Active Protection Suites (for AFV): state of the art

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edit 2014-04: The mentioned article has become available in English.

I was repeatedly annoyed by a phenomenon of the language barrier between German and English: A wide-spread ignorance in the English-language public about non-U.S., non-Israeli and non-Russian active protection suites.
This ignorance leads to wrong perceptions of APS potentials and relative qualities.

The Israeli Trophy system (2007) is the first and only operational Western APS and therefore the best one (the only known/published Russian examples were 1980's hardware).
The resulting perception that it's the best one is apparently wrong, and Trophy does not show the full potential of APS at all.

We had an article on APS in Strategie und Technik (previously known as "Soldat und Technik"), a German journal on military affairs (mostly hardware and organizations) in October.
The author was Dieter Haug, a present and long-time employee of the German ministry of defence, department for procurement and occupied with protection technologies.
The article would have gained a lot of attention and sparked extreme interest and many discussions if it had appeared in a generic English language journal, accessible for Americans and Brits.

The article mentions three categories of APS based on the interception point (the smallest distance from which a shot can be fired and still intercepted):
Close range IP: up to 2 m
Medium range IP: 2 to 30 m
Far-Range IP: more than 30 m

APS can also be grouped along their reaction times into
microsecond (hard kill),
millisecond (hard kill)and
second APS (soft-kill).

It becomes clear over the course of the article that APS in the millisecond/medium range IP range have quite long minimum distance against targets like HEAT tank gun shells and high velocity ATGMs - even against man-portable anti-tank weapons like RPG-19 more than a hundred meters.

The use of actively emitting radars that can be exploited by the enemy for reconnaissance and targeting with passive radar sensors is another problem, but not common to all APS.

He also tells about the quantity of known hard kill APS systems (projects) in the world: 50! The public discussion of hard kill APS is based on a basic knowledge of less than ten systems as far as I know!

Finally, the article had a great table at the end. I found some of the intercept distance and weights to be unlike info from other sources and we need to keep in mind that these systems are unproven, but it's still a great table.

Sadly, it's in German, but I compiled some interesting info for a German system (AMAP-ADS), an U.S.American system (Quick Kill) and an Israeli system (Trophy) into a table of my own:

(click on it)
AMAP-ADS was the only system with claimed microseconds performance in the table - with claimed effectiveness against KE (APFSDS long rods being possibly deflected/broken/turned) and even EFP (explosively formed projectiles - very fast) while emitting no radar signal - too good to be true?


I hope this helps to improve the understanding of modern APS technology beyond the German language area.

S O

The defense stimulus topic and this blog

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Maybe you remember my December post
"Military procurement in 2009/2010".
Well, it turned out to be a very early (actually the earliest I've found) text about the use of military spending as part of current stimulus plans.

Here's a short list of some articles about the topic:
(My mini-article was published on 2008-12-14.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123008280526532053.html
2008-12-24

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2399
2009-01-02

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/hey-obama-defense-stimulus-would-be.html
2009-01-07

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0108/p01s03-usmi.html
2009-01-08

http://solari.com/blog/?p=1983
2009-01-09

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6614384&page=1
2009-01-11

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/01/the-defense-stimulus/
2009-01-13

Then I stopped tracking them, but here's a new one:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/52861
2009-02-01


I once showed the blog after its first couple posts (before I really made it public) to others and got feedback like "not original content" (that was about the very early COIN text). Well, I believe I paid attention to that critique and had a lot of original and unique content over the past one and a half year.
The stimulus article was even a precursor to a public discussion (albeit irrelevant in it, as this is no major newspaper, after all).

Most other articles on the subject didn't get the same point as me, about the opportunity to increase near-term spending in the military budgets without additional long-term debt. That's a bit sad. Maybe they should read this blog ;-) .


Anyway - I have about two dozens of topics prepared (or noted in keywords) for future posts. Stay with me for many more months of non-mainstream, sceptical coverage of defense and freedom topics!

S O

Fractures in our military superiority

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John Halldale has published a noteworthy article at defpro.com;
Is American Air Power on the Verge of Collapse?.

He includes much that I agree with (about 70%, and I actually still plan to write blog posts about some of those points). I propose to read the relevant chapters of this book in addition.

Russia doesn't spend its much on modernizing its military, but on modernizing its weapon and munitions design pool. They develop new equipment without buying it for their armed services.

