Quote:
Originally Posted by TacOfficer
To whom.......
I completely agree with the analogy "it's the Indian, not the bow" vis a vis training and practice, but should advancements in body armor, as the general suggests, have an impact on the choice between a carbine or battle rifle?
Do are rivals even issue body armor to their infantry? It seems like top drawer equipment that is very expensive for million man armies to issue.
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I know Russia does, but I couldn't tell you how widely it's issued right now. I was under the impression for a while that Russia mostly issued soft shrapnel panels, but apparently they started a modernization program a few years ago that puts them on parity with ESAPI. Not sure how successful it's been but apparently that's their new standard issue kit, along with the AK12. They have their own standards that are joint military/police, because Russia. Scroll down a bit, they're in there. My best guess says they're pushing for a 6 or 7 rated standard issue plate. Various Russian SF units are generally equipped with an equivalent plate, AFAIK.
http://dacsarmored.com/normas/DIN52290.pdf
I don't think China does.
http://www.defenseone.com/threats/20...fantry/102654/
As for insurgents/terror groups..... well, that depends entirely on the group, money, location, local legal concerns, planning concerns, and probably a million other things I don't know about or won't think of.
There's probably a lot "black market" armor floating around (not that armor is particularly regulated, usually) but most of it is soft or NIJ 3 equivalent, so I can't see any real bonus.
That said, reading between the fine lines, I'm not sure I'd say complete coincidence that the interest in advanced armor penetrating rounds is coming in as Russia finalizes it's armor modernization program..... but that is just speculation.
IMO, given modern armor systems, I'd say that the primary concern for beating rifle rated armor is bullet construction and materials... not caliber. If it can stop 5.56 it can probably stop .308/7.62x51 as well. If it can't stop 7.62 AP, then 5.56 AP is also likely going to poke holes in it. Likely. There is some room for error there, but I can't think of a 7.62 bullet that will beat a class of armor that doesn't have a 5.56 bullet "cousin" that will beat that same armor. Example being that M80A1 and M855A1 both beat NIJ 3 armors but both fail against NIJ 4 armors, and that the M995 Tungsten/Steel 5.56 AP will beat NIJ 4 armor..... exactly the same as the 7.62 equivalent.
There are a bunch of reasons why someone might want to switch out 6.5mm for 5.56, and basically all of them are for increased terminal performance or range advantages... whether that's a worthwhile trade off is something I'm not sure I'm qualified to discuss. Main point being that as far as I can tell there's not much performance against body armor reasons to switch caliber as long as you're staying between .223 and .30-06.
Maybe this will help clear things up in terms of what the point of this program is (page 38):
http://www.dtic.mil/descriptivesum/Y..._5_PB_2017.pdf
The program in the OP is (speculatively) because they want rifles that can work with the ammo mentioned in this post in wide usage that don't suck. I speculate, that the main point of going with 7.62 first over 5.56 is that they want it in MGs first. This is mentioned explicitly in the program text above, although I don't understand enough of small arms doctrine (right word?) to understand why they would prioritize having AP for MGs in widespread use over carbines and individually issued weapons......
I hope everything I am typing is tracking logically. It fits together pretty neatly for me, but I don't know if I'm really expressing the point correctly.