S&W 460 XCR
# John Farnam's Quips - 18Jan05: M-14s are back! - Yay! Click the link for "comments from a friend". Bottom line, the U.S. military needs to discard the .223 varmint cartridge. [farnamsquips]
The US Army's Long Range Surveillance Detachment (42nd Infantry Division) is deploying to Iraq with "newly-(re)issued" M-14 rifles, and the apologies, along with pseudo-denials, are rampant. They obviously hope no one notices, lest everyone will all want to switch over. Beating us to it, British Special Ops folks in that part of the world have already "rediscovered" the 303 Enfield cartridge.
"It's a tremendous force multiplier. It's a tremendous asset on the battlefield," we are told. Isn't EVERY battle rifle supposed to fit that description? What does that make the M-16 and M-4? A non-force-multiplier and a non-asset on the battlefield?
What no one will say (in public) is that, in a battle rifle, the 223 round is a joke, critically lacking in both range and penetration, yet another sad leftover from the lamentable Johnson Administration. It is embarrassing that it has taken so long for this forty-year-old procurement mistake finally to be addressed.
I am personally disappointed that the Marine Corps has not set the agenda on this issue, but has instead conceded leadership to the Army. Marine management did take a single, hesitant step by equipping selected individuals with M-14s last year, but has done nothing since. The 6.8mm round and rifle showed great promise, but that project has also been allowed to wither on the vine.
The M-14 is surely a suburb battle rifle, and the 308 round is nearly ideal for serious fighting. Maybe now individual soldiers and Marines can again think of themselves as fighters of the enemy, not just "finders" of the enemy.
Let's hope the trend continues and that the Marine Corps (belatedly) steps up to the plate and once again takes the lead in battle rifle development.
# Francis A Ney, Jr. at The Libertarian Enterprise - Freedom Starts at Home - if Bushnev wants anybody to believe that he supports freed'm anywhere, he'd do well to support it right here in the U. S. of A. [tle]