Jeff gets a combat no-prize for bringing us news of the Army's replacement for the venerable and little-loved M-16, the XM8 weapon system (this site has some nice artist's renderings of the weapon's various configurations).

Designed by the the US subsidiary of the German firm Heckler & Koch and built in the US, the system seems to be a winner on all accounts. Most heartening, if this side-by-side comparison is to be believed, the new XM8 system should be far more reliable and easy to maintain than the M-16 ever was. Cheaper too, by almost 1/3rd. It is apparently a highly modified and improved derivative of the well-regarded G36E assault rifle currently used in the German army.

I don't think there's a veteran of the Vietnam war who thinks the M-16 is any less than a deadly boondoggle that regularly got soldiers killed. Even after forty years of development, the best my brother (who spent 4 years in the army during the '90s) could say about it was "it's not that bad." I'm still suspicious (in my arm-chair-soldierly way) of anything the Pentagon likes, but it would seem this system is a real out-of-the-box winner.

However, after doing a little research, I found some alternate views. A caveat: there's an awful lot of chaff in there, just a little bit of wheat. Nothing evokes the passions of men more than what they consider themselves arm-chair experts in (this author included). The most violently negative things you'll read in any technical forum of this nature will nearly always come from people who have absolutely no experience in what is being discussed*. The only opinions I paid attention to were 1) former or active-duty soldiers and 2) people who actually fired the XM8 or the G36 it is derived from. Their opinions seem to be "cautiously optimistic", which is what I'm going with here.

If they ever do build the thing I think the inevitable civilian version would look mighty fine in a gunrack of my very own. But that's just me.