.280brit, why u no catch on?

The .280 didn't catch on because the Americans were insisting on a .30 caliber cartridge. Not too different than the .276 Pedersen.

>>31728406
legitimately ashamed i wrote so much for such a simple answer.

So, whats with the 5.56 then? Why not use something with more punch, did we have some obsession with a .22 caliber projectile too?

>>31728452

If the US had not gone down the 7.62x51mm rout it would have been at a severe disadvantage in small arms for most of the cold war.

.280 British is boring and really not that good as a military round in the modern context.

>a round we're going back to with the 6.8 Remington.

Whose going back to? Isn't that a dead round, who the fuck uses it?

>>31728469
Which brings be to C.

What could Ian see in the .280?

US manufacturing was already set on the .30 projectile and -06 cart case.
The smallest they could shorten the machinery was from 7.62x63mm (.30-06) to 7.62x51mm.
Ideally they could have gone down to 7.62x33-or-39mm to be a close copy the Stg44 or AK, but the machinery wasn't able to do it.
>couldn't affect profits to make an effective round

>>31728452
The US moved to 5.56 after .308 proved to be less than controllable on full auto [which is why pretty much everyone other than the Americans were working on cartridges smaller than that] and they basically had to pick something.

The .222 Remington was a varmint cartridge and Remington offered up a magnum version for military trials. The military went with the 5.56 which was exactly between the .222 and the .222 magnum. I think there were requirements about piercing a steel helmet at X distance or something. It was light and went 3000fps so it won.

As for why they don't use something with more punch, it's basically because they already selected it. The 6mm SAW was a better performer, but they didn't want to adopt a third caliber.

5.56 and .308 stick around because they are essentially "good enough" and all this money has already been spent on small arms systems that utilize them. There is also reluctance to add weight to the soldiers load out. It is what it is.

>>31728484
Theres plenty of idiots i see going on about their 6.8s and 6.5 grendels, being so superior.

>>31728499
This is actually really enlightening, I mean I always knew the correspondence between .308 and 30-06, but that just makes a fuckload of sense.
>>31728502
The 6mm SAW honestly really reminds me of the 5.45x39, which I would pick almost everyday of the week over the 5.56

>>31728509
If you want to hunt deer in an AR-15, 6.8 and Grendel are phenomenal choices. In a lot of ways they are superior.

>>31728488

Idealism.

The .280 was at the time the best offering NATO had that fit the still maturing tactics of Infantry combat. It is, in almoat way, superior to the 7.62x51mm as an infantry cartridge.

However, the .280 lacks something: it is not condusive to modern Infantry rifles.

Individual marksmanship and power of the cartridge does not define Infantry combat. Volume of fire does. And the .280 was below standard of the Soviet 7.62x39mm in terms of its ability to crate a volume of fire. While we can't predict what all of NATOs rifles would have looked like if .280 had Ben adopted (mostly), we can assume they would have Ben at least as heavy as the AKM-and the AKM would have had an advantage in total mass when considering ammunition for a given load, while also having less recoil, which would allow for a superior volume of fire on the individual, squad and so on level of Infantry combat in small arms

The .280 British, I fear, would have stagnated NATO small arms development into good enough and then sent them playing catch up in 1978-1982 when the USSR finally rolled it's first (by our contemporary) modern Infantry caliber out in 5.45x39 or similar, since they had been toying with modern SCHV rounds since 1952.

The problem is most boards on the internet that discuss this are boards of civilians who think of it from civilian application and not military.

Ian is correct in saying .280 was better, but I disagree with his thought that is should have been selected purely because I fear it would result in stagnation and prevent the modern service rifle from coming about until later.

>>31728575
Excellently worded sir.

>>31728648

This is my topic of choice.
It's a really neat history.>>31728648

>>31728575
wasnt 5.45 just a copy of 5.56? would the ussr even bother with it if they hadnt seen how 5.56 performed in vietnam?