That leaves the impression of almost useless, obsolete forces - a strong argument for those who don't consider Russia as a near-peer.
At the same time, they have the designs finished to modernize their military (and para-militaries) in just a few years - take the re-armament of Germany 1933-1939 as reference. Most of the German designs procured in 1933-1937 were 1928-1933 developments.

The Russians use one more approach that misleads many observers; secrecy. Their highest-profile weapon systems like their new tank T-95 and new generation fighter PAK-FA are mysteries for the Western public; we don't have any reliable information about these.

Finally the third reason for the underestimation of the Russian's potential; they don't always follow the same lines of development due to different challenges.
It's not as easy to compare as a simple match up of alike systems. They sometimes don't focus so much on designing a comparable counterpart, but a dissimilar countermeasure. Their long-range missiles against AEW&E aircraft (like AWACS) is such an example - and without counterpart in the West.

The F-35 is a ground attack pane with air/air self-defence capability - and surely also a viable fighter against 1980's and 1990's systems. Its power lies in its avionics, and it's not meant to fight for air superiority. Rafale and Typhoon are both multi-role combat aircraft and will be the dominant combat aircraft in some European air forces once Tornado IDS and Mirage 2000 approach the end of their useful lives. Neither will really be up to the task of matching the quality of PAK-FA - simply because being an overmatch to them must be the premier requirement for the newer PAK-FA. The F-35 will likely be different, but not significantly better in air combat.

I'm not so sure that the F-22 is a proper solution, though. Its concept is publicly known since about 1991 and the Russian likely design PAK-FA to match or overmatch F-22 with the advantage of the later design. The extremely high cost of the F-22 design is a huge problem as well.

Maybe we should simply stop assuming that we would always enjoy air superiority (or supremacy). We cannot be sure about our superiority in hardware quality, combat morale, logistics, tactics, operations - no matter how often some will tell us about our superiority.
The U.S.A.A.F. and USN pilots despised the Japanese air power as paper flyers, mere victims before Pearl Harbor - and found themselves to be quite inferior in many regards during the first months of the war. Such wrong perceptions happen sometimes.

It's really about time to look at what can go wrong, not at how great we are - just like Mr. Halldale did in the article.

The Russians don't want to invade us and turn us red. They probably never really did. They CAN subdue neighbors that were traditionally under Russian control if they are convinced that we wouldn't dare to face them, though.
That's why a realistic assessment of the deterrence effect of nuclear weapons, our commitment and the relative military state of the art between us and them count.

S O

p.s.: Hat tip to The DEW Line

Guided munitions history

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Precision munitions have been hyped up at the very least since the obscene TV war for Kuwait in 1991.

Precision munitions were later a cornerstone of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), along with improved communications, computers and sensors. The (assumed) ability to hit & destroy every detected (and identified) enemy is fascinating to many.

Let's use (military) history to enrich the perspective.

The only truly new guided weapons are those which employ active laser seekers (like LADAR, still quite uncommon), millimetre wavelength radar (imaging radar, actually already 1980's stuff) and satellite navigation (the famous JDAM family and similar).

1970's technologies are already very old news, and include imaging infrared guidance with lock on, electro-optical guidance with lock-on (both in the AGM-65 A and D Maverick missiles (D was developed in 70's and became operational in 80's), for example).
Laser beam riding missiles are also a product of the 1970's - like RBS 70.

1960's technologies include the semi-active laser (SAL) guidance that became so famous during the 1991 war - the first example was the Bolt-117 glide bomb of 1967, used in Vietnam.
SAL guided bombs, Mavericks and Tomahawk cruise missiles were the most significant of the guided weapons used against Iraq that caught so much attention in 1991 and later.

The 1950's technology advance was mostly semi-active radar homing (SARH), a principle usually employed against aerial targets and rarely against ships - an example is the AIM-7 Sparrow missile.

1940's technology includes manual electro-optical guidance, both by wire and by radio - Hs 293D. Another ground-breaking missile development was the automatic active radar homing Bat glide bomb. The first passive radar homing missile originated in WW2 as well, an experimental version of Bv246.
Several German companies developed also similar examples of passive infra-red seekers for guided weapons, although these weren't mounted on missiles any more.
Active and passive automatic homing for torpedoes was also developed in WW2.

Now the clou:

The technology for guided munitions is actually even much older than that.

