The Marines need a new sniper rifle. What should it be?

[OakRidgeStars]

The floor is open for discussion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat ... story.html

[dusterdude]

Seeing how that chinese rifle has the ability to reach out and touch someone the furthest distance,lets get that

[MarcSpaz]

I thought they already signed a contract with Remington and took delivery on over 400 PSR's.

[AlanM]

I thought they already signed a contract with Remington and took delivery on over 400 PSR's.

The way I read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Sniper_Rifle that contract was to supply the US Army, not the Marines.

[MarcSpaz]

That was 2013. I thought there was something this year... like really recent. It may have been on Remington's website.

I've been working for 38 of the last 48 hours and have been poking in here while waiting for servers to work, but haven't had time to research it. I'll have to see what I can find tomorrow (if anything).

[AlanM]

Googling "Remington contract Marines" comes up with late 2014 links to a contract to provide 2000 spares packages for the M40A6 which is a 7.62 NATO firearm.

[MarcSpaz]

Guess Im mistaken. Man... that has been happening too much lately. I must be senility setting in.

[ShotgunBlast]

With all of the money that we spend, why do these guys not have the best available? If those Chinese rifles are currently the best, why are we not getting them or getting US companies to duplicate the technology? To hear that we spend so much money on the military and read that these guys ride into battle on old ass tanks and using inferior weapons completely boggles my mind.

I would imagine that it costs less to buy a new sniper rifle than to replace dead snipers, so let's get these guys the tools they need to do their job.

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[MarcSpaz]

Agreed. You would think after the Sherman tank issue in WWII, they would have gotten it together by now.

[SHMIV]

If we were going by WWII lessons, we'd remember what we did to Japan, and go to war like that. Enter the war on a Monday, be done in time to enjoy an extended weekend.

Instead, it looks like the only thing that we learned was what style of mustache will never be fashionable again.

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[dorminWS]

Did I read somewhere/some time that the Marines don't use the Abrams tank because it is too heavy for them to airlift/not mobile enough for the Marines who must move fast to be first on the battlefield? I think I did, but whether that's just bullsh!t to cover up malfeasance by generals I wouldn't know. NO excuse on the rifles, though. They could be shooting .338 Lapuas for less money. Some heads need to roll.

[grumpyMSG]

An interesting article with several fallacies and a few omissions. The Marines did head into "Desert Shield" with M60A1 tanks equipped with reactive armor tiles. In Vietnam, the were fielding M48 family gasoline burning tanks. It is true that the M60 family is an evolutionary development of the M48 but it has many improvements/changes the biggest ow which are welded steel hulls and turrets versus cast for the older design. When developed they weren't too keen on the M1's gas turbine engine. During "Desert Shield" they actually had several reserve tank companies transition to M1A1s and they were ready to go by the time "Desert Storm" kicked off. The reality is the M60A1s were more than an even match for the Iraqi T72s. They had superior fire control systems and much better trained crews. The M1 was a generation ahead.

'Mention was made of the M4 Sherman. It was a set of compromises that allowed for huge production numbers. The design allowed for the use of an aircraft radial engine, a huge Ford V8, a pair of Detroit Diesels and a creation called the Chrysler multibank engine. It was actually a contemporary to the German Mark IV, not the later Tigers or Panthers. If you compare it to the Mark IV it is a pretty even match. Something else that needs to be mentioned about the Sherman is that according to doctrine of the day, the primary tank killer was supposed to be the tank destroyers, not the Shermans.

As for the actual sniper rifle discussion, here comes the big omission. all branches have a variant of the Barrett .50 BMG "anti-material rifle" available and that would be the big dog on the block if you included it in the discussion. The SEALs were the first to field a .300 Winchester Magnum and the Army's M24 from the start was able to be rebarreled. It had a long action and was chambered in 7.62 NATO. It was after the type classification of the .300 WinMag ammo and the fielding of the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System (7.62 NATO) by Knight's Armament, that the Army solicited for the bigger, better rifle (which could actually be rebuilt on the old receivers). So at this point the Army has 7.62 NATO semi-auto rifles, .300 WinMag bolt action rifles and .50 BMG semi-auto rifles available. The Marines have the Barretts, I am not sure whether they are fielding any of the M110s, but if there are no reliability issues, it is like the Garand versus M1903 discussions of years ago.

As far as Generals/ Acquisitions personnel, no branch of the military escapes Head up @$$ syndrome. Congress had to force MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) on all branches. The Generals wanted to use the funding for HMMWV upgrades and it's eventual replacement. The Army can't figure out whether light or heavy is the way to go on a replacement for the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle and the M1s. They wasted a fortune on the FCS (Future Combat System) and have little to show for it. The Air Force wants to retire the best close air support asset they have (A10s) to pay for a system that continues to be plagued with cost overruns and still doesn't have all of it's software written and tested yet. The Navy is retiring the Perry class frigate and replacing them with the LCS(Littoral Combat Ship). The only problem, the weapons packages aren't ready for them. Newer, shinier ships that for the foreseeable future, are less capable than the ones they replace.