>>31728718

Not in the least. 5.45x39mm was certainly inspired by 5.56 in terms of its introduction by 5.56x45mm has roots that are actually younger than 5.45x39mm in the strictest sense; 5.56x45mms start in 1960 while 5.45x39mm starts in 1956, at least in the military sense. They're cases of spontaneous development otherwise with .220 Russian and .222 Remmington.

The release and sudden adoption of 5.45x39mm by the USSR was a response to the USs use of 5.56, but it wasn't like the jump-started it. They had many parallel next-gen cartridge programs going on with everything from a simple 100gr loading of 7.62x39mm to flechettes to proto-OICWs. They finned all the funding and a bunch of engineering teams from those into the most mature; the .220 Russian derived SCHV team at Tulsky Oruzheiny Zavod, or Tula.

>>31728575

To add onto your comment and put this into simple terms,

Larger carts like the .308 and .280 are the choice of civilians because a civilian ground war is going to rely on marksmanship on semi auto at > 400m due to the status of machine guns, the cost of ammo on a civilian budget, and the geography of the US.

The military believes (I don't know, never been in war) that bullet hoses that can act as accurate rifles at < 300m if need be are better for today's battlefields. From what I've seen from vets at the range, most are absolute shit marksmen.

>>31728783

That's more a function of being under fire.

It's easy to make steel ring when there's no incoming fire. The US Army took a whole company of riflemen and had them shoot at normal range under non stressed conditions and found that individual rifle fire with the M16A2 firing the SS109 using iron sights was effective to 550 meters; at such range the infantryman could be expected to hit his target 60% of the time.

In stressed combat conditions, the Army found identical troops on average were only able to reach the same accuracy at 180 meters; this isn't even incoming fire, this is smoke, loud noises, moving or popping targets (unobstructed views when presented), and abnormal firing positions. It's a generous statement that they're able to effectively engage to 180 meters in real combat under those standards.

This was during the US Armys ACR trials in the 1990s which was an outgrowth of the US Armys project AGILE and project SALVO programs of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The contending rifles sought to increase hit probability and all of them did it by increasing volume of fire: The H&K G11 with larger magazines, hyperburst, and lighter ammunition, the Colt ACR with Suplex ammunition and a hydrollic recoil buffer, plus improved iron sights, the Steyr ACR with extremely lightweight ammunition and system, and the AAI ACR with what was basically meme magic. All of them included the addition of low magnification optics (Unmagnified RDS optics to 4x magnified optics), which was the biggest outgrowth of the ACR Program as it proved the immediate most obtainable and cheapest solution to increase a soldiers hit probability.

>>31728354

>brits create glorious .280, even the FAL was meant for .280
>America says no, must be 7.62
>brits adopt FAL in 7.62
>America says no to FAL and uses m14
>America gets bored and adopts the m16 in 5.56
>everyone else has to follow suit so brits use 5.56
>America gets bored again and starts looking at 6.8, 6.5, telescopic 5.56

>>31728817
>which was the biggest outgrowth of the ACR Program as it proved the immediate most obtainable and cheapest solution to increase a soldiers hit probability.
Too bad US Army didn't adopt magnified optic as basic sight. Despite they rolled out M16 with such sight as "baseline" during ACR trials

>>31728575
You're neglecting the squad ammo commonality advantage. It is possible to have squad machine gun and rifle in a common caliber, an there are concrete benefits to this, that IMHO outweigh the costs.

Problem with 5.56 is, it is a little small for reliable and capable ranged squad machine gun (at the moment).

My guess is the sweet spot is between 6 and 7 mm, as time has gone by and refinements have been made optimum is going down towards the 6mm end.

But that's what .280 would have bought to the table. In terms of military ammunition, best general solution for infantry mass issue small arms.

>>31729879
No, but they did increase the issuance. The US rifle squad went from having zero optics to having several in a few short years, and today the US Infantry squad today has standard issue optics, it just took a few years to roll them out.

