My Vision For America

[Vuk]

What's with all the Marine Corps love any way? They're overrated as all hell. Make for awful Tankers, too.

What Marine Corps love? The Marine Corps is an elite branch of the military. They do what Army grunts cannot do, as well as what they can do, and they do it better.
They are much better disciplined, have higher fitness, marksmanship, etc. standards, and are indoctrinated with an attitude much better suited to a fighter. They focus less on avoiding risk and injury than the Army, and more on completing an objective, solving a problem, and killing their enemies.
Are they Navy Seals? No. Are they mythical Spartans? No. Are they Gods on earth? No.
They are, rather what the Army should be, but with a specialization in amphibious assault.
My dad was a Marine and a lot of my friends are Marines, so yeah, I have a bias, but so do most people. That does not mean that I am incapable of looking at things in a fairly objective manner.

[Major Robert Dump]

What Marine Corps love? The Marine Corps is an elite branch of the military. They do what Army grunts cannot do, as well as what they can do, and they do it better.
They are much better disciplined, have higher fitness, marksmanship, etc. standards, and are indoctrinated with an attitude much better suited to a fighter. They focus less on avoiding risk and injury than the Army, and more on completing an objective, solving a problem, and killing their enemies.
Are they Navy Seals? No. Are they mythical Spartans? No. Are they Gods on earth? No.
They are, rather what the Army should be, but with a specialization in amphibious assault.
My dad was a Marine and a lot of my friends are Marines, so yeah, I have a bias, but so do most people. That does not mean that I am incapable of looking at things in a fairly objective manner.

I love the marines, too, but Last I checked, the Army wasn't using Marine logicitcal hubs, the air force wasn't using marine transit centers and the navy wasnt floating around on marine corps destroyers. Comparing marines to army is like comparing apples to oranges. both have their uses, both operate independently of one another. Both have good ideas that thje other side could use. But the Marines are incapable of fighting a war on their own because of the very fact that they are specialized and small in number.

[Vuk]

I love the marines, too, but Last I checked, the Army wasn't using Marine logistical hubs, the air force wasn't using marine transit centers and the navy wasn't floating around on marine corps destroyers. Comparing marines to army is like comparing apples to oranges. both have their uses, both operate independently of one another. Both have good ideas that the other side could use. But the Marines are incapable of fighting a war on their own because of the very fact that they are specialized and small in number.

True, but the Marines and parts of the Army also do a lot of the same things and fill a lot of the same combat roles, do they not? I am not saying that the Marines should replace the Army or the Navy or the Air Force, but simply that I think the Army would greatly benefit from their infantry adopting the higher standards of Marine Corps infantry.

[Vuk]

What higher standard!? They have snazzier uniforms and movie directors love them. That's it. Nothing special. They're just the Navy's alternative to the Army. And there's really not very many of them.. wherever Marines have gone praised, many more Army troops doing the same thing go unnoticed. But that is a topic for another thread.



I suppose that's why I don't have the blue cord. Me tanker. Me need biggest rock possible to smash coconut.

What higher standards? How about the fact that Army marksmanship standards require you to be able to accurately engage targets with your rifle at 300 m, whereas Marines require you to be able to have greater accuracy at 500 m. That is a significant difference.
EDIT: And the targets Marines need to hit are actually smaller as well.

[Vuk]

Oh, lord..really?

In the Army, your expertise is limited only by your enthusiasm and the availability of open school slots. The individual infantryman in the US Army has a colorful collection of combat skills that most Marines could only dream of.

The Marines have led the way in some fields, because of their remarkable ability to adapt to bad funding and not enough personnel. But it is always the Army that breaks new ground. And you haven't seen the definition of "Poor Maintenance" until you've seen a Marine Tank Platoon.

The Army definitely has its advantages over the Marines, but when it comes to individual riflemen, the Marines are unmatched by all but Special Forces.

Here is an article you may find interesting.

