Quote Originally Posted by SethB View Post
Adding an op rod doesn't solve any of the issues with the M4. In fact, it adds some more.

A better solution is to move the gas port farther away from the chamber.
I have talked to a number of people who have carried the 416 and they have all, without exception, raved about it. I have yet to hear anyone say anything negative about the 416 who has carried it in combat.

The problem with 5.56 lethality is also a product of some suspect anecdotal evidence. "But Sarge, he soaked up 17 solid hits and kept running as fast as Jesse Owens" most likely was "Sarge, I suck at shooting, so I missed him 17 times."
That is not necessarily true. I have talked to quite a few guys in my community who most definitely do not suck at shooting and the consensus has always been that 5.56 green absolutely does suck at bringing targets down quickly as compared to 7.62. 5.56 LR does much better but when I left Big Army all we ever got was green tip. Perhaps that has changed since I left but I suspect that it has not.

I think I've made this point one time earlier during this thread, that if they pushed more GPMGs down to lower levels, and realized that rifles are really not what kills on the battlefield, whether they are chambered in .22 short or 105mm, the military would be a much better place. Personally, I like the shooting characteristics of 5.56, and feels it does an adequate job of killing bad guys.
I am with Ken on this. Substituting quantity of fire for accurate fire is a bad idea. You are trying to sew up the wound without treating the underlying infection. In any case adding more GPMGs to the platoon means more guys that I can't bring into clear rooms in a building or clear a trench plus it adds more weight as we have to carry that much more ammo to feed these guns. In particular I don't like the idea of more M240s which have a much higher than needed cyclic rate of fire and so chew up the ammo that much faster.