overwealming percentage of the weight factor is in body armour and PPE.  This is compounded by the fact that our issue body armour is far more uncomfortable to wear compared to existing commercial types, increasing fatigue that much faster.  Working on small arms ammo and batteries will, of course, help, but we are still going to be plodding Robocops until something is done technologically/politically about the PPE soldiers wear.  Unfortunately, the trend is only going the other way, with additional pieces being added each year.

 

[Matt_Fisher]

Speaking from professional experience, the mil-spec CADPAT Cordura nylon is an area we could shed a few ounces by going with a lighter weight urethane coating, rather than the super heavy duty one that is on there right now.  Might not seem like a significant thing, but every ounce adds up.

 

[Nemo888]

I have no idea how reliable the newer version shown is compared to the current one. But I put something like this as more of a priority than jet fighters.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/08/plastic_ammo_machine_gun/

he US Army has announced successful tests of a new, lightweight portable machine-gun which fires special plastic ammunition. The gun and ammo are so much lighter than current weapons and their brass-cased cartridges that some soldiers are suggesting that every infantryman could in future pack the sort of firepower reserved today for heavy-weapons specialists.
The new Lightweight Small Arms Technologies light machine gun (LSAT LMG) with cased telescoped ammo. Credit: US Army

The machine-gun that only weighs as much as a rifle.

"I could see a whole squad carrying it," said Specialist Brandon Smith of the US Army, having participated in the trials over the past two weeks. "You would own the battlefield."

Normally only two soldiers in each eight-man squad* carry a light machine gun (LMG, aka Squad Automatic Weapon or SAW). This shoots the same ammunition as the other troops' rifles, but it is normally fed from a long belt rather than a magazine with only 30 rounds, and the LMG is designed to be fired on full auto for sustained periods (though in short bursts only, or even its heavy barrel would soon fail due to overheating). The gunner carries a lot more ammo than his teammates, and they sometimes carry some extra for him too - the idea being that his heavy firepower will pin the enemy down in a fight, letting the others manoeuvre and win the battle.

The downside of this is that the machine-gun and its belt (nowadays generally packaged in a box fitted to the gun, to prevent it flapping about and being a pain) are heavy, so much so that the gunner is at a decided disadvantage in a close-up gunfight where he needs to aim and shoot quickly while standing up. And the total load of weapon plus lots of ammo is very heavy.

Thus most soldiers are armed with assault rifles not intended to deliver sustained automatic fire and holding less ammo. These lighter weapons are handier for close-in fighting and permit other kit to be carried.

But US military boffins at the famous Picatinny Arsenal have been working on this situation for some time. Since ammo weight and bulk is much of the problem, they have come up with a new kind of ammunition: Cased Telescoped cartridges.

In a cased telescoped round, the bullet is no longer attached to the tip of a brass case full of propellant powder. The new case is shorter, fatter and made of plastic, so weighing substantially less, and the bullet is sunk into the middle of the propellant which makes the whole round shorter - it has been "telescoped". A shorter round weighs less itself, and also means that the gun's action, feed equipment etc is smaller and thus lighter as well. It's a trick originally developed for tanks, to make the turret smaller and easier to protect.

According to the Picatinny scientists, their new LMG and a thousand rounds of its plastic-cased-telescoped ammo weigh no less than 20.4 pounds less than the current M249 (a version of which is also used by British troops) and a thousand ordinary 5.56mm brass cartridges. The new LMG shaves no less than 8.3 pounds off the 15.7-lb M249, coming in at just 7.4lb - actually lighter than a standard British SA80 assault rifle! This, perhaps, explains Specialist Smith's opinion that it would be reasonable for all soldiers to carry such weapons, rather than just heavy-weapons specialists.

 

[McG]

"I could see a whole squad carrying it," said Specialist Brandon Smith of the US Army, having participated in the trials over the past two weeks. "You would own the battlefield."

An even better idea up-gunning everybody to an LSAT LMG because it weighs the same as a current rifle - get LSAT assault rifles for current riflemen so that people are carrying less weight.

 

[KevinB]

Perhaps a more effective setup would be a 7mm CTA based on on the cartridge performance parameters of the 7x46ARC

  Less weight than 5.56mm and higher performance.

