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Our now and future military handguns

As regular readers know, I’ve been writing since the Age of the Holy Obama about what Democrats/Socialists/Communists (D/S/Cs) have been doing to our military.  Through woke indoctrination, harassment, COVID jab mandates and other D/S/C tactics, they’ve been chasing all the officer and NCO combat leaders out, replacing them with social justice warriors and trans twerps.  Young Americans who would have traditionally enlisted or enrolled at our service academies, often on the advice of their military parents and relatives, are avoiding the military like the plague.  As a result, we’ve dangerously short of troops, and the military is now encouraging former troops to rejoin, even those as old as 70(?!). Writing at Shooting News Weekly, Paul G. Markel adds detail:

People have always done stupid things. That’s a fact of life. However, thanks to the creature that is the Internet, the stupid things that people do now travel around the globe in minutes. Also, it doesn’t help when the people who are in charge of social media accounts are so ignorant that they don’t even know when they’re posting images of people doing stupid things.

This week we were all treated to the image of Cdr. Cameron Yaste, Captain of the USS John S. McCain, firing an M4 rifle onto which a Trijicon VCOG scope had been mounted backwards. This image didn’t come from some sailor’s mobile phone, it was proudly posted on the official US Navy Instagram account as a part of their ongoing, desperate recruiting campaign.

What started as a meme, soon gained so much traction that it became a news story on the New York Post.

Not only is the scope mounted backward, the foregrip is mounted too far back to be useful, and the commander’s right arm is parallel to the deck, a stance common in WWII with rifles that did not have pistol grips.  In short, not only his stance, but the rifle itself, would ensure he could barely hit the ocean.  What Markel is also noting is the people responsible for disseminating such photos were also entirely unqualified to notice these glaring issues. Apparently nobody in the Navy was competent to see what was wrong.  The photo/story has been hastily removed. More on this later.

Let’s not just pick on our fellow shipmates. A few years back when the US Army decided to spend a half-billion dollars of US taxpayer money on new pistols, the Army’s press corps and social media folks were uploading images of Army Officers “testing” the new pistols and it looked like they all just got off of the short bus from West Point. The internet was quick to point out that the officers looked like rank amateurs and fools. Many, but not all of the pictures were removed.

To be fair, the Navy is among our armed services that pay the least attention to individual marksmanship.  Sailors “qualify” with low standards during basic training, but unless their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) requires the use of small arms, that’s probably the only time they’ll ever fire one.  For most sailors, skill with small arms is just not necessary.  By the time an officer reaches ship command, it’s highly unlikely they’ll have any skill with small arms unless they’ve developed it apart from military requirements.  Markle apparently knows his business:

The problem with substandard and outdated training is that the people who are the recipients of such do not know that’s the case. They believe the military’s firearms training is the ultimate and best available. If they find themselves in a position to teach others, they’ll fall back on what they were taught believing it to be sacred and unquestionably correct.

Few men who ever find themselves in a training unit are ever there long enough to make a positive, effective change. Worse still, almost no one wants to. To question an outdated and substandard curriculum is akin to heresy or sacrilege. Officers and staff NCOs who don’t want to make waves or stick their necks out will dismiss the suggestions for changes as “unnecessary” or they fall back on the old reliable “that’s unsafe” excuse.

On a personal note, when I deployed to Saudi Arabia with the 6th Marines in 1990, negligent discharges with all manner of firearms, often resulting in severe injuries and death, were rampant. The command structure scrambled to try and figure out why it was happening and to stop it by punishing offenders. No one ever stood up and said, this is happening because our training is crap and doesn’t reflect reality.

I’m not sufficiently current with the small arms training doctrine of our Army, Navy and Marine Corps to know whether Markel is correct on a military-wide basis, but what he has to say is, to put it mildly, concerning.

Another big reason why our troops seem to suck with small arms is the fact that the Generals and Admirals in Washington, DC would rather spend billions on new toys than invest in rigorous training. The United States Army famously removed the ubiquitous grenade throwing qualification from Army Basic Training because their new recruits were too weak and uncoordinated.

This rings true.  The farther one gets away from actually having to do the job, the more likely they are to focus on bells and whistles and procurement, rather than what is necessary to get the job done.

The Army still issues grenades to the troops, but they are supposed to get the skill to use them somewhere else. They also dropped the requirement to successfully complete the land navigation course.

So, how is the Army going to fix weak and uncoordinated troops? Spend more money on toys, of course. The Army has allotted $331 million to purchase the “Next Generation Squad Weapons” and newer, more expensive ammunition. The new rifles and squad automatic weapons are larger and heavier than the M4 or the M249 SAW. So the new troops are weaker and more uncoordinated, but the solution is buy them bigger and heavier guns and ammo. Okay, got it.

Let’s take a moment to visit Military.com for some basic information on these new rifles and ammunition:

The new guns and ammunition the Army just married and is expected to issue to combat arms units within the next decade will require soldiers to carry an even heavier load.

But information on how those weapons should outperform the guns they’re replacing — the justification for troops to shoulder extra weight on top of mountains of gear already injuring soldiers — is classified.

Of course it is.

XM5 with suppressor

In April, the Army announced that Sig Sauer will produce replacements for the M4 rifle and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, starting with a trial run of about 40 new guns late next year. Production is expected to ramp up when the Army opens a new ammo plant to produce the new 6.8mm rounds for those weapons around 2026.

