lsat caseless ammunition
the lsat light machine gun is the closest to combat ready gun capable of firing both cased telescopic and caseless ammunition .
plus you then retain ammunition compatibility with the lsat lmg that is going to happen .
what are the advantages and disadvantages of 5. 56 ammunition over 7. 62 ammunition ?
reduce weight = a look back at caseless ammunition…… that or simplifying, and cutting weight by moving from brass to aluminum casings .
the lsat with standard 5. 56 nato and it' s own cased telescoped ammo .
im drooling over a belt fed lsat like everyone else but the overmatch nonsense needs stop .
in addition to the cased telescoped ammunition, aai is working on caseless ammunition that' s even lighter and significantly more compact - compared to 5. 56, the cased telescoped takes up 12% less volume; the caseless stuff has 40% less volume .
the current us small arms program is lsat. lightweight small arms technologies. iirc the primary aim is to decrease the weight of both weapon and ammunition .
bullet weight is the single biggest contributor to ammunition weight. choose a heavy bullet, and your ammunition becomes accordingly heavier .
a belt of 5. 56x45 is shown next to lsat belts: caseless (centre) and plastic - cased spiral 3. plastic belt links help to save weight .
the middle ones are the caseless ammunition, the left are standard 5. 56 cartridges, and the right ones are the cased telescoped variant. both cased and caseless ammo here are with their plastic cap intact .
in this picture the top ones are cased telescoped ammunition, and the bottom are the caseless ones. both with the plastic cap removed .
for the lsat, yes. but lsat has already ended and has been replaced with ctsas. while lsat focussed on lmgs and 5. 56 ct, ctsas focusses on 6. 5 ct and to a lesser degree on a carbine. with 6. 5 ct, the focus isnt necessarily on weight - savings .
unlike conventional small - arms ammunition that features a metallic or plastic casing that marries the projectile to the powder and primer, caseless ammunition surrounds the projectile in a burrito of propellant and primer. this eliminates the stage of ejecting the spent cartridge, saving weight, wear - and - tear, and money. in practice, caseless ammunition magazines are packed at the factory site, and sealed with a removable protector that prevents the elements from corrupting the ammunition .
i looked that caseless mx - 6. 5 rifle online, and it appears to be based on the real - steel robinson armament xcr assault rifle. the 6. 5mm caseless ammo is close to the caseless rounds fired by the rda casless rifles in avatar and elysium .
speaking of caseless rounds i recently bought arma 3 & saw the mx 6. 5 caseless. was cool u should check, it out. if u have a good p. c .
caseless r & d is now done at the onr, but i cant find anything recent .
the lsat actually comes in two versions. one uses ammo using a non - metal, telescoped case, and the other uses caseless ammo. the telescoped ammo is ready for use now while the caseless stuff was still in development. both lsat weapons feature a revolutionary ammo feed that employs a pivot, rather than a bolt, to load the ammo into the chamber. this design propels the case out the front of the weapon. naturally the caseless ammo has no case to eject. the use of the pivot reduces overheating problems, which are more of a hassle with the plastic case of non - metal telescoped cartridge prototype (which is a straight case, like a pistol, not a bottleneck case more common with high powered rifles). the caseless round is the ideal solution but this design is more difficult to manufacture. caseless rounds have been developed before but were found to be more expensive and more vulnerable to rough handling. the original lsat expectation was that if the caseless round were used, the lsat and 600 rounds would be 9 kg (19. 9 pounds) lighter than the current m249 and its ammo. the new plastic case and the lsat is 6. 8 kg (15 pounds) less than the m249 .
the most advanced caseless weapon system was the german g11, but it was never put in service .
yes, because talking demographics has everything to do with an experimental type of ammunition .
holy crap they actually did it. aai discussed a m4a1 upper for the lsat program but i never thought it would be possible .
if they just adopt the 6. 5 lsat lmg and replace the saw and 240 with that, that’s all we really need .
lsat 5. 56mm and 7. 62mm, next to the 5. 56x45 and 7. 62x51 (image courtesy of textron )
i stand corrected, but the basic point is still valid, unless this ammunition is as easily reloaded as current ammunition, you still aren’t getting much (weight savings ?) for surrendering access to ammunition in times when the government wants to buy it all up .
beginning in 2004, the us army and us marine corps started to examine lessening the weight of the m249 saw. given the war in afghanistan, allied soldiers often walked long patrols on bad roads and difficult terrain, with heavy kit. it was the goal of the lightweight small arms technologies program to decrease the weight of a lmg saw by 30% via use of either cased telescoped ammunition or even completely caseless. the lsat tested their lmg that was lighter by 44% for the mk. 46 lmg was done by combat experienced soldiers meeting with approval after successful live - fire testing in 2011. despite the issues with caseless ammunition, the us marines have stated they are looking at lsat lmgs using caseless rounds over the telescoped rounds for deployment around 2014 / 2015 .