 

[McG]

Perhaps a more effective setup would be a 7mm CTA based on on the cartridge performance parameters of the 7x46ARC

  Less weight than 5.56mm and higher performance.

Sure.  I was thinking a CTA round analagous to the 7x43mm that came out of the UK in 1945.

 

[KevinB]

Good point, honestly that round if it had been adopted vice the 7.62NATO round, would have been THE NATO rifle/carbine/SAW round from then to the present.

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting update. The program still seems to be moving quietly in the background:

https://strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/20170414.aspx

Weapons: The Case For Caseless

April 14, 2017: The U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army agree they may have finally found a caseless ammunition design that will work reliably in combat and be much (37 percent) lighter than conventional 5.56mm ammo. Caseless ammo is not a new concept but you need the right materials and right design to make it work. It’s all a matter of getting the right tech and the right design. Back in the 1980s the German firm Dynamit Nobel developed a 4.73mm round that weighed much less than the existing 5.56mm rounds but was similar in effectiveness. The new (at the time) G11 assault rifle was designed to fire the caseless 4.73mm round. A G11, along with 510 rounds, weighed the same (7.36 kg/16.2 pounds) as an M-16 with 240 rounds (eight, 30 round magazines.) The West German army tested the G11 extensively in the late 1980s and was considering adopting it and its caseless ammo to replace its 7.62mm assault rifles. But then the Cold War ended, Germany was united, and the decision was made to go with the cheaper G36 5.56mm weapon. The caseless ammo was also more expensive than the conventional 5.56mm stuff, and there were still concerns about reliability, even after years of testing. Not much work was done on this caseless ammo in the 1990s but after 2001 American firms began working on upgrading and improving the Dynamit Nobel tech and field testing has shown that the new polymer case design is safe and reliable. But the new caseless design has to survive combat testing and the military has yet to decide on when and where to carry that out.

Meanwhile the U.S. Army completed development of a new LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technology) 5.56mm machine-gun in 2012. But this new machine-gun was tested using two types of lightweight ammo and it wasn’t until now that one of those lightweight ammo designs reached the point where it was ready for combat testing. The LSAT machine-gun weighs 4.27 kg (9.4 pounds) compared to 8 kg for the current M249. Moreover, the ammo for the new machine-gun is 37 percent lighter as well. Thus the new machine-gun, with 1,000 rounds of ammo, weighs 13.9 kg (30.6 pounds), which is 40 percent less than an M249 with a thousand rounds. Moreover, the new ammo takes up twelve percent less space. Developers are working on caseless 5.56mm ammo that will take up 40 percent less space.

The U.S. Army came up with a radical new machine-gun design in 2006, mainly to save weight. The U.S. Army is really making an effort to reduce the load the infantry have to carry into combat. In both Iraq and Afghanistan infantry did most of the fighting, and the troops are using the Internet to hammer the brass and politicians about the excessive loads they have to carry.

In the beginning the army called together some of its small arms manufacturers, gave them some money, and told them to come up with a much lighter 5.56mm light machine-gun. In effect, replace the M249 with the LSAT. “Start from scratch” the weapons wonks were told. The only constant were the caliber of the weapon (5.56mm) and the troop handling of the LSAT should be roughly the same as the M249. The goal was to greatly reduce the 17.41 kg (38.3 pounds) the M249, and 600 rounds of ammo, weighs. This is what a machine-gun armed soldier usually has to carry into combat.

Starting in 2008 the LSAT was developed, built, and tested. LSAT passed its first field tests in 2012 which involved having eight prototypes firing 25,000 rounds over three weeks. At that point everyone agreed that it works. More testing was required to ensure ruggedness and reliability. That took five years, about twice as long as expected.