The Department of Defense recently conducted a capabilities-based assessment (CBA) to establish the combat effectiveness requirements for rifle marksmanship. The standards for target engagement were defined in terms of “probability of incapacitation given a shot,” “range,” and “time.”3 Given that the specified target surface areas on the Marine Corps course are considerably smaller, hits recorded by Marine recruits should represent incapacitating hits. For the task “Engage Threat Personnel With Small Arms Fire, From 201 to 500m [Meters],” the requirement established was greater than or equal to 50 percent probability of incapacitation per shot. Marine recruits achieved 62.86 percent incapacitating hits from 200 to 500 yards, all unsupported and with iron sights. The CBA further determined that “[U.S. Army soldiers] lack the ability to achieve desired accuracy and incapacitating effects against personnel targets at ranges from 0 to 500m.” Based on postcombat surveys, 10 percent of the cumulative distribution of personnel targets engaged across all types of terrain are at ranges of 400m or greater. In Afghanistan there have been units that have completed very kinetic deployments whose direct fire engagements were all at distances of 500m or greater. The Marine Corps is the only Service that conducts marksmanship training beyond 300m for all personnel.

Source
The fact that 10% of enemies engaged are engaged at ranges of 400m or greater I think is a pretty strong argument for using the .308 over the 5.56. Also, the 5.56 is affected a lot by wind, which can significantly reduce accuracy even at medium distances.

[Vuk]

What a shame the actual combat data has been the opposite? I'm going to bed now, but don't worry Vuk.. every Soldier has an itch that can only be satisfied by proving why Marines aren't as good, and I'm no exception! Just need some sleep first.

lol, ok. I too got to get the heck of my computer tonight. :P (I gotta stay up all night and read 340 pages for an exam tomorrow morning. :P)
I'll try to respond to whatever you and MRD write in the following days, but please understand that this is the time of the semester when everything is coming due, and I am way behind (on account of missing four weeks at the beginning of the semester, and being seriously hampered by an injury, related therapy, and medication :P) on everything. lol

[PanzerJaeger]

Money had nothing to do with the shift to the 556. In fact, the concern over ammunition expenditure (a small part of which involved cost) was one of the main reasons why the US stubbornly held on to the 308 for as long as it did, despite the advancement in military thinking that led to the assault rifle concept.

Money did have something to do with it. They wanted to give the average infantryman an automatic weapon, and they deemed that an automatic .308 would be too expensive. It was flawed thinking from the beginning. The realized that we suffered the most casualties when faced with the largest volume of fire, and that the larger volume of fire we sent downrange, the more kills we inflicted. A lot of this had to do with the fact that our soldiers were very poorly trained, and often did not aim or could not aim fast enough. It also had to do with the fact that they were being faced with a type of warfare they were not trained for (CQ battle). Bother are not problems of the gun, but of their training. Rather than changing and improving their training, our brilliant military decided to change the guns they used.

No, they realized from experience with the M14 that the 308 was not suitable for automatic fire from a battle rifle (read: uncontrollable). Further, ammunition capacity, both in what the average soldier could carry and what the standard box magazine could reliably hold (20 rounds versus 30+ for 5.56) severely limited the suppressive capability of the .308 battle rifles. The cost savings realized from moving from 308 to 556 were most likely minimal at best, and probably did not manifest at all considering more 556 is carried than 308. I have never heard that this was a major factor in the decision to switch.

Further, I am not sure what kind of training would overcome the deficiencies of the M14 platform in close quarters combat. Compared to an AR, less ammunition is carried by the soldier, less ammunition is available between mag changes, ergonomics are slow and outdated (specifically mag changes), it is hard to keep multiple shots on target, and it is heavier and more unwieldy.

And in fact, short barreled ARs have effectively replaced sub-machine guns. Agencies are dumping their MP-5s right and left in favor of them. If we are going to use the M14 for comparison, it was meant to replace four different weapons systems (main battle rifle, second-line carbine, sub-machine gun, and light machine gun) and was deemed a failure at each – even in replacing the Garand.

The closer you are in combat, the less time to react, and therefore the more important to engage and neutralize an opponent in the smallest amount of time possible to move onto the second one before he shoots you. As such, the large calibers of sub-machine guns make them much more effective for their jobs. Whether or not the M14 did well in replacing four different weapon systems, it still remains an excellent battle rifle (even if its auto fire is a joke).

But that is the problem. It was and is not an excellent battle rifle. Not only was it found to be inferior to the AR platform, it was deemed 'completely inferior' to the Garand it replaced by the comptroller of the Department of Defense.

