This project has been on going for awhile and is simply spurred by my interest in guns. Truthfully, it wasn’t actually a “project” per se but each one of these drawings goes quickly and is a fun way to create something without hours and hours of time invested. And so, it is officially a project. The core concept is pretty straight forward; how would I arm a fictional military force? That’s simple enough and there are lots of weapons to choose from. But I wanted to take it one step further by applying parameters to each design. If you dig deep, there are lots of very well written articles detailing the so-called “M4 controversy” and of course hundreds of open forums filled with opinions on both sides of the fence. I’ll be writing this assuming the reader is familiar with the notion. It became apparent very quickly that there is significant misinformation available, and that the controversy itself is actually very complex. It tends to be more than simply the cartridge or the weapon even though those two aspects alone can provide one with hours of reading material. There is, mainly standing between both sides of the argument, the system itself. The complexities and monetary obligation of making a change in our military as large as fielding a new weapon to every man and woman, and the added difficulty of individuals who have interests in keeping things the way they are. These seem to be the greatest hurdles and I cannot draw my way over them, so the first step is to realize that I’m creating fiction and that’s where it ends. I choose to ignore the logistics and focus only on the concepts. I do have a zen answer for the logistics, and it goes something like this; the greatest nation on Earth – just get it done. But, as I said, that’s not what this project is about.
So, why mention the controversy if the project does not aim to solve its greatest problem? Well, the rest, the cartridge, its associated weapon system, and the problems they are accused of having create excellent parameters for a project like this all by themselves. I’m relatively familiar with the cartridge and the system but it’s really not necessary in order to see some pretty solid arguments for and against them both. For one thing, the AR platform, in all its very wide array of variations, is overwhelmingly popular outside the military. It must do something correctly. A couple quick points to begin understanding the complexities of the controversy are that weapon maintenance and harsh environmental conditions are something most people outside the military (or similar) do not have to deal with and have no good method of truly grasping without significant amounts of data or personal experience, yet have a huge impact on weapon performance. Secondly, historically, military weapons and equipment are simply attractive to the general public. There is the cool factor. So is the gun popular because it does something right or is it the romance of the thing? Maybe a combination of both. My point is, and this is just one example, that it’s a complex issue.
My first concept is directly conceived with these issues in mind. Keeping in mind that I want to outfit my own fictional armed forces, I decided to look at the military’s needs and how they have affected the M4′s performance. The needs are simple. We’re dealing with confined spaces inside buildings and caves and the long barrel of the M16 wasn’t getting it done. This is an excellent time to shed light on yet another complexity; the carbine sized M16 has been around since Vietnam – what happened and how is this debate anything new? At any rate, the .223/5.56mm cartridge was designed for 20 inch barrels and there is where the problems begin. Understanding that the .223 is a varmint cartridge, we know it was specifically designed to be a small projectile, moving extremely fast in order to reach critters at extended ranges. In order to push any projectile to higher velocities requires barrel length. Without getting into the science of it, the bullet is in the barrel longer, providing time for the powder to burn and pressure to build. What Mr. Stoner discovered was that this little projectile, moving that fast, had a tendency to get really unstable when it crashed into soft stuff like people and it worked by causing significant damage on the inside and often, without exiting the target – great if you’re saving coyote pelts or if you don’t want bullets passing through bad guys and hurting innocent by-standers. And as an added benefit, the individual cartridges are much lighter than full sized rifle loads which means the boys can carry more of it around and poke more holes in bad guys. Take away barrel length and you can see how much of those benefits you begin to loose – most of them, save the weight issue. So, we need little cartridges that are easy to carry around and a short gun to work inside tight spaces. Long barrel, short gun – it’s a contradiction. How can we make this work if we must continue using the 5.56mm cartridge? Well, you’ve heard of bullpup rifles and if you look at it in this context, I simply cannot see another solution. So theoretically, it sounds solid. I can potentially have a barrel long enough to make the 5.56 a man stopper again, while also keeping the rifle as short as the M4. All benefits retained. But wait, lots of people don’t like the bullpup design and now we get into those annoying complexities again along with a handful of draw backs specifically associated with the bullpup design. In my design I’ve addressed as many of the issues as I could dream up and at the end of the day, in order to continue use of the 5.56, many of the draw backs simply don’t outweigh the benefits. In fact, the initial benefits are actually compounded with the addition of several others. Most importantly, the longer barrel provides the user with extended range. In the same way that we might want a short system for confined spaces, we also need range to get on targets in mountains, urban over-watch, or other terrain with extended line of sight. This system now overlaps into the designated marksmen concept with very little or no alteration to the system. Remember the cartridge was designed from the onset for extended ranges and certainly ranges that average shooters can effectively work at. Should a fire team need to engage targets in an urban environment from roof tops, but then suddenly find themselves in the buildings working room to room, everyone on the team can be effective rather than individuals with specialized systems.
And so after much research I landed on the AUG for my basis. There are a couple main reasons that outweigh most of the others. Firstly, the AUG and British L85 are probably the two best supported and developed systems and both are issued to various armed forces which indicates that they are field tested and approved. But for the AUG, I see more adaptability and it is a very simple, no extra junk kind of design. The barrel is also user changeable without tools which means the gun has not only the potential to overlap other roles, it is adaptable as well to push it further into one role or another. Visit my dA page to read even more and get into all the little details.