Just a few years after the ground-laying research of electromagnetic waves by Heinrich Hertz began the development for radio remote controls.

A Christian Hülsmeyer got a patent for a device for the triggering of certain mechanism by electric waves in 1902.

The first experiment of wire guidance/remote control happened three decades earlier, basing on works of Werner von Siemens: A boat with wire-command electrical continuous current rudder control was tested - under remote control.

Imagine: We could have had remote-controlled steam boat bombs already in the 1870's (if a war at that time had involved Germany)! That's a time when most artillery was still muzzle-loaded with black powder!


The company Siemens-Schuckert worked (unsuccessfully) on remote-controlled torpedoes and air-dropped missiles during 1907 and 1911 - before the air got weaponized at all.

Wilhelm von Siemens worked on wire and radio-controlled missiles in the First World War with considerable success, including a radio remote control for a motor boat of the Fa. Röver (a company).
The more spectacular examples were remote-controlled gliders (radio or wire guidance) which carried torpedoes to be released close to the target ship.
This technology was revived for the Second World War, but the fire control problem was insurmountable for the human operator - the technology itself works. It's simply difficult to aim right with such a glider in the terminal phase and to time the release well.

This is an experimental 300 kg wide-guided glider, tested with airships in 1917:

Other examples weighed up to 1,000 kg.
The Funktechnische Versuchsabteilung (radio technology testing detachment) in Döberitz developed successfully a remote-controlled (radio) aircraft ("Fledermaus-Apparate", "bat devices") in 1918; five modified two-seater biplanes.


A little bit of military-technological history sometimes offers a valuable lesson.
We could have seen the first use of guided weapons in the First World War, at the same time when normal aerial bombs were introduced.
We could have seen World War 2 bombing campaigns based on guided weapons with a CEP of less than 10 m (X-1, AZON/RAZON; see also here) if the German air force wasn't so fixated on the pilot-skill focused dive bombing, the British Bomber Command not too cowardly for strategic daylight bombing and the U.S.American (Army) Air Force not so much focused on its complex Norden bombsight.

The technologies of WW2 had to be re-discovered for challenging targets in the Korean Air War and guided bomb technology (much neglected due to nuclear warheads that required little accuracy) got a well-deserved boost during the Vietnam War.

It was quite despicable negligence (in part because of a fixation on very low level flight) on our part that the share of guided munitions wasn't already dominant by 1991, but a mere few per cent.

Missile guidance technology was always ahead of its users; guided weapons history is a history of the failure to exploit available technology. In the 90's we were pretty much celebrating that the obvious and undeniable effects seen in hot wars against third rate opponents with mostly fine weather finally made us exploit the guided weapon principle to its full potential.
 

S O

p.s.: This was only what I know about guided weapons, I suspect several foreign early developments and omitted less relevant Japanese and Russian WW2 developments.

German light AFV armament

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German armoured vehicles very rarely used heavy machine guns like M2HB - such weapons were used on the very first equipment in the late 50's and some in the 60's, but became irrelevant later on.

Our typical Cold War armament for trucks, armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and similar vehicles was the 7.62mmx51 MG3 machine gun, often without any shield.

Only the reconnaissance AFV, the Spähpanzer Luchs uses an effective 20mmx139 autocannon - a caliber that was capable enough to defeat enemy BMPs and BTRs, but wasn't powerful enough if used against better-protected vehicles like Western infantry fighting vehicles (IFV).
Another weapon was introduced as alternative post-Cold War, the 40mmx53 GMG - an automatic grenade launcher like the better-known Mk 19. Such weapons have a muzzle velocity of about 240 m/s, barely enough to be considered useful against moving armoured vehicles out to about 500 m.

A 40mm dual purpose grenade can penetrate light armour with a shaped charge and achieve 'some' effect inside, but it's severely restricted by its rather low muzzle velocity (reduced probability of hit at longer ranges), safety considerations (fragmentation) and volume (only 32 grenades per belt).

.50BMG weapons aren't entirely out of favour in the Bundeswehr; navy helicopters, KSK special forces, navy ships and infantry snipers use that calibre - it's just not in general use.
Mungo ESK, Grizzly, Yak, Boxer, ATF Dingo, LAPV Enok, Fennek and the old M113- the light armoured vehicle procurement (the list isn't complete) of the Bundeswehr appears to be very chaotic since the 90's, but nevertheless these vehicles have one thing in common: An armament with MG3 and/or GMG.