between the completely caseless round and the traditional metal cartridge round, is the cased telescoped ammunition or cta. instead of a metallic casing or a propellant casing, cta uses lightweight metallic, or polymer, plastic or even casing with semi - combustible properties, and has the bullet resting deeper in the casing with the use of consolidated propellant. the main advantage of cta is weight saving over traditional ammunition (about 30 %), and less of the fragility risks of caseless ammunition .
and its iconic m41a1 pulse rifle. it is likely that james cameron used caseless ammunition due to prediction by gun and military magazines that it was the next big thing, fueled by the h & k g11. because of the popularity of this 1986 film, the pulse rifle was often most people first introduction to the term' caseless ammunition', which has been replaced by the g11 of the
after the death of the h & k g11 around 1990, it seemed that the bold experiment in caseless ammunition for the military was over. that was until the war in afghanistan, when soldiers had to transverse difficult terrain with thinner air than our soldiers were used to. the weight of a light machine gun and the ammunition taxed our soldiers, causing the us army and marine corps to explore the use of caseless or telescoped ammunition to save weight under the lightweight small arms technologies project .
other odd issues that come up with wide spread adoption, because of the construction of caseless ammo, it would be impossible for shooters that pack their own ammunition, snipers and hunters for example. also, if caseless civilian guns were to come available, the lack of shell casings would make criminal investigations harder .
soldiers and u. s. army civilians test fired a new lighter machine gun called the lsat at marine corps base quantico, va. , june 24. the new weapon is designed to replace light machine guns, such as m249 and m240. lsat with 600 rounds of ammunition will weigh 23. 8 pounds, representing 38% reduction from the current 38. 3 pounds .
one of the more commonly known issues with caseless rounds is thermally induced firing or' cooking - off'. this occurs during continuous firing that heats up the weapon. normal metal cartridges act as a heat sink, lessening the damage of this. caseless ammo is surrounded in a burrito of propellant, that could easily ignite inside the weapon, or given that the ammunition is densely packed, inside the magazine. that would be bad for the gun and the shooter. some sites detail that caseless ammunition would cost more, due to wasted ammo, more protective measures to prevent ammo corruption, switching the entire military over from cased to caseless .
so you would carry only slightly less ammunition, but have a pretty massive increase in firepower .
it would be different if caseless ammunition could do something current ammunition can’t, but that simply isn’t the case (see what i did there ?). all i’m saying is updating technology for the sake of updating technology isn’t always the best bet. i mean try going untraceable in a car newer that 2006…
, the trend might come back, especially if some of the us military' s caseless lmgs projects hit reality .
first, about the 5. 56mm lsat which is no longer being worked on: “feedback was that ‘it weighs less but doesn’t do any more' ”
the us ordnance department explored the possibility of caseless ammunition based weaponry from 1959 through 1975. major companies, like ge, gm, hughes tools, hercules dove into the project, developing caseless ammunition along with telescoped 5. 56x30mm ammunition, called' chicklet' in 1969 by the hercules company. not much became of this effort, conventional cartridges were used, and by 1975, the project ended, just has the west german government was in the middle of their own next - generation assault rifle project to replace the g3 battle rifle .
the colt acr contender was simply an improved m16a2 firing a duplex cartridge, and h & k submitted the caseless g11 described above, while aai and steyr offered weapons firing flechette rounds, the steyr ammunition being plastic - cased .
according to several sources, the austrian viere vec - 91 hunting rifle available to the public that combined caseless 5. 7mm ammunition and electronic ignition via two 15 volt batteries that were good for about 5, 000 rounds. there is little information on the vec - 91 due to limited sales in us and hard to find ammunition (caseless has a limited shelve life), i believe that the gun is still in production. daisy v / l civilian rifle
minor point, the ammo here is not caseless it’s polymer cased telescoped. furthermore this is a us dod program not civil .
aai was discussing the ability to create a 6. 5 m4a1 upper for the lsat technology back when they were having soldiers test the lmg at maneuver battle lab .
excellent and informing as always. the ubiquitous boltgun of the emperor' s angels of death, the space marines, from warhammer 40k is also claimed to shoot caseless ammunition, though the majority of the artwork does not follow this trend. an explanation could be that the variants created by some forge worlds use caseless ammo while patterns of other forge worlds do not. cheers! chris
source on that? i haven’t heard of any armor piercing hollow point ammunition for pistols before other than that one from liberty ammunition that turns to dust as soon as it passes through a vest and would just barely break skin .
starting in 2008 the lsat was developed, built, and tested. lsat passed its first field tests in 2012 which involved having eight prototypes firing 25, 000 rounds over three weeks. at that point everyone agreed that it works. more testing was required to ensure ruggedness and reliability. that took five years, about twice as long as expected .
pct 6. xmm rounds are better, but the 6. 5mm ctsas ammunition is still 30% heavier than brass - cased 5. 56mm, and come with a 33% reduction in ammunition capacity per magazine. when you then compare pct 6. 5mm against pct 5. 56mm, then you see almost a doubling in ammunition weight .