This is, quite frankly, BS – oft-repeated BS, but BS all the same. The much maligned 556 is actually a pretty amazing round. It inflicts wounds many, many times more severe than the .308 if the bullet fragments as designed and inflicts essentially the same wound severity if it does not. The military has tested the ‘knock down’ claims repeatedly and found them to be more perception than reality.

Let me ask you, why do hunters use 30-06 and .308 more than .223? It is basic physics PJ, the .308 has far greater KE than the .223. Look at the equation for KE: {KE = ½ mv2}
The most important factor here is speed (or to be more technical, velocity, as it has direction). The .223 round and .308 round have a nearly identical velocity. The second most important factor is mass, which the .308 has considerably more of. This results in the .308 having considerably more KE than the .223, resulting in a much larger temporary cavity (which modern ballistics test have determined is almost if not more important that the permanent cavity of many rounds, as the stretching of tissues and displacement of bone and connective tissues causes greatly increased bleeding as well as structural damage that can further hinder one's combat abilities. Someone can sustain a fairly small permanent cavity that will not kill them, never mind take them out of combat, but still die from bleeding caused by rupture organs and damage tissue resulting from the temporary cavity.)
To compare, a 69 grain .223 (the heaviest I know of) has 1,807 J out of the muzzle, while a 150 grain .308 (the lightest I know of) produces 3,590 J of KE.
It is pretty hard to argue with the facts PJ.

A) Plenty of hunters use .223. Also, the reasons hunters choose the types of ammunition that they do often has far more to do with tradition and perception than an accurate understanding of ballistics.

B) Your understanding of the ballistics involved is not accurate, specifically in regards to velocity and fragmentation. If you can find this article at your local library or get it transferred, it is worth the read. From the abstract:

'The wounding effects of 5.56 and 7.62 mm calibre bullets, hitting on soft tissues of 130 dogs at various velocities ranging from 513 to 933 m/s have been studied. The injury caused by 5.56 mm bullet was more severe than that caused by 7.62 mm bullet. This is due to the difference in ballistic behavior between the two types of bullets. The wound caused by 5.56 mm bullet was characterized by a trumpet-shaped channel with large defect. The skin around the exit was torn away and its shape was irregular, which, however, occurred only when the tumbling and the breaking of the bullet existed. High-speed X-ray photograph demonstrated that in 5.56 mm bullet group, temporary cavity was much larger and lasted longer. Splashing phenomenon could be seen at the exist and the fragments of the bullet could be found somewhere. Based on the comparisons the amount of absorbed energy, the volume of wound channel, the frequency of developing complex wound and the ratio of dimensions between the entrance and the exit, it proved that the injury caused by 5.56 mm bullet was several to dozens of time as severe as that caused by 7.62 mm bullet. Nevertheless, wound extents by both types of bullet would be similar if the inflicting bullet did not show any significant tumbling, breaking or deformation.'

C) As I mentioned before, special forces have been using a 77 grain 556 with great effect. Now you know of a heavier 556.

All that being said, the standard M855 556 round that US forces went into Afghanistan and Iraq with in the early part of the last decade was sub optimal. (The US should have stuck with the M193, which was considered so devastating as to be inhumane.) The M855 was designed for maximum penetrative power against perceived Eastern Block enemies utilizing armor. Ironically, the enemies America is actually facing are so lightly dressed and emaciated that the M855 often passes right through them without fragmenting. That problem has been addressed in the Mk262 round in use with various special forces units which is heavier and fragments more violently than the M855. It just needs to be pushed to the normal combat units.

Just as better rounds for different purposes are developed for the .223, the same thing can be done for the .308 (which in its current form is not as ideal as it could be for armoured troops.). Proving that one type of .223 is better than another though does nothing to prove that it is not inferior for our purposes to the .308.

I have already done that. You have only discussed 'knock down power', seemingly ceding every other advantage I noted in favor of the 556. As I have pointed out, 'knock down power' is deceptive. Fragmentation makes the 556 more destructive at normal combat ranges. New 308 rounds developed to fragment can bring that round up to 556 levels (TSWG 155 OTW), but you are still left with a bigger, heavier round and all the associated issues that come along with it.

In any event, a real or perceived issue with an ammunition type does little to challenge the assault rifle concept. There are many different mid-sized assault rifle rounds, from the venerable 7.63X39 AK round to newer rounds developed specifically to improve upon the 556 such as the 6.5 Grendal, 6.8, and .300 Blackout.