I consider this armament as quite unsatisfactory for several reasons;
A) It's inadequate as overflight and close-in deterrent against helicopters.
B) It's inadequate in surprise contacts with enemy light AFVs like reconnaissance vehicles. Even some 1930's reconnaissance AFVs would be superior in 1-on-1 vehicle combat due to superior firepower.
C) Unsatisfactory external ballistics of the 40mm calibre. 240 m/s muzzle velocity is the key problem, but it's not possible to improve the muzzle velocity because of the exponentially growing muzzle energy and therefore recoil.
D) Inadequate armour penetration of 7.62NATO bullets against everything that was armoured; the lowest armour rating for vehicles is aimed against this calibre (and the Russian 7.62mmx54R). Only expensive high-end armour penetrating cartridges like SLAP have a good penetration capability.

I'd like to give a pleading for alternative armaments here.

Three alternatives come to my mind;
1) Heavy machine gun calibres; 12.7mm and 14.5mm, but potentially also much weaker ones, between 7.62NATO and .50BMG.
2) 20mm lightweight autocannons; some of these approached the weight and size of a heavy machine gun by the end of WW2. They can use explosive shells, but with little fragmentation effect.
3) 30mm low recoil autocannons; these became available during the 80's and use dual purpose (shaped charge plus fragmentation) shells. The AH-64 Apache helicopter uses the same ammunition to good effect even at quite long ranges.

I'd like to point out the other two interesting alternatives that don't require any new development.

Example: Vektor (Denel) GAMA
This is a South African automatic weapon that can be mounted on a vehicle (even a jeep) just like a heavy machine gun. It's a weapon for multiple calibres and can be converted to another calibre in 10 minutes without special tools.
12.7mm x 99 (.50BMG, very common in NATO, SLAP available), 12.7mm x 107 (Russian), 14.5mm x 114 (Russian), 20mm x 82 (very low impulse, old German cartridge), 20mm x 102 (a very common calibre in NATO) and 20mm x 110 (old Hispano-Suiza calibre) are possible.

Weight: 47 - 55 kg
Length: about 1.8 m
Muzzle velocity: 720 - 1,030 m/s
Cyclic: about 650 - 750 rds/min
Typical ammunition: AP, HE

Example: ASP-30
The best-known autocannon in the 30mm calibre for low recoil applications. It can be mounted on vehicles just like a heavy machine gun, but its ammunition is already quite big.
Calibre: 30mm x 113 B (the ADEN/DEFA pattern, used by fighters since decades and also used by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters)

Weight: 52 kg
Length: 2.06 m
Muzzle velocity: 820 m/s
Cyclic: 400 - 450 rds/min
Typical ammunition: HEDP

The armament of light armoured vehicles with only rifle calibre machine guns and low muzzle velocity grenade launchers is inadequate in my opinion. Weapons in between combine a much better effect than a MG3 with a much better ammunition supply than a GMG. The self-defence capability beyond rifle range could be much improved.
We already missed the opportunity to use Eastern German 14.5mm weapons for a free upgrade, I hope we won't stick to 7.62NATO and 40mm x 53 as light AFV armament forever.

S O

Free riders

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The current economic crisis and the piracy affair have one thing in common; they remind us of free riders.

Banks and industries never wanted much state involvement in their markets when the markets were fine and they themselves had money are calling now for state's aid.
Big corporations were often evading taxation with the help of lawyers and consultant (and by moving administrations to places like Ireland) - but want to get back from the society what they didn't give to it in the first place.

Shipping companies did the same - they evaded taxes and regulation by flying the colours of some unimportant Latin American countries like Panama.
It's strange to read that a "German" ship was now captured by pirates off Africa's coast. The crew is Filipino with a single Indonesian - no Germans anyway.

Why should such a ship be considered as a German ship? Why should the shipping company have the right to expect our state to bother about the affair?
Those shipping companies should call the navy of Panama, not ours!

The use of the military to protect our shipping is OK, its use to protect business interests leads only to shitty military actions and small wars - we should avoid that.


Such free rider phenomenons weaken and exploit states - and end up drawing us into crisis situations without justification. Much has been proclaimed about the decline of the state, allegedly powerless European governments and such.
It's about time to strike back, to protect the interests of our citizens and to show the cold shoulder to opportunistic companies.