>>31729946
>>31729946
>You're neglecting the squad ammo commonality advantage

I wasn't, I just don't find it to be of any particular advantage since the US already operates with that and has. the GPMGs and DMRs being the two exceptions, both of which have specialized roles where it's likely the US and NATO would have retained .30-06/.303 or developed a separate GPMG caliber, as they have the express ability to fire at longer ranges more effectively than Machine Guns and more ability to provide suppressing fire.
The Tandem gun was one thing, but .280 had inferior ballistics to 7.62x51mm and wasn't going to be doing anything near what it can purely because it lacked powder, load and mass.

5.56x45mm isn't used in GPMGs, it's used in LMGs and IARs. These have a different tactical employment than GPMGs do. There fill a different but similar role (the IAR less similar) in suppression and manuver.

If the issue is effective range, M855A1, Mk. 262 Mod 0/1, Mk. 318 Mod 0/1 and other civilian loadings have solved this. The 55 grain was initially quite light, which is why they moved to 62 grains (among other reasons). The advantage being its light weight and recoil, which is what the US Armys Squad Automatic Weapon test had set out from the beginning to exploit, allowed Infantry to, with a machine gun or Machine Rifle, engage targets to 500m effectively and quickly with the squad and place more shots in a given area over a given period of time, while having ammunition commonality; and even magazine commonality (later reduced in importance). The GPMG would take care of supressive fire of larger formations or areas, engagment of troops at longer distances, engagment of light material and more static roles. It's a low/high dichotomy.

>>31728575
>it would result in stagnation
But surely the rifles designed around the .280 would have essentially been modern assault rifles, since they would have used an intermediate cartridge.

Refinements to the platform then may have come quicker, rather than first having to realise the deficiencies of full sized rounds, and waste time in transitioning to another cartridge.

>>31731199

It's not an intermediate cartridge is the problem. It's what we today term a "General Purpose" or "Optimized" cartridge, closer to rounds like 7.62x45mm Vz. 52 or .276 Peterson.

The term "Intermediate" is really a misnomer anyways; at what point does one classify something as "full power"/"Full sized"?
There's several systems that small arms theorists and developers have developed and tighter definitions than "Between a pistol and full sized rifle cartridge", but none have gained popularity outside of these circles because they are little consideration to the Civilian side.

.280 was already inferior as an infantry cartridge to 7.62x39mm, and no technological development available even as of today except in the minds of military fiction writers was ever truely going to equalize it. It had too great volume, too great recoil for automatic fire, too great mass to ever really equalize the Soviet Infantry cartridge.

I did say we can't predict exactly what NATOs rifles would have been like; we can assume the EM-2 and FN FAL would have remained around, and while there's certainly improvments to each individual rifle that could have/was made over time, it was not. But anything on the part of comparing the two is pure conjecture, and we do not know what the Soviet response would have been.

Moreover, it wouldn't have been "modern"; I'm using "Modern" here as a parallel for Small Caliber, High Velocity (SCHV) projectiles like 5.56x45mm, 5.45x39mm, and 5.8x42mm; all of which represents the modern mainstream pinical of Infantry cartridges, offering the best balance between usability, lethality, weight, volume, and volume of fire. But that said, I suppose you could say any self-loading rifle feeding from a detachable box magazine is modern, so there's that.

It WAS a mistake to adopt 7.62x51mm over .280 British, that is true, but both were mistakes, and the adoption of 7.62x51 closed a door for NATO but opened a much better one far sooner.

>>31728354

The .280 Brit would have recoil just slightly shy of a 140gr 6.5x55. Put that in a full auto M14, and it still would not have been controllable.

We still would have ended up at 5.56.

>>31733145
I think the British did some experimenting with a .280 case necked down to .257, but I don't know if they ever put it forward for official trials. Might have been around when they submitted the 4.85x49.

>>31728406
Calling bullshit. .280 didn't catch on because brits have a terrible private sector, and their government has greatly pussified itself since losing the empire.