XM250 with suppressor

Sig is currently providing our military handguns.  This is disturbing:

Army officials have touted that the new XM5, the M4’s replacement, and XM250, set to replace the SAW, pack a much harder punch and will improve the combat performance of ground troops. But thus far, the service has declined to disclose evidence that those weapons outperform the M4 and SAW, including how far they can shoot accurately. And it’s unclear whether the Army has verified the ranges at which those new weapons can engage an enemy before committing to a multimillion-dollar contract.

The XM250 weighs less than the current Squad Automatic Weapon it will replace, but the ammo weighs a great deal more, which is a real issue for any troop carrying it.  They’ll be expected to lay down a lot of rounds, which means everybody in a squad is also going to be required to carry ammo for the XM250. This is also concerning:

6.8X51mm ammo, linked for the XM250

Yet when soldiers eventually get those new guns, they will carry significantly less ammunition, given the 6.8mm is much heavier than the 5.56mm rounds the M4 and SAW use. The idea is those heavier rounds will be more effective against body armor and light vehicles. However, the Army has not disclosed any evidence on that being the case.

Sig screenshot

The XM5 weighs 8.38 pounds, or 9.84 pounds with the suppressor, much heavier than the 6.34-pound M4. That new rifle will also use 20-round magazines, smaller than the 30-round magazines troops currently use. A soldier’s basic combat load will be seven of those 20-round magazines, a total of 140 rounds, weighing 9.8 pounds altogether.

The M4’s combat load, also seven magazines for a total of 210 rounds, is 7.4 pounds. In total, a rifleman with the XM5 will carry roughly four pounds more than today’s M4 rifleman.

So the new rifles will weigh at least two pounds more than the M4, and a standard load out of seven magazines will mean 70 rounds less.  Three to four more magazines to more or less equal the current load out will add 4+ pounds.

The article doesn’t go into it, but the new round is a compound, bi-metal type, whose cases are far more expensive to make.  Overall, this ammunition will be very expensive, and unless our NATO allies adopt these guns and ammo, won’t be compatible with our munitions.  How much more expensive?  The .277 Fury, the civilian equivalent, is retailing for $92.00 for 20 cartridges.  That’s $4.60 apiece.  For comparison, .308/7.62 match ammo is currently running around $25.00 for 20, or $1.25 each.  Contemporary standard .223/5.56 costs around $.50 a round. Take the link for more information as we read on.

We used to teach fundamental marksmanship and instill the discipline to use it. Marine recruits didn’t leave Parris Island until they could hit a human silhouette at 500 yards using standard iron sights on their M16 rifles. Today, we’re spending $3000 a piece for magnified optics that we are discovering that the troops don’t even know how to install on a rifle. ‘The troops can’t hit the broadside of a barn? No problem, spend a few more millions on scopes for them. That’ll fix it.’

No, it won’t, which Markel understands well.

While our enemies undergo rigorous training, our Army is more concerned with Heather has Two Mommies and putting drag queens into officer uniforms. Be assured that the Russians and Chinese view our modern military as a joke.

What can be done? You, the American citizen, can work to rid the nation of the corruption that has infected our capital. You can vote out the criminal politicians who have deliberately turned our military into a worldwide laughing stock. Short of that, if we stay on the path we are currently on, there’s no hope the future of our military or our country.

Final Thoughts:  When I entered the USAF in the early 70s, we went to the range exactly once in basic training and fired around 50 rounds.  The weapons were Vietnam era M-16s with triangular handguards.  Targets were arrayed close together and were not numbered.  As a result airmen shooting each other’s targets was the rule, not the exception, and no scores were kept.  It was “familiarization” only.  Only folks like me that specialized in law enforcement took combat training, and training and qualification on handguns, machineguns, even grenade launchers.  Because we carried only revolvers—the S&W .38 special Combat Masterpiece, firing lead, round nosed bullets, that was all I qualified with, though I took every opportunity to fire anything else I could get my hands on.  Still, compared with what I eventually learned, all of that firearm training was laughably basic.  Surely the Army and Marine Corps did better in those days, and PJs in the Air Force also had higher standards.

It has long been known the 5.56 cartridge is a less than thrilling manstopper, and one must always balance bullet effectiveness with logistics, weights and other factors, but unless we’re planning to engage in another war in the Middle East, or on the plains of China or Russia, the ability to hit targets at 600-800 yards is of secondary concern.  As Markel noted, our contemporary troops are less strong, physically fit and coordinated than past generations, and we’re loading them up with heavier rifles and ammunition.

Ammo cost has to be a major concern.  Our Navy is years behind in ship building, and doesn’t have the money to build more.  Our military, as a whole, has long been short on money, keeping pilots from flying as often as they should, and troops from shooting as much as they should.  If the Sig round is fully adopted, per round costs will likely somewhat lessen, but $.50 compared to $4.50 a round is a huge difference, which is going to mean our troops will almost certainly be unable to practice even as much as they do now with live ammo.  It will also mean, in any armed conflict, they’re going to run short of ammo and fast.  We are the brokest nation on Earth, and going broker every moment.

Imagine if our military had already adopted the new round.  How would we supply Israel, which uses the .223?  I’m sure the Mummified Meat Puppet Administration, which wants Hamas and Iran to win, would see that as a feature rather than a bug, but the common ammo issue for us and our allies remains.

There surely are competent trainers in our military, particularly in our elite units, but in our currently woke forces, who is going to listen to them?  It doesn’t matter whether a rifleman—or riflewoman—has the newest, hi-tech wonder rifle and scope if carrying it wears them out, they haven’t had proper training, and haven’t fired a sufficient number of rounds—on a constant basis—to be able to hit their targets at the ranges they’ll be required to engage.

The old military axiom holds true: neophytes talk tactics; professionals talk logistics.  We might also add professionals talk professional training.