Archive for September, 2004

Generation XM8

The most interesting part of this one is the fact that the XM8s will probably initially only be assembled in the US out of parts built in Germany.

Though H&K is constructing a 102,000-square-foot plant in Muscogee Technology Park, Simon said the XM8 won’t necessarily be manufactured in Columbus from the start. Instead, it appears, the weapon’s parts would be made in Germany, shipped to Columbus for assembly, then distributed to the military from a center being relocated here from Virginia.

The number of jobs locally — originally pegged at about 200 — also won’t be created quite as fast as originally anticipated.

“I think the initial start will probably result in about 50 positions, and then we grow that as we grow the business,” said Simon, downplaying expectations until the Department of Defense awards a major contract.

In other words, “Not many jobs until you show us the money.” That’s fair enough, I guess.

On the left sidebar is a little graphic from the Blogging Ceasar’s Election Projection site.

(I won’t even bother to point out that he currently shows Bush with a 328-210 lead.)

This has been a great resource and will continue to grow in importance as the election nears. There are a lot of similar sites out there, but this one looks tops to Murdoc. The Blogging Ceasar is an admitted Bush supporter, but if you look at his policies and formulas you will see that he works hard to present the most even-handed, factual projections avaialble.

Big Media, please take note.

Also, in an effort to raise a few bucks to support the bandwidth crunch currently hammering him, he’s made daily election projection updates available. Worth a look for you political junkies out there.

Corps shouldn’t jump gun with weapons

My vacation continues, but I’ve got limited net access and I noticed this opinion-type article in Marine Corps Times about the Marines’ decision to stick with the M16 for the time being. That decision was noted on MO back in March. At the time I wondered what the specific reasons were, and I said that if the Marines were not jumping onto the XM8 bandwagon, that was good enough for me. This latest piece is an op-ed, not a specific press release, but the writer seems to be thinking along the same lines as MO and a large percentage of MO readers.

History is replete with instances of the Marine Corps jumping the gun (pardon the pun) and going with an untried weapon system. Perhaps the most stinging was the 1967 adoption of the M16.

The M14, which the Marines had at the time, proved to be a valuable asset to the Marine rifleman because of the rifle’s durability, functionality and power. Then the Corps decided to forgo the tried-and-true Garand action for the new ‘lighter-weight’ M16. The results of choosing this untested, black plastic ‘Mattel’ rifle were disastrous. Many Marines died at the hands of this rifle, due to the lack of a forward assist. If the weapon jammed, it had to be disassembled, cleaned and lubricated, often under fire.

It also should be known that the M14 was deemed “too heavy” for the average infantryman. An unloaded M14 weighs about 9 pounds. The original M16 was in the neighborhood of 7 pounds. By contrast, today’s M16A4 weighs 8 pounds (without any accessories, mind you). You do the math. And today’s pack as fielded by the individual Marine is the heaviest ever — more than 100 pounds.

Fast-forward to Afghanistan in 2001. Many Special Forces troops chose the venerable M14 over the M16A2/A3, due to the 7.62mm round’s ability to reliably kill targets at longer ranges than the 5.56mm M16A2/A3. Additionally, the M14’s ability to shrug off dust storms and keep running engendered operator confidence.

The biggest drawback of the XM8? The 5.56 round.

One reason to wait is the need for a replacement round for the 5.56mm. Among the possibilities is the 6.8mm SPC round, which has generated much interest in the firearms community as a successor to the 5.56mm service round. It offers 7.62mm punch in a smaller package.

Another possible successor is the 6mm/.223 round. The 6mm/.223 loading is merely a 5.56mm (.223 Rem) case necked up to a 6mm. It uses a 100-grain bullet at approximately 2,600-2,700 feet per second and has a ballistic coefficient similar to a 7.62mm round. The 6mm is the right round for 7.62mm punch in a 5.56mm package.

And

Let’s face it, the 5.56mm, especially in the M855 (green tip) loading, is lackluster against targets past 100 and 150 meters for the M4 and M16, respectively. There are many instances of infantrymen engaging targets three and four times with the shorter-barreled M4s, whereas the M16 has a slightly lower incidence of follow-up hits to stop attackers.

The Corps should campaign for the XM8 in either a 6.8mm SPC or a 6mm/.223 chambering. A bonus to the 6mm/.223 is that the existing M16 family of weapons would require only a barrel change. The bolt and magazines remain compatible. As for the M249 squad automatic weapon, the links and bolt may be retained, again necessitating only a barrel change.

MO readers seem to prefer the 6.8 SPC, with a small but vocal core of 6.5 Grendel enthusiasts as well. I haven’t heard much about this 6mm/.223 round, and am looking forward to MO readers speaking out about it. The author of this Marine Corps Times article certainly seems to be a fan of it, so let’s hear some numbers and opinions from the MO gun nuts. (That’s you guys.)