But I disagree with you there. Rather than giving ill-disciplined troops a high-recoil, inaccurate automatic weapon and telling them to spray as many rounds downrange as possible, we should be training our soldiers to aim, and to take out their opponents with single or double controlled shots from a powerful, accurate, reliable semi-auto weapon. The truth is that you can take out more targets, faster, and using less ammunition by quick, careful aiming with a semi auto than you can by spraying or using three-shot-burst (Heaven save us all) from an auto weapon.

You have constructed a false choice. You can make very accurate, controlled shots with the AR platform. The AR is inherently more more accurate than the M14 platform. That's the beauty of the system, and one of the major reasons it is superior to the M14. Not only is it more accurate than the M14, it can also be utilized as a controllable fully automatic.

The idea that you can replace suppression on the battlefield with accurate, single shots is very 'Marine' but not at all realistic. The ability to lay down a volume of suppressive fire to allow maneuver is a critical tool in the modern commander's toolbox, and returning to the M14, much less the Garand, would rob him of that.

More BS. You cannot, with any certainty, make claims about the number of rounds it takes to put someone down beyond ‘≥ 1’. The outcome of a bullet strike is dependent on multiple factors including location, velocity, distance, extent of fragmentation, etc.

Yes, it depends on the location, the person, and a lot of other factors. The military however seems to like determining how many shots on average it takes in certain areas to kill someone. There is a reason our troops are trained to put three shots into their enemies. Anything lower and there is a large risk you may not have killed them; anything more and you are wasting time and ammo.

Actually, modern TTPs calls for controlled pairs, not three shots. That has nothing to do with the lethality of the 556, but rather increasing the likelihood of a hit to the vitals.

In any event, a full battle rifle performs worse than an assault rifle in nearly every combat situation. In fact, the only situation in which a full battle rifle excels against an assault rifle is in long range distance shooting – the kind of shooting your average grunt is not capable of anyway. Assault rifles excel (especially over legacy battle rifles like the M14) in weight, ammunition capacity (both in the total amount carried and the amount per mag), versatility, modularity, rate of controlled, accurate fire, volume of fire, suppressive capabilities, automatic fire, and a dozen other factors big and small. Give your military buddies an M14 to lug around on patrol for a few weeks and they will be singing a different tune. It was considered heavy and unweildy when soldiers were not using armor.

Anything over 200 yards a full battle rifle will perform significantly better. If I am not mistaken, our grunts are trained to be able to engage targets up to ~400 yards. Is that not right?

No, that is not accurate. The M4's effective range is 500 meters and the M16's is 550. The M14's with battle sights is 460 meters. All are point-target accurate to their effective ranges.

Where the M14 and 308 shine are at distances beyond those ranges. The M14 with modern optics and its heavier bullet can reach out and touch targets at 850 meters reliably. That is why it was brought back as a stopgap designated rifleman weapon.

That is all well and good in that limited role. However, line infantrymen cannot be equipped with long range optics (as CQB would be impossible) and they do not have the necessary skills to use them even if it was possible. Not every soldier can be a sniper, despite the Marine Corps ideology. Thus, the M14 with normal battle optics (red dots) is no more accurate than the AR system.

An M4 loses a lot of accuracy past 200 yards, and its auto fire (the main reason behind developing an assault rifle in the beginning) cannot be practically used at that range, as you first shot may hit, but every shot after that will miss.

Fully automatic fire is not meant to score kills, it is meant to suppress.

At close range a rifle with full powered ammunition (such as .308) will result in more sure kills with fewer rounds, and a much greater noise factor in buildings (which will have a much greater psychological impact on your enemies). A modern M14 with a synthetic stock does not weigh significantly more than an M4. Weight is not really a big issue. Also, you would need far fewer rounds when you can take down your enemy with fewer shots (esp at longer ranges where more shots will hit, therefore you will need less). Rate of fire really is not an issue since there are very few situations when automatic fire will be important for a well trained soldier, who would be much better off relying on semi-auto. Suppressing fire is the only thing I can think of, and again, because of the increased noise factor, it would partially make up for that disadvantage. As far as you thinking that they would not want the M14 if they had to use it, a Marine marksman of mine once told me that him and other Marines would fight over who got the M14. They seem to like it a lot.

A) There is no real issue with 556 at close range. At medium, 'normal' ranges, the 556 is superior to the 308. Only at longer ranges does the 308 present advantages.
From the Project Manager Soldier Weapons 'Soldier Weapons Assessment Team Report 6-03' on Iraqi Freedom:

'Lethality:
It is apparent that the close range lethality deficiency of the 5.56mm (M855) is more a
matter of perception rather than fact, but there were some exceptions. The
majority of the soldiers interviewed that voiced or desired “better knock-down power” or
a larger caliber bullet did not have actual close engagements. Those that had close
engagements and applied Close Quarters Battle (CQB) tactics, techniques, and
procedures (TTPs) – controlled pairs in the lethal areas: chest and head and good shot
placement, defeated the target without issue. Most that had to engage a target
repeatedly remarked that they hit the target in non-vital areas such as the extremities.
Some targets were reportedly hit in the chest numerous times, but required at least one
shot to the head to defeat it. No lethality issues were voiced with targets engaged at 200
meters and beyond. It is apparent that with proper shot placement and marksmanship
training, the M855 ammunition is lethal in close and long range. '

B) Weight is a huge issue.

C) Of course your Marine friend wanted an M14. He was a designated marksman. We are talking about battle rifles not sniper systems.

Cold War era legacy battle rifles such as the M14 were a holdover from a time when military thinkers envisioned engagement distances across trenches thousands of meters apart. Then WW2 happened. The Germans demonstrated an evolved understanding of the nature of modern combat first with the StG 44 and the Russians quickly followed post-war with the AK-47. Ironically the US, which fielded some of the most advanced small arms of WW2, failed to learn those lessons and forced its NATO allies, many of which had been working on their own assault rifle concepts, to remain tied to full sized battle rifles. Then Vietnam happened. There was a reason the M16 was rushed into service before all its teething issues were worked out. I strongly encourage you to read up on the early after action reports from units employing the M14 in the early years of Vietnam. American combat units operating with M14s simply could not contend with the volume of fire put out by the AKs employed by the Vietcong and NVA forces. Long range accuracy was not worth much in the jungles of South Vietnam. Hell, read up on the StG 44 in the Battle of Bulge when Garands were freezing shut and in the final years of the war – the merits of the assault rifle concept were understood long before the M14 even came into existence.

First of all, with better trained soldiers, targets would be engaged at much longer distances for at least part of an engagement, and having a rifle capable of it would lend a big advantage to your troops. Let's face it, your whole argument hinges around the fact that since WWII countries have relied on poorly trained conscripts or volunteers looking for a free education. Soldiers in America and most of Europe simply do not know how to aim. The only major military forces I know of that actually aim from what I have seen are the US Marines and the British Army. Many European armies and the US Army seem to be allergic to aiming. Volume of fire means jack-&$%$ if you do not hit and take your enemies out with as few rounds as possible. God is not on the side of the largest battalion (the one that can put out the largest volume of fire), but the one that aims to borrow from Voltaire. Guys with low powered inaccurate automatic weapons cannot beat well trained men who aim and use full-powered semi-auto rifles. The problem was not with the Garand or the M14, but the quality of our troops.

No, my whole argument hinges on real battlefield experiences where terrain is very rarely flat and wide open, where the wind blows, where enemies use cover extensively, where stabilized rests are not easy to come by, and where enemies that can be seen are usually running.

You vastly overestimate the ranges at which effective fire can be brought to bear on an enemy in combat conditions with combat optics. This was one of the lessons learned after WW2 - that the guns and ammunition types had far greater effective ranges than their operators could utilize. This is not a training issue, it is simply the nature of combat. As unbelievable as it sounds, rifle training in Army combat units is fine. There just are not that many occasions when taking pot shots at 500+ meters is the appropriate course of action for non-marksman/sniper type soldiers. Engagements within 500 meters are far, far more common.

Please, for the love of God, do not hunt squirrel with .223. Beyond the fact that there would be nothing left of the animal, employing that round in that capacity presents a serious safety issue.

lol, I have turned a squirrel inside out with an 8 mil once. :P (just had it on me and a squirrel was unlucky enough to be passing by)

Anyway, your conclusion is based on a number of false assumptions, and most of those assumptions are based on the simplistic notion that the bigger size of the 308 must translate into more damage than the smaller 556. That simply is not true. With the 556, the military has a round that delivers far more devastating results in a far smaller package at normal combat distances. This allows them to field a smaller, lighter weapon with more ammunition that also has more controllability, all of which translates into greater combat effectiveness. This has been known since the early ‘60s, when the military determined that an 8 man team with ARs was equivalent in firepower to an 11 man team with M14s while being able to carry twice the ammunition. You need to stop thinking of modern combat in terms of a man versus man samauri style activity. The benefits of a smaller, lighter weapon and more ammunition to the unit far exceed the benefits such a weapons offers to the individual shooter over a traditional battle rifle. They allow more weight to be shifted to other things such as weapons systems (an M4 can easily be humped with, say, a heavy machine gun) or supplies and allow the unit to lay down a far greater volume of fire for a longer period of time - which is critical to the suppress and flank tactics that define modern combat.

I believe that your conclusion is based on false assumptions. Number one being that rather than training our troops better with their battle rifles, the answer is to let them spray more. Also, you seem to completely ignore basic physics. Also, a .308 is much better for material penetration than a .223, which makes it much more useful in a variety of circumstances.

1) I did not say that spraying is superior to training. I said that having the option is better than not. The AR is a superior system because it allows the single shot accuracy of the M14 within average combat distances while also being able to generate much better suppressive fire.
2) I have not ignored basic physics.
3) Eh, not really. I can think of few circumstances where the marginally better barrier penetration would be useful. There are some new rounds that would make a huge difference in, say, stopping suicide car bombers before they reach thier target (6.8) - but the 308 is not one of them.

Sure. The M14 was not even the best of the legacy battle rifles. The FAL and G3 were much more suitable for military use. Hell, even the AR-10 offered a better overall package, not to mention its modularity advantages that have only manifested themselves recently. These days, there are many .308 options far superior to the M14 including the FN SCAR, LMT LM308MWS, HK417, and LWRCI R.E.P.R. I just picked up a R.E.P.R. the other day, and it is a much better weapon system than any of my M14 variants.

As far as I know, none of these rifles are as reliable as the M14 in semi-auto operation. Also, are they not all much more expensive per unit (with the possible exception of the M416)?

They are all just as reliable and each has a longer service life. The ergonomics, modularity, and versatility of each is also superior to the M14.

This is not at all accurate. The Garand did well when it was up against bolt guns. Its limitations were made clear when it faced more modern weapons systems, and the resulting M14 represented an evolutionary dead end. Modern combat units armed with assault rifles are far more combat effective than their counterparts in the '40s.

Sorry PJ, but if I had to take any rifle in existence into combat, it would be a Garand with a synthetic stock, slighty shortened barrel, and be modified to accept detachable magazines.

No need to apologize, I would feel sorry for you!

With all due respect to military personnel everywhere, military service does not impart any particular special knowledge of firearms or the physics involved in different types of ammunition. The same myths, misconceptions, and biases exist in the military as do in the civilian world.

Of course, as is made evident by the fact that different people in the military I have talked to have had very different views on issues. Still though, a lot are very knowledgeable, and they have the advantage of actually having used the guns and seen their effectiveness.

Certainly. My only point in this exchange has been that a lot of thought went into the 556 and the assault rifle concept, particularly the AR. Ironically, the pining for the M14 is largely a result of the M16 being rushed into service before it was ready due to the M14 failing in Vietnam and souring a whole generation's opinion of it.

That being said, the AR and 556 is certainly not a perfect system. The gun has recently been failing reliability tests against new (piston driven) competitors and the cartridge has been eclipsed in performance by new designs. What is interesting in relation to this conversation is that none of those new guns or rounds are a return to the legacy battle rifle formula. They are all improved assault rifles.

Also, you are aware that cutting the barrel on a .308 has dramatic negative impacts on the round's effectiveness downrange, right?

Of course, as it would be used primarily (if not completely) in semi-auto operation, the increased recoil would have minimal effect (and could be offset by a slip weight at the end of the barrel. It would not be as accurate at long ranges, but would still be accurate enough to hit reliably at any range a grunt is likely to be engaging a target and beyond. Its take-down power would still far exceed a .223.

Well we have already dealt with 'take-down' power, so by cutting its maximum range, you are taking away the only real advantage the 308 has.

FYI to all involved we have a new 5.56 round. I won't be discussing this, do your own research.

The M855A1 EPR?