The LSAT actually comes in two versions. One uses ammo using a non-metal, telescoped case, and the other uses caseless ammo. The telescoped ammo is ready for use now while the caseless stuff was still in development. Both LSAT weapons feature a revolutionary ammo feed that employs a pivot, rather than a bolt, to load the ammo into the chamber. This design propels the case out the front of the weapon. Naturally the caseless ammo has no case to eject. The use of the pivot reduces overheating problems, which are more of a hassle with the plastic case of non-metal telescoped cartridge prototype (which is a straight case, like a pistol, not a bottleneck case more common with high powered rifles). The caseless round is the ideal solution but this design is more difficult to manufacture. Caseless rounds have been developed before but were found to be more expensive and more vulnerable to rough handling. The original LSAT expectation was that if the caseless round were used, the LSAT and 600 rounds would be 9 kg (19.9 pounds) lighter than the current M249 and its ammo. The new plastic case and the LSAT is 6.8 kg (15 pounds) less than the M249.

In early 2012 eight LSAT machine-guns and 100,000 rounds of the telescoped ammo were delivered for army troops to actually use and passed field tests. At this point it became possible to use the same technology for a new assault rifle. While LSAT passed muster with the troops and the realities of use in a combat zone by 2012 most of the fighting was over. The new machine-gun will be much appreciated by infantry operating in Afghanistan, where the machine-gunner is often lugging his weapon and all that ammo up steep hills. But back home there was less enthusiasm, and money, for a new generation of assault rifle and light machine-gun.

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting find, a technical description of a caseless machine-gun concept from TRW. There is even a link to a technical paper describing their conceptual caseless machine-gun, although there is no indication that it was ever built. Many of the concepts described would likely work if resurrected in a modern LSAT machine-gun. The TRW mechanism is different from the one demonstrated in the current LSAT prototype:

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/trws-proposed-caseless-machine-gun/

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/TRWMG/TRWCaselessMG.pdf

 

[a_majoor]

The US Army is still looking at the LSAT program, but the direction seems to be making a smaller weapon rather than a 7mm weapon. It also seems this will not be a one to one replacement for current service weapons either:

https://www.military.com/kitup/2018/07/18/army-3-star-potent-new-auto-rifle-just-close-combat-troops.html

Army 3-Star: Potent New Auto Rifle Just for Close-Combat Troops
Military.com 18 Jul 2018 By Matthew Cox

The Army wants to start fielding its Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle as early as 2022, but the Cold War-era M249 Squad Automatic Weapon could remain in the arsenal for decades to come.

Army weapons officials recently awarded contracts to five firms to develop prototypes of the NGSAR. It will have to be five pounds lighter than the full-size M249 and fire ammo that's lighter and more potent than the service's current 5.56mm round.

But "this is not for every soldier," Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski, principal military deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, told Military.com on Wednesday. "We are looking at it for 100,000 close-combat soldiers."

Right now, the NGSAR program -- a top priority for the Soldier Lethality cross-functional team -- is on target to be ready for initial fielding beginning in late 2022 or early 2023 at the latest, Ostrowski said.

One of the challenges facing manufacturers is the requirement for ammo that's more potent than the M855A1 5.56mm Enhanced Performance round and 20 percent lighter than traditional brass-cased ammunition.

Last year, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Congress that the M855A1 will not defeat enemy body armor plates similar to the U.S. military-issued Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert, or ESAPI.

"We know that the 5.56mm is not going to be the round of the future because we have issues associated with adversaries' body armor," Ostrowski said.

The solution will likely be a cartridge that uses lighter material than brass for the casing.

Textron has been working for more than a decade on next-generation light machine guns that fire polymer case-telescoped ammunition in its Lightweight Small Arms Technology program.

Other companies have found that standard cartridge designs made completely from polymer are not strong enough and are prone to damage during the extraction process. One solution has been to use brass at the base and polymer for the majority of the case.

"Some will probably come with a polymer case that looks just like a current 5.56mm round except there won't be as much brass; some will come with a polymer case that is of the non-traditional form ... We don't know. We are allowing [companies] to make that decision," Ostrowski said.

"We have given them our priorities and said 'innovate,' and these companies are doing it," he added.

The NGSAR prototypes are scheduled to be delivered by early next summer. From there, Army officials plan to evaluate the designs and refine the service's requirement for the new weapon. Companies will then compete to make the NGSAR for the Army.

Soldiers in non-combat arms units will likely continue to use standard 5.56mm weapons such as the M4 and the M249, Ostrowski said.

"Our 5.56mm is going to be in our inventory for a long time," he said.

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.