The 'bad bank' discussion in Germany is a good opportunity; we should investigate the banks and learn which ones are about to fail without state assistance - and socialize them. Take away all shares from the shareholders who drove such greed and opportunistic behavior - a punishment as warning for future shareholders.
We can set up a re-privatization plan immediately afterward and withdraw all state influence in less than five years, when state-appointed small bank and savings bank managers have repaired the damage done by their incompetent idiot colleagues.

That won't work because our politicians aren't much better (they actually allow the idiot bankers to sit at the table when they discuss state help for banks), but it's allowed to have some political dreams ... maybe sometime in the future the useless conservatives won't be in the government.

We SHOULD nevertheless demonstrate state strength against free riders and force them to bear the appropriate responsibilities. Rights are the twins of responsibilities - we should grant no right without responsibility.

Sven Ortmann

Frauenparkplätze

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"Frauenparkplatz". I despise (and ignore) that word.
It's written behind many parking lots and means "parking lot for women". It's usually at some of the best placed parking lots (the very best are almost always empty and reserved for disabled people), close to the shopping center and supposed to provide women with - well, whatever.

I've seen an even more discriminating and outrageous sign a few weeks ago, but succeeded in forgetting the rubbish.

This kind of discrimination is a puzzle piece in the greater picture of how good intentions and political correctness can overstep the limit of appropriateness and can begin to hurt our freedom and equality in an inappropriate way.

The big things like CCTV and database scandals have our attention as freedom limiters and dangerous foreshadows, but the small things count, too.

I commit to prefer to park on a Frauenparkplatz whenever possible to protest and to take away the desired effect from these despicable signs.

Sven Ortmann

Unmanned ground vehicles - history and smoke

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Unmanned ground vehicles are in fashion. Thousands are in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly as short-range scouts to inspect possible bomb sites - a task very similar to the one of police robots since many years.

A lot of buzz was surrounding the Guardium UGV at Eurosatory because it was a somewhat autonomous, potentially armed UGV - as in general attention is guaranteed once "weapon" and "robot" are combined.
I miss a much less known and certainly obvious application for battlefield robots, an application that is relevant in conventional warfare; smoke laying.
It's been a miracle to me why such vehicles are apparently not remote-controlled - I considered it as an obvious choice for remote control since the day when I learned about these smoke-laying vehicles that are apparently in use in the USA (M56 Coyote, M58A3 Wolf and M1059A3 Lynx) and Russia.
The U.S. systems might actually be remote-controllable; I just never found any source that confirms the suspicion.

Either you lay smoke by indirect fires or (certainly logistically more efficient) you do so with such vehicles. Other methods obscure merely point targets, not areas. It's obvious that such vehicles could lay the smoke farther forward if they're unmanned. It's a Himmelfahrtskommando, a suicide mission anyway.

By the way; the first UGVs in combat were apparently Russian teletanks in 1939 or 1940 (edit: wrong, the Japanese had the lead), followed by unmanned German demolition midget tanks (ironically named Goliath), based on a French prototype.
Remote control by radio was used to convert aircraft into target drones for a Royal Navy exercise around 1930 (the Royal Navy embarrassed itself with the lack of effect of its anti-air firepower).

Just to make sure everyone gets it: The armed, unmanned and remote-controlled by radio tanks/ground vehicles are at least a 69 year-old technology. The current buzz about the modern examples is extremely ridiculous.

Almost nothing is truly new, many innovations in the art of war and the tools of war are decades old when they still get great press as novelty.
Get yourself a Jane's Weapon Systems issue from the 70's; you'll find the predecessors and first projects of much of what's today "brand new", "revolutionary" and "innovative" in it.

It would be quite embarrassing if dedicated smoke-laying vehicles (if in use at all) were not set up for remote-controlled use, about eighty after the first application of remote control by radio. They deserve priority over fancy armed robots.

S O

Heavy bombers - scarier than ever before

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I made a small calculation during the South Ossetia War that I want to share:

It was about the effect that a heavy bomber could have in a scenario like the South Ossetia War with smart bombs.

Keep in mind that GPS and INS-guided bombs can be used with extreme accuracy against coordinates. They're not good against moving targets, but good at impacting at certain coordinates - and they're not significantly larger than unguided bombs.