while the caseless ammunition is both lighter and more compact than the plastic - cased, the usual technical problems experienced with such ammunition has led to the emphasis being placed on the latter. by mid - 2011 some 400 caseless rounds had been fired with a trl 5 demonstration planned for the autumn. in contrast, some 14, 000 plastic - cased rounds had been fired through four lmgs, and eight lmgs plus 100, 000 rounds of plastic - cased ammunition (loaded with m855a1 bullets) were supplied to the us army for initial testing in autumn 2011. initial informal reports indicate that this seems to have gone well, but the cost of establishing new production facilities for both guns and ammunition will clearly be a major obstacle to adoption .
dropship is the gau - 113 / b25mm caseless rotary six - barreled cannon. unlike normal caseless weapon systems, the gau - 113 / b drops the 25mm sabot into the barrel, then spray nozzles inject hypergolic liquid fuels as a binary propellant that explode, forcing the sabot out of the barrel at a rate of 6, 000 rpm. this could be the only example of a large scale caseless weapon systems in science fiction .
i have no idea why you decided to talk about mk262 ammunition when you were comparing bthp’s not used for service loads .
in a nutshell, it' s a lighter weight light machine gun that fires lightweight ammunition. if that doesn' t impress you, try this: the standard lsat model weighs 9. 4lbs, almost half what an m249 weighs (17. 6lbs for the regular version). the ammunition is 40% lighter, too, meaning that a 100rd
nutsack
of the polymer cased telescoped ammunition weighs just over 2lbs, instead of 3. 3 for regular brass cased 5. 56. still not impressed? well, at 30. 6lbs, the lsat lmg with 1000 rounds of ammunition weighs 2. 8lbs less than 1000 rounds of 5. 56 and no weapon. it' s an intrepid saw man who carries four boxes in addition to the one attached to his weapon, but the fact remains that this system offers an impressive weight reduction .
another example of use of caseless ammunition in science fiction is in john birmingham' s axis of time trilogy. his prediction was that most sidearms and point defense systems would go to a metal storm model. i don' t know if he continued it in next series .
from 1970 through around 1990, three companies headed by heckler & koch struggled to develop the g11 4. 73x33mm assault rifle along with a lmg and a pdw pistol variants, but by 1990, with the reintegration of german, the project was cancelled (please skip down to read the complete history of the g11). currently, the g11 is the closest that any military has come to adopting a caseless rifle for their primary military assault rifle, but the development was not in vein. the research and technology for the g11 paved the way for other arms - markers to field prototypes, like the current lsat project to field a lightweight / caseless lmg for the us military. this, at the moment, is the only military - funded caseless ammunition project .
from my research, the lsat lmg met with high praise from soldiers, and as of this year, the project is moving forward to stage two. however, this the only example of current research. it seems the heyday of the caseless gun was the 1980; s, and now it is going to take something like the lsat lmg to get the rest of the global thinking in that direction. when it comes to the future, is it possible that in 2179 that us marines will be using caseless carbines? maybe. there would have to be advancements in the science of propellant that allows for a propellant casing that could be handled by the soldiers in the field without breaking down. what could propel caseless weapon into the hands of future soldiers is when we start fighting on exosolar worlds with hostile environments in combat - rated space suits. given that caseless weapons are more sealed that their traditional counterparts, limiting the openings to the environment, could allow for their use where normal firearms would be useless or before we develop dew systems. of course, these caseless weapons could be just limited to use on lunar - like worlds .
three things are evident from these slides: 1 .) ctsas seems to be seeking a 1200m effective range for the ammunition for both the support weapon and carbine (shown on slide 11), 2 .) 6. 5mm ct retains energy better, but is not significantly lighter than 7. 62mm ct ammunition, and both are 30% heavier than even brass - cased 5. 56mm, 3 .) ctsas has given up on the lethality and mobility increases cited by the lsat program in 2014 as advantages of the lighter weight 5. 56mm ct weapon versus the m249 (the 6. 5mm and 7. 62mm ct weapons and ammunition are both heavier than the m249 and its ammunition) :
, it was soon that science fiction works began using caseless firearms without much research. most of the rash of caseless weaponry was confined to pen - and - paper msf rpg games, and a few books, and by the 1990' s, the trend had fallen off. however, with works like
in 1977, the world' s premier gun manufacturer, heckler & koch, began testing the attempted next leap in the world of modern firearms, the g11. the most unique feature of the g11 prototype (and there were many), was the fact the caseless ammunition. it was hoped that this revolutionary assault rifle would pioneer a new era for chemically propelled firearms. however. by 1990, the ambitious g11 was dead, along with military use of caseless ammunition. in the pages of science - fiction works, often authors and creators use the word
caseless
to describe their futuristic weaponry, and fws is here to bring you the facts on this real - world next - generation firearm technology. ﻿
the lsat program actually looks very promising, promising to deliver the us a new family of infantry small arms that will demonstrate some breakthrough technologies; something that previous competitions such as acr failed to offer .
