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LifestreamVia FARK …
The U.S. Army’s pursuit of a weapon to replace the aging M-16 rifle is still on track despite a failed congressional attempt to pump nearly $26 million into the federal budget to manufacture the weapon in 2005.Military and legislative officials said development and testing of the new XM8 assault rifle will run through December. It is the second round of tests for the highly anticipated rifle, with evaluations taking place in the hot, gritty desert near Yuma, Ariz., the tropical jungles of Panama, and the arctic climate of Alaska, said Col. Mike Smith, who oversees the XM8 testing program at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.
Even if this is by no means final it looks like the US armed forces will soon be equipped with a German (Heckler & Koch) assault rifle. I guess most people can appreciate the irony in that. Call it H&K USA if you will but that doesn’t change anything. Except for the fact maybe that this product, should it ever hit mass production, will probably be produced solely for the US armed forces. It is also ironic that this design is built upon the H&K G36, which H&K tried to sell to the US more than a decade ago. That however never worked out, since that deal would have meant buying the product directly from a German source. As can be expected, some people, senators et. al. are now annoyed that they will be paying for a cosmetically overhauled G36.
This also means that the old contender, XM-29 SABR / OICW (also by H&K) is out of the picture, at least for bulk usage. Apparently the user base was physically too weak to handle the design. The XM8 on the other hand, with its polymer casing, is exceedingly lightweight. And the really good news for all assault weapon fashion buffs is that the weapon as well as shell is highly modular in design. Almost like with mobile phone shells.
Source: Army zeroing in on new rifle
See also: H&K XM8
See also: XM8 Lightweight Assault Rifle
Its Beautiful!
XM8 could benefit from the Rifle Ballstock (http://www.darkhorse-acre.com)
its a work of art
I LOVE this gun!
Dont like the fact that the US millitary is arming it’s self with a foreign made weapon. Not sure if this idea is sound economically or politically.
:grin::grin::grin:This wil be a big improvement over the conventional M-4 M-16 rifles that you have to clean after shooting a few hundred rounds, plus the jam up often the XM-8 doe not need to be cleaned till after 20,000 rounds have been fired. The XM-8 is the best of the best when it comes to weapons of the near future. This is a weapon that can be customized in about 2 minutes into 4 different varients. I LOVE THIS GUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:grin::cool::cool::grin:
[z]]this idea sucks i dont want the m16s or m4 to change.
why do you think they havent changed the basic layout of it for forty
or more years
A great gun! Heckler & Kock always designs great guns! They are very reliable and the technology is state of the art.
But I don’t understand why U.S. armed forces wants to purchase a rifle which is more expansive than the G36, but has no advatages. The G36 has all features of the XM8, except the extractable stock (the G36 has a foldable stock). The G36 can be converted into 4 variants within 5 minutes, too.
In my opinion the new design looks like a Star Wars gun. So, U.S. armed forces pays a lot of money for freaky design.:roll: