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US Military To Develop Star Wars-Style Hoverbikes With British company
New submitter amalcolm writes: The U.S. military may soon be zooming around on Star Wars-style hoverbikes. U.K. based Malloy Aeronautics has joined forces with Survice Engineering to develop the vehicles for the Department of Defense. "The Department of Defense is interested in Hoverbike technology because it can support multiple roles," said Mark Butkiewicz, who works for Survice. "It can transport troops over difficult terrain and when it's not used in that purpose it can also be used to transport logistics, supplies, and it can operate in both a manned and unmanned asset."
I think he means to refer to the caliber of round, not the rifle itself. The standard 5.56 NATO round is terrible at stopping targets long range, and they lack the power to break thin cover and in some cases can't even puncture vehicle windows. The AK fires a much heavier loaded 7.62 (i think) almost equivalent to a .308 sniper round.
No. The Russians abandoned the 7.62 in the 1970s and went for a smaller higher speed round just like the M-16. They then began selling / giving away all their unwanted 7.62 AK's and ammo, it was all considered tier 2 equipment. OK for revolutionaries in Africa and South America but Soviet soldiers would get better.
.308 is not necessarily a sniper round. It is a standard round as well, in particular 7.62 NATO. See US M-14.
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In college we read a book that traced the development of two weapons, the M-16 rifle and the F-16 fighter, to gain insight into Pentagon procurement and development. Here is what I recall.
The Army's own research shows that long range shots are rare. WW2 soldiers with the venerable M-1 Garand rarely fired at anything beyond 100 yards despite the Garand having excellent long range accuracy and knock down power. The Army research found that soldiers with the Browning Automatic Rifle were more likely to fire at iffy targets. Hence the move to large capacity detachable magazines in a standard issue rifle. The M-14 being the first for the US however if was found to be effectively uncontrollable on full auto. US Special Forces troops that tested a civilian designed rifle, the Armalite AR-15, found it to be much more suitable. The smaller round in fact deadlier, it went unstable when it hit people and tumbled, doing more damage. M-14 users is SF thought the AR-15 superior. More effective at actual combat distances and one could carry multiple times the amount of ammo for the same weight.
The Army, against their will, "militarized" the Armalite AR-15 into the M-16. The M-14 was their baby, designed in house, they resented it being replaced by an outsider's rifle. Many, including Congressman who investigated the Army and the M-16 eventually, were of the opinion that the Army tried to sabotage the M-16 in this redesign/militarization process. Those of a more generous opinion merely claim that the Army was stupid. Various changes were made to improve accuracy but these reduced reliability and reduced lethality, less likely that a bullet would tumble when it hit a person. Worst of all they change the powder used in the ammunition from a clean burning powder to an older design that left behind more residue. Such residue is a minor issue for a M-1 or M-14 which use pistons near the muzzle and operating rods reaching back to the bolt to drive the mechanisms but in the AR-15/M-16 a tube carries high pressure gas behind the bullet from near the muzzle directly back to the bolt. The working mechanisms of the rifle get fouled by this residue and jamming becomes quite likely.
Unfortunately M-16s sent to Vietnam were of this design and their ammunition used such powder. Compound the preceding by failing to tell troops how important it was to clean the internal mechanism and not sending them much of the newer Cleaner/Lubricant/Preservative that Armalite had expected to be used. It was the poor reliability of these M-16s that made troops regret converting from the M-14, not the long range stopping power notion you suggest. Special Forces carrying the older Armalite AR-15s had no such problems and had a very different impression of the design and the new ammunition. Later redesigns of the M-16 and better powder formulations corrected these problems. However US troops died due to the Army's negligence and a Congressional investigation resulted. The unfairly stains the Armalite design and 5.56 ammunition.
Note that one of the preferred weapons of US Special Forces today is an M-16 "redesign" where the gas tube is replaced by a more traditional piston and operating rod, keeping the inner workings cleaner like an M-14. The ammunition is still 5.56mm. Yes, SF also used M-14s but they are a more specialized weapon for special circumstances.
Interesting, what do you remember about the F-16?
"Multi-mission" was the bright idea of the day, aircraft that could be both fighters and close air support aircraft (tactical bombers). After all fighters are just missile launch platforms, not the "dogfighters" of days gone by. Note the early F-4 Phantom versions had no gun.
... things did not go as far as with the Army. The Air Force did not turn the F-16 into an unreliable mess. It was just heavier and more complicated, cost more, and required more maintenance (fewer sorties).
The F-16 started out as a design by "rogue" elements of the Pentagon, Air Force and industry. They were going to build a pure fighter, a dogfighter, something with a gun for extremely close range combat (what pilots referred to as "knife fights" (obviously an illusion to distance not weapon). Yes it would be able to drop bombs but no features would be included that assisted bomb dropping at the expense of dog fighting fighter performance. There was also a strong tendency to keep it simple. Not an aversion to technology per se, the F-16 would be the first fly-by-wire aircraft in the Air Force, but keeping in mind that technology must offer a strong benefit to performance and/or the mission and not overly complicate the design or overly drive up the cost. Cost was another important factor, as was maintainability (simplicity).
The underlying motivation was that the fighter and close air support missions were mutually exclusive. Aircraft characteristics that improved performance on one side generally reduced performance on the other. One of various characteristics was armor. Armor was good in the close air support role, it improved survivability. Armor added a lot of weight and degraded the performance of a fighter. Fighters needed minimal armor, unlike a close air support aircraft that needed robust armor. Air Force data from WW2 and Korea showed that high performance fighters were extremely vulnerable in close air support roles. Probably the greatest fighter of its day, the P-51 Mustang, suffered heavy casualties during WW2 ground attack mission and even more horrible casualties in Korea due to more advanced anti-aircraft guns. Note that old propeller driven aircraft like the P-51 were used because jets were just too fast, and greater speed meant they could only attack enemy troops far from friendly troops. Slower aircraft could attack the enemy at far closer distances. What is one of the main characteristics of a fighter, going fast. They generally don't perform so well at slow speeds. Note the F-14 and F-111 tried to address this with movable wings.
An important concept was that it was not how many aircraft one had in inventory that was important. Rather it was how many sorties (missions) per day those aircraft could fly. Cost gave you more aircraft. Simplicity/maintainability gave you more sorties per aircraft per day.
They tried to work under the radar so to speak. Eventually when the word got out and the prototypes flying the Air Force brass rejected the aircraft. They considered it a distraction from the F-15, the culmination of state of the art multi-mission air superiority fighter. But the performance and cost of the F-16 led Congress to virtually force the F-16 on the Air Force. In its day the cost of the F-15 was about as controversial as the cost of the F-22 Raptor today. If the Air Force brass had things their way they would have simply bought more F-15s and let the F-16 be sold to foreign allies.
As the Air Force grudgingly accepted the F-16 they made some design changes. Increased its all-weather capabilities, increased it bombing performance, adding a little more electronics. All reducing its performance as a fighter to a degree. While there is a little deja vu with respect to the M-16 and the Army, forced upon them, redesign reducing performance
The story also repeats itself to a degree with the A-10, another rejection of the multi-mission concept. This time focusing on