italian arms marker, benelli, like many, believed that caseless ammunition, like many did in the 1980' s, was the future. to get in front of the trend and give the market for smgs in the 80' s, in 1982, benelli and another company developed a simpler ammunition type than the more complex caseless, the 9mm aupo. this was more of a semi - cased weapon than fully caseless, because a hollow metal case contained the sabot and powder that were sealed via a explosive primer at the rear. when the cb m2 was fired, the sabot and casing separated after flight. the project failed to attract any buyers for full - scale production, causing the cb m2 to past into history .
assault rifle: the development of the modern military rifle and its ammunition' by maxim popenker and anthony g williams. details are here
the cased telescoped ammo already achieved around 40% weight saving and 10% volume saving compared to standard nato cartridges, and nearly 100% combat ready. the lsat with 600 rounds of cased telescoped ammunition will weigh 23. 8 pounds, representing 38% reduction from the current 38. 3 pounds [ of the currently equipped saw ] .
in the 1968 and 1969, bb and air - gun manufacturer daisy sold the v / l civilian rife that fired. 22 caseless ammunition via hot high pressures. the project started in 1962 with inventor jules van langenhorn developing a sporting civilian rifle that used adiabtic compression to fire. 22 rounds .
my big beef with the lwmmg is the weight of the ammunition. it’s a good concept though, and it could be great if they did a second iteration with a re - engineered ammunition concept that was similar in weight to 7. 62mm but significantly more powerful .
one problem with caseless ammunition that they couldn' t overcome at that time is flammability. conventional cased ammunition propellant is protected from accidental initiation by the casing. accidental initiation of caseless ammunition results in each successive round igniting which result in the carrier being engulfed in flames. i watched videos of experiments about this and the soldiers who watched them outright refused to carry the ammunition because of these safety concerns. i initially tried to over come this problem by using a flame deterrent coating. there were problems with this so i decided to reinvent how propellant functions. the second major problem with the g11 was the cost of the ammunition. they used octogen to make heat resistant propellant and the only known source for this was as a bi product of the manufacture of hexogen. this restricted supply resulting in each g11 round costing ten dollars each in late' 80s money. i do remember all the gibberish about the
peace dividend
and all the other bile crap that the liberals puked up to justify gutting the military .
despite numerous experiments, most notably the heckler & koch g11, the advantages of caseless ammunition have never been able to outweigh the disadvantages. but that doesn' t stop the idea from being pretty intriguing. we had the opportunity to take a look at a demonstration mockup of a caseless ammo rifle made by the hughes company. hughes is best known as an aircraft manufacturer, but also did a lot of weapons work, including designs like the heligun (lots of aircraft - to - guns spillover used to happen - like fairchild and the ar15). anyway, this caseless demonstrator is pretty neat, so we put together this video. urltoken
nice to see you highlight the pros and cons of caseless. but i would add on several occasion you use the term sabot instead of bullet which is rather annoying .
exotic attempts: 5. 56x45 with monad bullet, 4. 5mm schirnecker, 9 / 4mm kaltmann (development round, with part - metal case), 5. 56mm folded, 5. 56mm hughes lockless, 5. 56mm us caseless, 6mm voere caseless, early hk g11 4. 7x21 rounds, final g11 4. 7x33
aseless ammunition has two greater advantages over conventional metal cartridges: weight and capacity. weight has often being toted has a reason to adopt this new type of ammo. recently, the us marines states that weight was a major factor in their research for using caseless ammunition in a light machine gun, saving around 25lbs, thus, allowing more ammunition or kit to be carried. as the picture on the right displays, a g11 could carry 510 rounds over 240 rounds for the m16 or 100 for the g3 / fal / m14 battle rifle all for the same weight, 16. 2lbs. the standard g11 stick magazine carried fifty 4. 73mm rounds, giving caseless assault rifles more magazine capacity over traditional stanag magazines, basically reducing bulk in the soldier' s gear .
by 1977, ghgs had a working fifth prototype with sight and ammunition that similar to the final shape, however, the ammunition was proven more difficult than the gun itself. original, dynamit nobel had the telescoped 4. 3mm ammo, then jumped to 4. 9mm, then by prototype gun number six, around 1977 or 1978, it was down to 4. 7mm, but still telescoped. one of the main issues was that builtup heat of the interiors of the weapon cooking - off the caseless rounds. is more deadly in caseless weapons than traditional firearms, due to the complex interior mechanics and densely packed ammo .
