[DanUCSB]

Okay, let me broaden this up a bit. What do you think is the solution? For an Army-wide rifle?

There's lots of competing interests. I know a lot of infantrymen who say, "Look, give me back a battle rifle. I'll trade a couple pounds for the knockdown of .308 (or .30-06, even) out past a couple hundred meters." And on the flipside, plenty of support folks who bitch about the weight of an M4 with all the doodads (and, not intended as an insult to the majority of our fine support troops, but some bad-apple types who never use/clean their shit, and end up paying for it like the 507th). Do you give the shooters' (SF/infantry) opinions more weight than anyone else in the discussion? I would certianly hope so. But what about the ten support troops out there, bitching about how heavy their rifle weighs, for every one guy out on the line?

And how do you include the expected face of warfare to come? Ie, rather than the chasing the Reds out of the Fulda Gap, chasing little groups of terrorists around the deserts and jungles (I can see in our future a lot more work in the Philippines and Indonesia) of the world? Do you compensate by taking a short-barrelled CQB-type like an M4 or this XM-8 for the cities we're likely to keep fighting in? Or do you need something with a long arm, as evidenced in our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq?

I have a couple opinions here, but I'll let them sit for a minute. Wanted to broaden the discussion a bit beyond the 6.8mm, which a lot of people have made some good points about (especially Reaper) in another thread. Basically, how do you prioritize the very different, and often conflicting, interests of a diverse Army in choosing a new rifle?

--Dan