A B-2 (the bomber that could realistically do a single sortie without support and have an impact) can carry 80x Mk-82 500 lbs bombs (about 227 kg). Replace the Mk-82 bombs by GBU-30/ GBU-38 guided bombs for this scenario.

Such a general purpose blast+fragmentation bomb has easily a lethal radius of about 40 m against soft and thinly armored targets (plus or minus a few meters isn't really relevant, you'll see that later).
A single bomb can ruin vehicles on about 80 m road length. The point of impact would be set a bit to the side of the road for greatest effect if road traffic is dense/jammed (this reduces the road length covered) or directly on the road if normal military march spacing is expected (this adds a bit road damage). Fuzes wold be set to super quick.

80 bombs with about 80 m road length covered each - that's 6,400 m. A single bomber could have ruined the day. A flight of about half a dozen bombers would have covered the entire main (and only relevant) road in South Ossetia's valley and ruined a motorized rifle division.

I made a similar thought experiment in 1999 during the Kosovo Air War. A single B-.2 strike could have wiped off most of the Yugoslavian electricity production by simply destroying the turbine rooms of the few power plants (less the nuclear one, that would have been too unsafe). The bomb bay wouldn't even have been half-filled for such a mission. Count your countries' power plants - how many bomber sorties would it take to wipe out 80% of its electricity production today? One? Two? I doubt that it would take more than three for any country, even not for Russia or China.

Precision-guided bomb carpets could also be real 'carpets', not 'lines' as in the past, even with a single bomber. A heavy bomber (or few heavy fighter-bombers like F-15E, Su-34 or Tornado IDS) could cover a whole small forest where an enemy infantry company hides.

That reminds me of an air attack in September 1939 when a Stuka wing surprised a bunched-up Polish division at a large railway station and effectively destroyed the division as a fighting force in few minutes.


I have often read that heavy bombers are dinosaurs of the Cold War. Such remarks were common till they were used to drop single guided bombs on Taliban groups in Afghanistan, thousands of kilometers away from their British Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.
Single guided bomb drops are probably not their most important capability today; the sheer quantity in the bomb bay is a quality of its own.

Luckily, it's possible to substitute with fighter-bombers because it's really only about "guided bomb + quantity". There's no need to introduce heavy bombers into air forces that haven't got any today.

So-called "strategic" air power IS extremely powerful, and I can understand the attitude of air force officers in many cases; the potential was just not really unleashed since 1945. It wasn't the tool of choice in our past few conflicts.

S O

edit: 20090-03-20:
This video seems to fit fine:

Modern small arms calibres

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Some light food for a change...

I published an article about rifle calibre effects (mostly wound ballistics) at Steve's Firearm blog several days ago. The topic seemed to be more appropriate there than here.
Check it out, it's a myth-busting article meant to clean up the mess of misleading anecdotes, scientific mistakes and sentimental influences that surround the rifle calibre debate.

Rifle calibres have been discussed and changed since we moved from musket ball to rifle bullets in the 19th century. The introduction of modern smokeless propellants brought another huge boost for calibre discussions, again toward smaller calibres. The final push toward smaller calibres (calibres smaller than 7mm were already tested at the beginning of the 20th century) came after WW2 when almost every soldier got a fully automatic weapon.
The high ammunition consumption of automatic fire and issues with strong recoil (controllability of bursts and full auto fire) spoke in favour of small calibres.

Calibres around 7mm (at least 6mm) were discussed in many studies and by many commissions as ideal infantry calibres, and the British developed the good .280British rifle cartridge. NATO selected the 7.62NATO calibre due to U.S. lobbying.

The USA didn't use 7.62NATO much as assault rifle calibre - the M14 quickly got its successor in the M16 after only a few years of use as standard rifle. 7.62 was a widespread calibre for assault rifles in other NATO countries (Germany replaced the 7.62NATO G3 rifle only in the 90's) and is still the most wide-spread calibre for medium/universal machine guns.

5.56NATO, the new standard for assault rifles since the 80's, was a mixed blessing; less penetration of cover/armour, less wound ballistic potential, inferior external ballistics for long-range shots - the advantages of reduced recoil, volume and weight were only part of a trade-off that hurts elsewhere.


A good bullet design can improve wound ballistics in both calibres (7.62NATO isn't always as great as its reputation) and heavy bullets can improve cover penetration (an issue for 5.56NATO). That's probably not enough. It's reasonable to expect more than 5.56NATO can deliver while 7.62NATO as standard cartridge like in the 50's and 60's would be extremely heavy and require strict fire discipline to get the job done with the little ammo that can be carried.