6. 5, 7. 62, 5. 56… they all have their positives and negatives. you train to the limitations of your gear and adjust tactics to suit. more to the point, caseless ammunition has the benefit, (for those who want to control ammunition availability), of not being readily reloaded without seriously expensive machinery. forget being able to tweak custom loads, forget being able to reload for fun and savings, forget access to inexpensive reloading supplies .
sorry for bump: d but caseless ammo are chrome & chrome spec force pc games, kinda strange because ammo are bassed on real life you know 9mm 12 slug gauge etc .
there was also vbr car (caseless ammunition rifle) and car - 2, designed around 1990, a response to the h & k g11. the car had a 120 round magazine and the car - 2 had a 75 round magazine. can' t seem to find much info on them though but a couple of pictures .
the current us small arms program is lsat. lightweight small arms technologies. iirc the primary aim is to decrease the weight of both weapon and ammunition. they are looking into both telescoped and caseless ammunition to achieve this. they aren' t abiding by any contemporary ammunition or weapon standards. it appear that they are looking at eventually developing a round similar to the 6. 5mm grendel. the adoption of the more powerful round will probably see a return to a rifle / gpmg pairing sharing a common round that would take the roles of the service rifle, dmr, lmg, and mmg roles currently all filled by separate weapons and two different rounds. it looks as though that currently 5. 56mm and 7. 62mm ct rounds are being developed for short - term adoption into existing weapon systems, while the 6. 5mm ct round is being developed for future weapons .
wonder, those nickel / aluminum hybrid cases that were shown off before. what’s the weight savings of those vs caseless ammo, and is it even really needed now with current conflicts ?
in 1986, australia arms - maker, armtech began work on a caseless assault rifle, similar to the g11, the c30r, but fired a caseless 5. 56mm round. hastily rushed in prototype stage before the kinks were worked out on this bullpup rifle resulted in an explosion during a public demonstration. this sealed the fate of the caseless rifle and the armtech company. the basic design resurfaced in the 1990' s as the basis for a conventional 5. 56mm bullpup rifle called the m17s manufactured by bushmaster in 1994 and was hauled in 2005 .
plus much of the recoil, size, and weight advantages of a smaller round like 5. 56mm would be retained through advances in weapons and ammunition technology .
the greatest weakness and road block preventing the wife scale adoption of caseless ammunition is the fragile nature of the propellant casing. during testing of the g11, h & k ran across issues associated with testers simply handling the ammunition. the propellant would crack and rupture during simple handling by the oily or dirty hands of soldiers. this corrupted the propellant block causing misfiring of the weapon or even cock - off the ammo. which is one of the reason that paper cartridges were replaced with metal casings over a hundred years ago .
if i were in charge of ammunition development for it, i would seek a pct solution with a lighter bullet in the 200 - 250 grain range, and i would emphasize development of chemical energy rounds and heavy armor piercing rounds for that caliber as well, to give it capability well above that of standard inert small arms ammunition .
heckler & koch made a prototype years ago that was called the g11. it' s main advantage was the three round burst mode, in which the company three rounds would go off before recoil would register. another example is the lsat, a light machinegun .
for the basic infantry rifle nothing changes, except that you have increased range and more consistent terminal effectiveness (lethality). for the gpmg, however, you have substantially cut the weight and bulk of the ammunition. add polymer links and you save even more weight. linked 7. 62 mm ammunition is what has particularly increased combat weight burdens .
i need to re - watch the 5th element and see if the zr - 1 is mentioned to be casless. it could be caseless... the zr1 is getting a special place in a upcoming blogpost
h & k also sent a few g11k2s to the united states to demonstrate caseless technology for the us army' s advanced combat rifle program in the late 1980' s that was exploring options for a next - gen replacement for the colt m16a2. then suddenly in 1990, the g11 program was scrapped and caseless weaponry was cast back into dark times. so, what happened to the g11 if it met with such praise ?
the initial calibre and ballistics of lsat were chosen to match the 5. 56x45 ss109 / m855 for comparison purposes but, more recently, a 7. 62mm lsat has been demonstrated whch matches the performance of the 7. 62x51 while reducing the weight by 33% (39% in mg belts because of the plastic links used). however, it appears that consideration is being given to developing an intermediate calibre cartridge which might replace both the 5. 56mm and the 7. 62mm, with funding continuing at a low level to pursue this .
who honestly cares that some morons decided during ww1 that hollow point ammunition was too deadly? is that not the entire point? to say anything to the contrary is simply disingenuous .
that is going to have to be some plastic case, able to withstand freezing combat and broiling combat while functioning in a weapon burning hot with use. then again it is the next logical step other than caseless .
from 1845 - 1847, several inventors fielding metallic cartridges that further fused the powder, projectile, and now, primer into one more weather - resistant package, spelling the end of the paper' caseless' cartridge .