We met up with some relatives from Colorado and rented a cabin in Custer State Park. There are nine of us (five kids) but we should have brought about six more people with. This place is huge.

I hadn’t been back to South Dakota since I was a teenager about twenty years ago. It’s been a lot of fun so far, and we’ve not yet begun to vacation.

Thanks to all who commented on my last post. Some of those spots are on our list. I’ll keep your recommendations in mind.

And no, I’m not doing any hunting. I’m actually not a hunter at all, and despite my obsessive-compulsive disorder regarding the XM8, I’m not even a “gun nut”. But we’ve seen a fair amount of deer and a TON of turkey so far.

We’ve only got 24k dial up here, but I’m glad to have even that. To be honest, it’s nice to have a bit of a break from the blogging grind.

Talk to you all later. Maybe.

I’ll be traveling for the next two weeks. To be honest, I need it.

I’ll try to check in when I get a chance, but we’re spending most of our time in South Dakota and it appears that the connection opportunities are going to be slim. And we’re going to be camping quite a bit.

As much as I’m looking forward to being disconnected, I’m probably going to lose my mind.

Since you’re here and I’m probably not, why don’t you check out some of my favorite sites instead of crying about the lack of Murdoc:

Strategy Page
Intel Dump
Defense Tech
Scrappleface
Winds of Change
Hell in a Handbasket
One Hand Clapping
Hobbs Online
Master of None
All Agitprop
Wizbang
Airborne Combat Engineer
Andrew Olmsted
You Big Mou^th, You
Stryker Brigade News
Ministry of Minor Perfidy
Expat Yank
Belmont Club
Spacecraft
Backroad Blog
Michelle Malkin
Hugh Hewitt

Have a good one.

XM8 update: Your fix is in

A huge hat tip to ACE, who pointed this Army Times story out last week. For some reason it didn’t register on MO’s radar, but in the name of my quest to be the home of all things XM8, here it is.

A second generation of XM8s, these with soldier-requested improvements, is about to begin testing with the troops.

“Every time we take it to the field Army, they tell us to leave it with them,” Brig. Gen. James Moran, head of Project Executive Office Soldier, said at a June 14 Pentagon briefing.

Soldiers reacted positively, but they also had plenty of ideas for making the XM8 more effective on the battlefield.

The new prototypes — standard carbine, compact carbine and designated marksman models — include changes that make the XM8 more reliable, easier to operate and lighter to carry, said Col. Michael Smith, head of Project Manager Soldier Weapons.

“We did not try to build the perfect weapon the first time,” Smith said. “We did make a lot of changes. Soldiers definitely affected the design of the second generation.”

Among the most notable changes:

• Fold-down back-up sights
• Improved optics
• Increased battery life
• Increased laser pointer/illuminator range
• Slightly increased rate of fire to lessen the chance of jamming
• Improved grips and ergonomics
• It’s about 15% lighter

See the Army Times story for more details.

Another change is the merging of the sharpshooter and automatic rifle models into one weapon. The 100-round drum magazine planned for the automatic rifle is usable by any XM8 model, so it will be issued when needed. No word on the barrel for this mongrel version. The sharpshooter variant was going to have a special match-grade barrel, but I imagine that this new variant will use the heavy-duty barrel originally intended just for the automatic rifle.

Another note is that the Army said the automatic rifle version is not intended to replace the M249 as the primary sqaud automatic weapon.

“We are not proposing that we replace the M249 in the light machine gun role,” Smith said. The XM8 squad auto rifle’s barrel can be changed but the process takes too long to perform in the middle of a firefight, he said.

“It’s not designed to give you that continuous high rate of fire the machine gun will give you,” Smith said.

I had noted the lack of a quick-change barrel previously, and this plan sounds good. However, since the M249 will still be around but use different magazines and ammo boxes, that point of commonality is lost. And, since that point of commonality is lost, that leaves open the possibility of the XM8 being fielded with a different caliber than the current-standard 5.56 NATO.

As ACE wrote about the second generation:

The third time (chambered with a round > 6.4mm) should be the charm.

I’d like to see it, as well, I think. But I don’t think it will happen. See previous posts for this discussion.

ACE also writes

I’d say they should field the weapons in at least one unit in Iraq and Afghanistan for at least six months before locking in on it. Wait until the funding is available to do adequate testing. Letting troops fire a few rounds over a few hours is not field testing. There’s nothing like real world conditions.

I’ve also mentioned this before, and it seems to be a no-brainer. Let’s hope the Army follows his advice.

And for more on the caliber debate, see ACE’s 6.8mm SPC vs. 7.62×39mm vs. 6.5mm Grendel. Good stuff.

