Summary
Small Calibre
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Extract
Assault rifle update.
During the Cold War the focus was on armoured warfare, but today the priority has shifted to infantry operations in urban terrain. The increased importance given to infantrymen has brought about a number of improvement programmes in order to make them more efficient and include them into the networked system through a number of future soldier programmes. While this development is mostly centred on command and control assets, the offensive system still remains the assault rifle.
On examining the various programmes it clearly appears that most base the lethality element on existing rifle models or on derivatives in which engineering is mostly conventional. Replacing current standard ammunition (the world standard being the 5.56 x 45 mm in Nato nations, with some countries still using Soviet 7.62 x 39 or 5.45 x 39 mm ammo) is a no-go issue, as it would entail excessive costs. This does not mean that the 5.56 mm calibre is the optimal solution. In Iraq it is not uncommon to meet American soldiers sporting AK-47 rifles as the 7.62 mm round is widely being considered to be more effective to penetrate both brick walls and foliage. St...See the full content of this document
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