• results for lsat: – squads employing the lsat ct light machine gun (lmg) [ and m4a1 + ] had increases in lethality during short and long range engagements, improvements in speed of engagement and shot placement. – soldiers attributed better mobility to the machine gun’s reduced size and weight in comparison to the current m249 – weight and recoil reduction provide more precise fires on the objective particularly when ar gunners are firing from standing and kneeling positions – automatic riflemen were able to move quicker because of the lighter weight, with a positive impact on key ar missions
dmrs and snipers share ammunition with vehicles and saw gunners. after 15 + years of fighting in afghanistan we solve the problem of being outranged by afghan hill fighters with ww2 machine guns .
textron systems has a long, proven history as a designer and manufacturer of armament and ammunition technologies, having been involved in many army small arms development programs over the past 50 years. the lsat has undergone military utility assessment (mua) with the u. s. army maneuver battle lab, evaluation with u. s. special operations command, and completed the dismounted non - network enabled limited objective experiment with the u. s. army capabilities integration center (arcic) .
in the early 1970' s, the soviet union developed a pistol that fired a 7. 62mm caseless rounds for a high - capacity (48 rounds) pistol. there are few sources in english available about the vag - 73, however, according to one website, the pistol was a testbed, select - fire, and could be closer to a gryojet gun instead of a true caseless pistol. nothing really came of the vag - 73 .
hi william how could you forget about the russian grenade launchers family? urltoken urltoken those grenades are single piece of warhead and propellant. those weapons are probably the only fully - deployed caseless small arm in the modern time. yoel
for the most part, the introduction of rifles in the new mg calibres seems to have been to simplify ammunition supply arrangements, rather than because the smaller calibre rifles were felt to be ineffective .
one cartridge worth its own paragraph was the spanish 7. 92x40 cetme model 53. the ammunition was designed by dr gunther voss, a german ballistician working for cetme. he wanted to combine a
also the same company vbr - belgium / guy named rik van bruaene, designed a couple of caseless smgs called casmg (caseless ammunition sub - machinegun) and vbr m. g. 91, a caseless bullpup smg. both created in 1991. also before the h & k g11, there was the mauser g11 .
the mauser g11 origin: west germany date: 1960s caliber: 4. 75mm caseless although heckler & koch are often credited with creating the “g11” series of weapons, it was in fact mauser who was originally tasked with creating it. this was during the late 1960’s, and the result of their efforts was this rifle. it was fed through an internal 10 - round magazine, fitted in the buttstock. nato trials found many discrepancies in the mauser g11’s overly - complex mechanism and the project was handed over to heckler & koch in the 1970s, who went on to make many different g11 prototypes, including a rifle, a light machine gun, and a pistol. the g11 project was finally cancelled after communism collapsed; with no soviet threat, the g11 was deemed unnecessary and the funding for it disappeared .
the national defense industry association has released the powerpoint presentations from 2016 armament systems forum, including kori phillips’ update on the cased telescoped small arms systems (ctsas) program, which is the successor to the well - known lightweight small arms technologies program (lsat). of special note in the presentation is the program’s decision to explore (and, to an extent, promote) the 6. 5mm caliber as a viable option for ct configuration next - generation ammunition. there is quite a lot that could be discussed about this, but i’d like to focus on two pieces of information given to us by the presentation, those being the effective ranges and the weight cited for the 6. 5mm ct ammunition, shown by the slides below :
casless ammunition weapons have become an element in sci - fi works when a author wishes to keep the bullet, but needs to make them futuristic. ushering this trend in science fiction was none other than the film
also, i looked at the system weight with 800rds for the lmg, and still came up with a 12lb lsat lmg. the saw weighs a lot more than 12lbs. more in the 20 - 22lb range, depending on the model (para vs m249e2). i’m seeing all kinds of numbers for the pip saw .
or that caseless weapons high capacity allowing for soldiers to not to suffer frequent magazine changes. one of the big errors about the morita iii, besides the bulk, was the size of the bullet, 10x50mm. wtf? the standard 5. 56 nato round is 45mm in case length, and the heavier 7. 62 nato is 51mm in case length, and the g11 round was 4. 73x33mm. so, why the hell is the morita iii caseless round 50mm in length? bad research most likely .
i did some research and development into caseless propellant in the late 80' s to mid 90' s and has some firearm designs based upon my work. caseless ammunition isn' t dead because it' s a bad idea. it' s just because there are several technical problems that cannot be overcome using conventional propellants. i overcame these problems by changing the nature of how modern smokeless propellants work but the powers that be just didn' t want to invest any more time or effort a new ideas. they just spent enough money for no appreciable gain and wanted to move on. lately i decided to revive my work by adapting the formulations for 3d printing and i hope to have something working within the next year .
everything you just said can be accomplished with 5. 7x28mm, 4. 6x30mm, and a whole host of other options that aren’t expensive apds ammunition that costs at least $ 1 - $ 2 per round (given that 5. 56x45mm m995 ap ammunition that uses the same amount of tungsten carbide costs $ 1. 44 per round and doesn’t have to deal with sabots which generally raise the price further from what i’ve read) .
any conventional cartridge - new or existing - would by then almost certainly use some form of lightweight case to bring down the ammunition weight. the current front - runner is a polymer case body with a metal reinforcement at the base to take the stress of extraction. these have been tried before and failed, but the us firms pcp and mac llc are using new technology which they claim will meet military requirements for heavy use in mgs. weight savings won' t be quite as spectacular as with lsat, but they will still be well worth having .