Nothing prevented .300 meme out from spreading outside the the us
Nothing prevented the brits from continuing to advance their round domestically
Nothing prevented them from adopting the round for SAS or other niche use.
Nothing prevented them using it on export or what little domestic civilian sales exist

>>31733615
No, .280 was explicitly rejected because the Americans were insisting on a .30 caliber bullet and weren't going to accept anything foreign made. You can go look this all up yourself.
>Nothing prevented the brits from continuing to advance their round domestically
They adopted the .280 in the EM-2 rifle. When their government changed and Churchill was back in power, he overturned it because he wanted commonality with NATO small arms.

Once that decision was made, what's the point of going any further with it? The only reason why Blackout is such a massive hit is because it's designed around the same platform and brass that's been standardized by the US military -- not really any different than various popular hunting cartridges based on current and former military brass.

I don't really see how the .280 would have slowed down arms development. We likely would have stayed with .30-06 for GPMGs or gone to 7.92 for true ballistic superiority. The Brits were already changing most of their MGs to 7.92 at that point anyways. I get what people are saying about volume of fire, but in my experience with talking to vets and working with firearms, full auto is as much of a meme as anything else. I definitely don't think it was like the perfect caliber or anything, but the 6.5 Grendel I believe is pretty much the ideal and the .280 did all the same things it does.

7.62x51 is really a shitty caliber anyways, with slow muzzle velocities and being unable to stabilize heavy projectiles very well. We'd have been way better off going to .30-06 AP M2 for all applications on GPMGs and going with a heavy intermediate like .280 than going the route we went.

>But you're thinking like a civ not like the military

So what? I know what I know, and from the information I have it seems really obvious to me we'd have been better off with a 7mm or 6.5mm cartridge than our youth deer cartridge and that stupid mouse shooter gun we use now.

>>31733579

There were 8 different variations of the .280 British cartridge family submitted to various trials.

>.280 Short/7x33
7.92x33 Kurz firing a .284 caliber bullet. Test only.

>.270
Test caliber. .270 caliber bullet, determined by the British Armys Kent School of Musketry to be the ideal caliber. Has its roots in the P14 Enfeild project. Actually produced, usually what people are referring to when saying ".270 British". Fired a reletivly slender 100 grain bullet at about 2,800ft/840m/s.

>.276 British
Renamed .280 British, presumably because memes.

>.280 British
Introduced to small arms commission and NATO allies. .284 caliber bullet intended to optimize performance of rifleman and match the Ballistics of the .303 British ball cartridge to 600m.

>.280/30
.280 cartridge with same rim diameter as .30-06 to please Americans.

>.280/30-2
Second variation with modification to match ballistics of .30-06.

>.280/30-3/7mm T65
T65 test cartridge firing the .284 bullet.

>7mm Mk.1Z
.280/30 as adopted for the EM-2 for British in 1951.

There were variations on some and there's a few other obscurities nut they're few and far in between and not of interest.

>>31733615

The post WWII British private sector was booming.
Just the small arms ownership was non existent.


I'd like to rebuke the Peterson meme but eh.

>>31734021
>I don't really see how the .280 would have slowed down arms development

The round would have been considered good enough on a universal level and had just sat in comfortable partly with the 7.62x39mm.

>Brits were going to 7.92 for their MGs

For rim purposes and Czechoslovakia proved a readily accessible source of small arms and was willing to trade small arms for large arms and expertise.

>but in my experience with talking to vets and working with firearms, full auto is as much of a meme as anything else.

There hasn't been a relevant modern Infantry war for the West in the last 40 years. No serious attention has been paid to Infantry rifles since the adoption of modern Infantry calibers.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq do not exemplify Infantry combat.
Talk to vets if Afghanistan and Vietnam and you'll see a dramatically different contrast.Vietnam is also an outlier, but first far closer to the norm than ISAF forces in the M.E.


>So what?

So you don't think about it from the point of view of a military weapons planner, engineer or strategist.

ITT one really autistic dude explains to a bunch of normies how small arms works

Anthony Williams is that you??