I see two possible approaches to solve the dilemma.

A) Standard infantry calibre:
A common cartridge in the 6-7mm range with intermediate characteristics and modern bullet designs. This cartridge could meet the requirements for carbine/PDW, scoped rifle (squad sharpshooter) and light machine guns. The effect would be satisfactory, the weight+volume would be acceptable and the range would suffice for everything except vehicle-mounted weapons and dedicated snipers.
A single small arms calibre for the whole quad/platoon would simplify ammunition logistics very much even though different, exchangeable cartridge versions (ball, AP, tracer, IR tracer) would be used.

B) New mix of 5.56NATO and 7.62NATO:
Well-designed bullet designs are necessary to exploit both calibre's potential, and could fit different roles.
5.56NATO: PDW/carbine, light machine gun (bipod, squad-level support)
7.62NATO: scoped rifles, medium machine guns (tripod, platoon-level support)

It's not really necessary that all weapons reach out to 600m effectively. Carbines won't be very useful at that distance anyway and light machine guns put a premium on low weight for the machine gunner's battlefield agility. Small bullets can suppress almost as well as heavy ones - a strong advantage when you need to carry so much ammunition.
Medium machine guns - well, almost nobody accepts 5.56NATO as a medium machine gun calibre; the effective range and cover penetration simply doesn't match the expectations.

Finally, the soldier's dearest weapon: The battle rifle / assault rifle - the supposed "standard" firearm.

Decent marksmanship training, the ammunition consumption problem, improved sights and the experience against ill-trained spray & pray troops has led to an emphasis on the aimed single shot even more than before and even at rather close ranges. This emphasis was typical of the British army with its semi-automatic-only L1A1 (FAL) rifles in the 60's and 70's.
The preference for single shots (semi automatic fire in practice) saves ammunition and is a critical enabler for a possible return to 7.62NATO.

It's not necessary that every soldier in a squad/platoon has a weapon that penetrates common cover (walls, trees), it should suffice if a quarter or third has this capability - that's an opportunity for weight & volume savings.

Let's compare 7.62NATO battle rifles in contrast to 5.56NATO examples.

Pro 7.62NATO:
- better range
- better cover penetration
- better armour penetration
- better wound ballistics
Contra 7.62 NATO:
- heavier weapon
- fewer cartridges for same ammunition weight/volume
- a bit less controllable on full automatic fire
(designs with shoulder stock and barrel in one line like SCAR-H should be much more controllable than the older G3 and FAL designs). Such straight designs need a sight line high above the barrel - that's ideally suited to the modern rifle sights, but it was a drawback at the time of iron sights.

Other pro/contra arguments exist, but are much weaker than these (in my opinion).

The introduction of quality optical sights on non-sniper rifles (with up to 4x optical magnification) almost turns ordinary riflemen into squad sharpshooters and a few weeks of training can complete that evolution.
This turns the ordinary rifleman into a soldier who appreciates the advantages of 7.62NATO more than before - and might make 7.62NATO a great rifleman calibre.

That's a bit ironic and sad because the British went away from the single shot/7.62NATO design some decades ago after getting the universal infantry calibre issue right even earlier. The Germans turned away from the 7.62NATO as assault rifle and light machine gun calibre about fifteen years ago after playing around with the mislead and extreme G11 rifle design and its caseless 4.73mm cartridge.
Finally, the Turks are in the process of turning away from 7.62NATO, their army (biggest in NATO) will replace the G3 (7.62NATO) with half a million 5.56NATO HK416 ("Mehmetçik-1") in the next few years.

The French are the next who will reform their small arms inventory; their FAMAS F1 assault rifle still uses the first generation 5.56mmx45 cartridge, predecessor of 5.56NATO (FAMAS G2 uses 5.56NATO, but the French Army has held off a large scale purchase of the G2 so far).

The standardization of small arms calibres seems to be a mess in the NATO.
It's important to keep in mind that the optimum calibre or calibre mix depends on circumstances that change over time. A mix of 5.56NATO and 7.62NATO can satisfy, but we should consider a return to the 7.62NATO battle rifle if we aren't willing to introduce a universal infantry cartridge of 6-7mm calibre.

S O