Art show sees Europe as ‘new Roman Empire’

A reader sends me this link about an exhibit co-ordinated by the European Commission and sponsored by the European Council that outlines European Union plans to become the next superpower. It’s called “The Image of Europe”.

The pop-art collage mounted in a tent outside the European Commission narrates 50 years of EU history and projects events into the future in an unusually frank display of European ambition.

Segments sketched across 80 yards of canvas predict that the 21st century will be the “European Century” as the EU pushes its borders deep into Eurasia, North Africa, and the Middle East and comes to dominate world affairs through its vast “legal and moral reach”.

Under the heading the “Roman Empire returns”, it says the EU will be renamed “The Union” once it grows to 50 states over the next three decades.

Isn’t that slightly bizarre? I thought we were the bad guys because we were like the Roman Empire.

The story also notes that the collage claims the world will move to a Euro-based standard due to US deficits. The reader notes

*sigh*

At least we get rid of the UN HQ.

As I noted last year, the UN HQ is in serious trouble already.

Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn’t Authenticate Papers

In the WaPo, who must be smelling blood in the water:

A detailed comparison by The Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS News with authenticated documents on Bush’s National Guard service reveals dozens of inconsistencies, ranging from conflicting military terminology to different word-processing techniques.

The analysis shows that half a dozen Killian memos released earlier by the military were written with a standard typewriter using different formatting techniques from those characteristic of computer-generated documents. CBS’s Killian memos bear numerous signs that are more consistent with modern-day word-processing programs, particularly Microsoft Word.

and

Of more than 100 records made available by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents. Nor did they use a superscripted “th” in expressions such as “147th Group” and or “111th Fighter Intercept Squadron.”

And near and dear to my own heart:

In a CBS News broadcast Friday night rebutting allegations that the documents had been forged, Rather displayed an authenticated Bush document from 1968 that included a small “th” next to the numbers “111″ as proof that Guard typewriters were capable of producing superscripts. In fact, say Newcomer and other experts, the document aired by CBS News does not contain a superscript, because the top of the “th” character is at the same level as the rest of the type. Superscripts rise above the level of the type.

I pointed this out right after the CBS telecast and have a screenshot of the comparison. Dan Rather and CBS News thought we were idiots.

Apparently, they still do:

In its broadcast last night, CBS News produced a new expert, Bill Glennon, an information technology consultant. He said that IBM electric typewriters in use in 1972 could produce superscripts and proportional spacing similar to those used in the disputed documents.

Any argument to the contrary is “an out-and-out lie,” Glennon said in a telephone interview. But Glennon said he is not a document expert, could not vouch for the memos’ authenticity and only examined them online because CBS did not give him copies when asked to visit the network’s offices.

By Friday afternoon, after refusing to name sources or authenticating experts and claiming that the questions raised in the memos were more important than the authenticity of the memos, CBS News had reached the bottom of the hole. Friday evening, Dan Rather broke out the shovel and began digging. Over the weekend they reached bedrock. Apparently not deterred, CBS News is now working to blast their way through even that.

The more they deny that these are forgeries, the more egg they’re going to have to clean off their face when they admit that they are.

And all because of a bunch of us sitting around in our pajamas.

On The Trail Of The Forger

A post today on Wizbang notes some theories concerning the identity of the forger of the Bush memos (discussed here, here, and here on MO). While interesting, this might be pushing the edge of credibility. At least at this point in time. As Dean Esmay says in the comments section:

We are going much further into speculation and may be creating rumors about a guy who is innocent than we did just looking at the memos and noting their flaws.

Seriously: we could be creating a new Richard Jewell. This guy may have nothing to do with it, and excessive public speculation on this could really fuck a guy’s life up–and create some potential lawsuits for some bloggers.

The potential for personal lawsuits aside, this could also harm the new-found respect that the blogosphere is working hard to earn. Earlier I wrote about why the discussion of these documents was different than your standard political conspiracy theory. A lot of the brash speculation I’ve seen in the past two days is back over line into that area.

I think we can speak authoritatively on the irregularities in the memos and about CBS News’ reaction to the pressure. I do not think we are standing on the same ground when we begin playing gumshoe and start positing theories about who did what and why they did it.

And for what it’s worth, I think we need to see side-by-side comparisons of these memos with other documents from that base office from that time. I have made the point repeatedly on MO. I’ve left comments to that effect on over a dozen sites and I’ve written several messages to prominent writers and my local newspaper about it. Why is no one calling for a comparison?

Then we’d know, wouldn’t we?

We don’t even know FOR SURE that the documents are forged. I believe that they are. But I’m not sure we can make credible guesses about who.

UPDATE: Here’s Mr. Esmay’s post on his own site about the speculation. Go read. If you’re blogging this story, go read twice.