meanwhile the u. s. army completed development of a new lsat (lightweight small arms technology) 5. 56mm machine - gun in 2012. but this new machine - gun was tested using two types of lightweight ammo and it wasn’t until now that one of those lightweight ammo designs reached the point where it was ready for combat testing. the lsat machine - gun weighs 4. 27 kg (9. 4 pounds) compared to 8 kg for the current m249. moreover, the ammo for the new machine - gun is 37 percent lighter as well. thus the new machine - gun, with 1, 000 rounds of ammo, weighs 13. 9 kg (30. 6 pounds), which is 40 percent less than an m249 with a thousand rounds. moreover, the new ammo takes up twelve percent less space. developers are working on caseless 5. 56mm ammo that will take up 40 percent less space .
in early 2012 eight lsat machine - guns and 100, 000 rounds of the telescoped ammo were delivered for army troops to actually use and passed field tests. at this point it became possible to use the same technology for a new assault rifle. while lsat passed muster with the troops and the realities of use in a combat zone by 2012 most of the fighting was over. the new machine - gun will be much appreciated by infantry operating in afghanistan, where the machine - gunner is often lugging his weapon and all that ammo up steep hills. but back home there was less enthusiasm, and money, for a new generation of assault rifle and light machine - gun .
us army has for several years been funding the lightweight small arms technologies (lsat) development programme, with the aim of halving the weight of the current 5. 56 mm m249 (fn minimi) lmg and its ammunition. the aai corporation (now textron) is the lead contractor for the project and is responsible for the gun design. two different cartridge designs have been tested, shown below in comparison with existing rounds. one is a polymer - cased telescoped round (by ares) now in
spiral 3
- the third generation, the other a caseless round (by atk) based on hk g11 technology. the caseless rounds save 38% in volume, and weigh 6. 3g each compared with c. 12. 2g for the m855 to give overall weight savings of 51% (due to the lighter plastic belt links). the plastic - cased spiral 3 rounds are 40mm long by 11. 4mm in diameter and save just 13% in volume, and weigh 8. 3g. they save 41% in weight in mg belts compared with m855 belts, due to the plastic links which weigh 0. 5g compared with 2. 0g for the steel links. total weight of a 200 - round belt of spiral 3 ammunition is 1. 76kg compared with 2. 84kg for m855 .
in the beginning the army called together some of its small arms manufacturers, gave them some money, and told them to come up with a much lighter 5. 56mm light machine - gun. in effect, replace the m249 with the lsat. “start from scratch” the weapons wonks were told. the only constant were the caliber of the weapon (5. 56mm) and the troop handling of the lsat should be roughly the same as the m249. the goal was to greatly reduce the 17. 41 kg (38. 3 pounds) the m249, and 600 rounds of ammo, weighs. this is what a machine - gun armed soldier usually has to carry into combat .
what was on display was the lsat (lightweight small arms technologies) program, which has been in development by aai and picatinny / jssap for a number of years. this is a program that' s been publicly discussed before, but recently passed some high - volume testing and is getting a lot closer to potential real - world use .
despite the domination of the 5. 56mm nato round (in much of the world) and the kalashnikov family (in the rest), experiments with new assault rifle and ammunition concepts have of course continued, even with the occasional competition being held. some of the experiments have been with conventional ammunition, others have been more exotic. germany produced an interesting - looking 6. 5x43 round in the early 1960s, but only for ballistic testing .
the lsat lmg itself is reported to have recoil that is
almost non - existent
, and a single - shot capability. both characteristics, if true, would be extremely favorable for its use as an individual weapon and not just as a traditional mg. the low - recoil characteristic would be promising for performance when upscaling to larger calibers .
no worries. i' m very impressed with the progress the lsat / ctsas program has made, but worried that it might go too far, and the end - user will end up with a whizz - bang undercooked product, or end up losing the legitimate gains of the program as part of a larger overreaction to it' s detriments .
up until the 2010 release of call of duty: black ops, the g11 was widely unknown by the general public, especially by the newer generations. of course, it' s appearance in black ops is completely out of context with the historical framework of the game and the game gun model is too small. in some ways, because of black ops, the story of the g11 now has a happy ending of sorts, this caseless rifle is fighting across live, popping caseless rounds for hit markers, and making final kill - cams .
yes, you are correct. the common usage of the term
sabot
is used for tank ammunition. during the research phase of this blogpost, i came across the usage of the term
sabot
for the projectile that was encased in the propellant. most of the usages of sabot in that way came from german records on the development of the h & k g11 ammunition. after your comment, i decided that i will not use the term sabot in that manner .
