NGSW: Thoughts on Cased Telescoped ammo

[simonrichter]

Hi Folks,

since news about the NGSW project are scarce and more or less reiterate the same well-known facts over and over again, maybe someone here wants to share some thoughts... The most ambitious of the three finalists appears to be the Textron entry with the Cased Telescoped concept. While the idea is clise to being hyped in some blogs and forums, there are still some issues I see there that have never been addressed:

1.) System complexity: Isn't a lifting chamber system much more complicate and thus potentially prone to malfunction?

2.) Rate of fire: I just can't imagine that the complicate process can achieve the same reloading speed the more conservative systems can achieve...

3.) Capacity: While the weight savings are significant, the rounds appear to be much fatter, so I doubt a mag of equal size would have the same capacity as with standard ammo.

4.) Reloading: Not an issue fir the military, I reckon, but wouldn't that be a big obstacle for civil adoption?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

[stagpanther]

American tax dollars at work.

[Pathfinder45]

Pardon my ignorance, but, what does NGSW stand for? I don't mind the use of acronyms as long as they are spelled out on first mention... I suppose this really does have something to do with THE ART OF THE RIFLE GENERAL category, but in my ignorance, it doesn't seem so. A link to an article would have been helpful....

[mikejonestkd]

Pathfinder45, I suggest you make some popcorn before you read the thread..
https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=602725

[simonrichter]

sorry: Next Generation Squad Weapon, including a move to 6.8 / .277 with different variants on the test (hybrid, poly cased, cased telescoped)

[Pathfinder45]

Thank you for the clarification. Y'all have fun, now....

[Shadow9mm]

My thoughts, as a shooter and a reloader, after googling to refresh my memory on the current concept. Dead On Arrival.

I had several things come to mind after looking at it.

1 doing it in this manner creates an exceptionally long jump for the bullet to get to the lands, which could significantly impede accuracy. that said it is not entirely dissimilar to a revolver in that it has its own cylinder, cylinder throat and jump to the barrel.

2 It significantly reduces powder capacity and thus performance unless they have some super secret powder they have created. or the case gets a lot longer or wider. wider impedes magazine capacity, I would suspect longer, but they all look shorter. No idea.

3. The technology for polymer cases is much closer than in the past, but no there yet. Polymers become to brittle in the cold. too soft in the heat. They degrade over time. they are moisture permeable. Some of these problems have been solved, however but never together to my knowledge.

4. there is no "front towards enemy" built in. Its a simple fix, dash of paint, but having the bullet hanging out one end tells you which way it goes. If its round with a minimal taper and looks like a cylinder it would be easy to try to put it in backwards.

5 magazines might be an issue. If they make them straight due to the even ammunition shape, it could be easy to try to insert the magazine upside down AND backwards. With curved magazines upside down is possible, but backwards much less so.

6 feeding problems. the very pointy tapered shapes of modern bullets allows them to feed quickly and easily. Shotguns also have a very blunt nose. meaning they have to travel farther, taking more time, to be lined up to feed in the chamber lowing the possible cyclic rate of the weapons. Seeing as it is intended to be a military weapon for machine guns this could be an issue.

7 nato standardization. While the US mignt be willing to try and invest, will NATO want a new standardized cartridge for compatibility? Can they afford it, the countries I mean, new weapons, new ammo, cutting edge technology?

8. Not to sound like a hippie, but polymers are generally oil based. It comes from a non renewable source and it is unknown if it is recycleable at this point. Brass is easily reloaded, or recycled and re-used.

These are just my thoughts. Given a lot of political pressure, and large quantities of money being thrown at it it many of these problems could be resolved and it could be forced. However I do not see it going forward at this juncture. DOA.

[simonrichter]

sorry to warm this up again, and it's maybe just a rumor - but does anybody know more about Textron dropping out of the NGSW competition?

[Jim Watson]

No, but I just today saw that True Velocity has "acquired" Lone Star Future Weapons which had recently taken over the technical data package from General Dynamics.

This is not a good sign to me, not having heard anything about True Velocity other than plastic ammo or anything about Lone Star at all, I wonder if they have the capability to fill a large government order no matter how fine their guns.

[simonrichter]

Indeed, how a "startup-like" company like TV which is completely new to gun manufacturing could meet the same operational standards as a company like SIG Sauer exceeds my imagination...

[Jim Watson]

Gendye has a multitude of defense plants and contracts.
Does getting out of the CT project mean that they Know Something?

[simonrichter]

that was exactly my thought, there must be a rationale behind getting rid of the project... Yet, the rumor says that on the other hand Textron didn't just trade its place in the competition with a subcompany like General Dynamics did, but completely dropped out of the bid.

[ed308]

Textron probably dropped out because they have no chance to be selected. Not a viable option at this point in time, just like the last time they consider it.

[rickyrick]

Seems that it would add potential failure points by having a more complex cartridge.

But there is a big reason why I’m not a firearms engineer; I’m not knowledgeable in the topic.

As a lifelong technician I’ve learned, more things = more things to fail.