OICW - Tell Me More

Doug97 said:
But remember, if it's bullpup, it doesn't exist.

Too many cookoffs and all of the other problems that come with caseless ammo (for now). No ejection port, so if you got a jam, you had to take the whole thing apart. Plastic housing had a tendency to crack on hard impacts.

The HK-ACR was tested at Ft. Benning, Ga back in the early 90s. Identical to the G11, all but for the optical sight. Feedback was fairly positive, but if I remember the general consensus was "needs more work."
 
How about the HK416, uses 5.56mm, uses the STANAG mags, integrated RIS system, flippable iron sights, and with a g36 bolt carrier its a lot more reliable.
And requires much less cleaning.
 
Obvious said:
How about the HK416, uses 5.56mm, uses the STANAG mags, integrated RIS system, flippable iron sights, and with a g36 bolt carrier its a lot more reliable.
And requires much less cleaning.

I love it. I managed to get one of the uppers when they were accidently released on the civilian market, so I have one at home.
 
I think the MK416 does a great job of doing what it set out to do but isn't such an improvement over the M-16/M-4 to completely re-issue it to the entire army.

I would not at all be against replacing the M-4 with the MK416 however, I'd rather see a completely next generation weapons system to replace the M-16 family and SAW.
 
Whispering Death said:
I think the MK416 does a great job of doing what it set out to do but isn't such an improvement over the M-16/M-4 to completely re-issue it to the entire army.
I think you will change your opinion when you sit in the sandbox and you pull the trigger and it don´t goes booommmm, because you had not the time to clean your gun while you where on the move!!!
Ok, its just a temporary solution but why not give all or most soldiers in a hostile environment these HK416 (not MK) uppers??? And in the meantime find a good replacement for the M16 family.


@ PJ24
If you get deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan or any other region of this world, are you allowed to take your own HK416 upper and replace it at your M4???

Greetz Joker
 
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PJ24 said:
Too many cookoffs and all of the other problems that come with caseless ammo (for now). No ejection port, so if you got a jam, you had to take the whole thing apart. Plastic housing had a tendency to crack on hard impacts.

The HK-ACR was tested at Ft. Benning, Ga back in the early 90s. Identical to the G11, all but for the optical sight. Feedback was fairly positive, but if I remember the general consensus was "needs more work."

http://remtek.com/arms/hk/mil/g11/caseless.htm said:
The propellant body, consisting of a mixture of a crystalline energy medium and binders is designed as an extremely solid and compact block. The burning behaviour of the propellant charge, i.e. the gas pressure curve, is similar to that of conventional ammunition. The average maximum gas pressure is defined as less than 4000 bars (58,000 psi), the muzzle velocity is 930 m/s (3051 ft/s). All elements of the propellant body and the primer of the cartridge are completely combustible or consumable so that only a minimal amount of combustion residue remains. There is no need for ejection of cartridge cases or anything else. Due to the cook-off temperature of the new propellant charge, approximately 100°C higher than for nitrocellulose powder, a cook-off point meeting the requirements of a new infantry weapon can be achieved.

http://world.guns.ru/assault/as42-e.htm said:
Early prototypes were prone to the ammunition cook-offs during the sustained fire, but later Dynamit Nobel solved this issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G11 said:
If a round fails to fire, the rifle can be manually chambered by twisting the cocking handle counterclockwise. This loads the next round and pushes the dud out an emergency ejection port on the bottom of the rifle.

I'm sure the plastic housing would not really be a problem; there are many many examples of modern assault rifles with plastic housing, with more appearing all the time.

If the project needed more work to be adopted, why didn't the government do so, instead of pouring funds into the pointless XM8?
 
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Whispering Death said:
I think the MK416 does a great job of doing what it set out to do but isn't such an improvement over the M-16/M-4 to completely re-issue it to the entire army.

No, I definately don't think it should be used to replace the M16 or even the M4 for that matter. The improvement, like you said, isn't great enough to spend the money.

Joker said:
I think you will change your opinion when you sit in the sandbox and you pull the trigger and it don´t goes booommmm, because you had not the time to clean your gun while you where on the move!!!

M16/M4 doesn't have to be cleaned THAT frequently, and you can't drown them in CLP. ALL weapons have to be maintained, so whether we stick with what we have or get plasma rifles, Pvt. Snuffy still needs to clean his weapon. Those that knew how to properly maintain their weapons rarely had problems in that area.

Joker said:
If you get deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan or any other region of this world, are you allowed to take your own HK416 upper and replace it at your M4???

I don't get to take my personal one, no. But we do have some in the arms room now that come along with us. I'd rather break theirs than mine anyway. :mrgreen:

Doug97 said:
I'm sure the plastic housing would not really be a problem; there are many many examples of modern assault rifles with plastic housing, with more appearing all the time.

If the project needed more work to be adopted, why didn't the government do so, instead of pouring funds into the pointless XM8?

None of those source are from the US Army trials. The plastic housing wasn't the problem, the fact that it would crack if you dropped it on concrete was. The G11s STILL have a high cookoff rate, and that little trick about the emergency ejection port? HA! Hasn't worked yet. The biggest reason they didn't continue and get the improvements done on it was because of the ammo, IIRC. No one can claim caseless ammo is ready for "the big show." Maybe in five more years.

I think the G11 is a neat gun, but I wouldn't want to use it. Better fitting for Law Enforcement, I think.

I'm no fan of the XM8, but it is more practical for the US military over the G11.
 
Doug97 said:
Come on, would it REALLY be that hard to fix?

If you had read the entire post, I commented about why they didn't choose to look into fixing the problems.

Jeez guy, finger OFF the trigger.
 
OICWmight be a combination of the overall arms and not be arms self .

Therefore,
Even AK-74 can become oicw by the combination with other equipment.
 
zander_0633 said:
Nice one! So actually the OICW project is a fruitless project?

The original OICW was, really, the only reason they kept the title when they cut the project into three parts was to save a little shame by not scrapping the whole "OICW" title after they'd spent so much money on the first monstrosity.
 
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