undertake by three companies united under the ghgs umbrella: heckler & koch would be building the gun itself, while dynamit nobel worked on the caseless ammo, and hensoldt / wetzlar constructed the 1x optical sight. given the high rate of fire coupled with caseless ammo, h & k had their work cut out for them, to solve this issue, the g11' s rotary breech rotate the square - shaped ammunition 90 degree to the correct position for firing from the stick magazine, similar to the fn p90. the magazine itself, extended from the barrel, all the way to the action that was in the rear of the weapon, making the magazine nearly the same length has the g11 rifle itself! the length of the magazine, and how soldier would carry them on the battlefield was one of the early concerns from the german army .
the g11 pdw and it' s cutdown round were not entire killed after 1990. some sources have connected h & k' s current pdw, the mp7 and it' s specialized 4. 6x30mm hv round has being descended from the g11 pdw. could have the mp7 be a window into what the g11 pdw would have been like if approved and fully funded? included these known variants, i turned up several mentions of a caseless 25mm auto - cannon round for ifv / apc vehicles. along sniper variant that would have used specially formulated caseless propellant and possibly even a special sabot size .
more recently, small - calibre high - velocity pdw ammunition has emerged (described in more detail in this article). the fn 5. 7x28 has achieved some sales, in both the five - seven pistol and the p90 smg, as has the rival hk 4. 6x30 in the mp7. however, despite their improved range performance, these cartridges only develop around 500 joules so don' t qualify as assault rifle ammunition. the chinese 5. 8x21 dap - 92 is even less powerful .
sad thing is, we always feel burned by the last war we fought and in the name of continuous improvement seek for radical changes. the next war will be urban and our soldiers will be wondering “why do we need this 6. 5 caseless stuff? ? give me a 9mm sub - gun” .
grammar was never my strong suite, however research was, and i' m very glad you enjoyed the blogpost. caseless ammo need a complete a resource on the internet, and that has been the mission of fws from day one... being a resource for writers of military sci - fi .
now, i do not have a hand in laser designators, water canteens, gps systems, body armor, and other pieces of the soldier’s kit, but i do comment on small arms and their ammunition, which are a significant part of that kit .
caseless rounds have an advantage when zero residual presence is required during black operations, like specops units operating in iran and pakistan. normally, these units would be using indigenous firearms, like the ak - 47 to lessen their presence. caseless weapons would offer these black ops missions the ability to use the weapons they are familiar with and not leave any tell - tale brass. most have said that caseless rounds are more environmental friendly, decreasing the need for mining and brass rusting in the field. it as also been said that by ditching the cartridge, that the g11 would require less cleaning than a traditional assault rifle and no need for lefty or righty models. speaking of the g11, it' s unique tri - burst of 4. 73mm rounds and not needing to eject spent brass, made the weapon fire at 2, 200 rpm that was more controlled, allowing more center - mass hits to defend body armor .
the closest to adoption of all of the exotics was the caseless cartridge, in the form of the heckler & koch g11 rifle. it was actually about to be adopted by the german army to replace the 7. 62mm g3 (germany never having adopted the 5. 56mm nato) when the cold war ended and the berlin wall came down. military re - equipment spending promptly halted. h & k were financially ruined by the cancellation of the g11 and temporarily fell into the hands of royal ordnance, where they earned their keep by sorting out the long - running problems of the british army' s sa - 80 rifle, but that' s another story. in 2002, hk were taken back into german ownership. caseless 5. 56mm rounds had also been experimentally developed around 1970 in the usa, and the austrian firm of voere even managed to sell some commercial caseless rifles in various calibres but these are no longer offered.
lsat caseless ammunition is caseless ammunition produced as part of the u.s. army ’s lightweight small arms technologies ( lsat ) program . although less advanced in development than the other ammunition component of the program , the caseless round has already produced significant results . having replicated dynamit nobel 's acr ammunition , the hitp ( high ignition temperature propellant , which is hexogen/octogen-based to decrease heat sensitivity ) ammunition was modified to a 5.56 mm round . tests proved the ammunition 's usability , and development of the weapon was advanced using knowledge gained from the cased version . 
lsat caseless ammunition is caseless ammunition produced as part of the u.s. army ’s lightweight small arms technologies (lsat) program. although less advanced in development than the other ammunition component of the program, the caseless round has already produced significant results. having replicated dynamit nobel's acr ammunition, the hitp (high ignition temperature propellant, which is hexogen/octogen-based to decrease heat sensitivity) ammunition was modified to a 5.56 mm round. tests proved the ammunition's usability, and development of the weapon was advanced using knowledge gained from the cased version.
lsat caseless ammunition is caseless ammunition produced as part of the u.s. army ’s lightweight small arms technologies (lsat) program. although less advanced in development than the other ammunition component of the program, the caseless round has already produced significant results. having replicated dynamit nobel's acr ammunition, the hitp (high ignition temperature propellant, which is hexogen/octogen-based to decrease heat sensitivity) ammunition was modified to a 5.56 mm round. tests proved the ammunition's usability, and development of the weapon was advanced using knowledge gained from the cased version.