The Eugene Stoner Tapes - Part 5: Future Weapons Design

[@SlimRhyno]

What do you know, he makes sense when he speaks. No wonder "big army" was always against him!

[@maxscott3349]

He didn't like the question, so he just doodled his own thing all over the test. And he predicted laser sights. What a guy

[@livingcorpse5664]

He predicated some of the things they are working on now, like how they are testing goggles that let you mark where enemy troops are so your allies can see them on their goggles like in a video game.

[@derekg5951]

I’ve been looking for info on the ARES rifle for FOREVER, thank you 🙏

[@livingcorpse5664]

Now if we can only get footage of the other disqualified prototype, the McDonnell Douglas AIWS.

[@Appalachia_Ape]

He really is a legend for posting all of this shit.

[@benwinter2420]

The Jesus rifle

[@GeorgeCowsert]

I like how Eugene semi-predicted the rise of ACOGs. Those things, as overpriced as they are, solved the hit probability issue by making it so that the soldiers are always outside of the enemy's range by default, and can thus use their optics.

[@rondobrondo]

He predicted the new vortex sight that's being put on the new military rifles

[@Roddy556]

I find it amazing it took so long for weapons designed to shoot past 200 meters to be equipped with magnified optics as standard.

[@Justice-ian]

@@Roddy556 Look how long it took for High Power (which allows so many ridiculous impractical accessories that experienced competitors bring rolling suitcases) to decide that the Kmart Tasco scope every US twelve year old has on his BB gun isn't an "unfair advantage".

[@Roddy556]

@@Justice-ian I can see the (possibly misguided) rationale for limiting accessories in competition. I can not see any reason not to give soldiers every "unfair advantage" technology can come up with.

[@Justice-ian]

@@Roddy556 I agree with you on both, but competition standards are worthless unless they're STANDARDIZED (consistent). Examples of consistent standards (whether they interest me or not): -Everybody competes with an identical factory or as-issued product -"Box Rule" preventing bulky, impractical raceguns that wouldn't be useful in real life -Cost cap preventing people from buying huge advantages Allowing people to spend thousands on all sorts of bulky, field-impractical nonsense, but not $20 on a cheap little scope, was the preposterous opposite of a rational standard.

[@samoksner]

Literally 200-300k rounds of ammo per casualty, holy crap I had no idea it was that skewed. I figured maybe 5-10k but wow

[@indigohammer5732]

At 0.25 cents per round

[@JimiFarkle]

I read 1,000 rounds of 303 british cost $60 bucks during WW2 which is around $600 today. So 25 cents seems almost on the low end. @@indigohammer5732

[@ChitFromChinola]

Innovation comes from the upstarts. Stoner was always an upstart - one and two person design teams unencumbered by bureaucracy. It’s remarkable to see a true first-principles engineering mind at work - relentless drive for simplicity, unafraid of scrapping legacy designs for something better.

[@sixfivearms8896]

21:25: "I've always felt the user, the Army, has never been very realistic in their proclaimed use of small arms."

[@MrGsteele]

That figure of "rounds of ammo per casualty" is misleading - it doesn't have to do with field accuracy of rifles, nor training level of troops. It has to do with both a change in the nature of weapons AND a change in the nature of tactics. Going from bolt action to semi-auto to full-auto weapons is part of it; going from aimed fire and volley fire to suppressive fire, increased use of automatic mode, use of machine guns for suppressive fire, and fire and maneuver tactics, is the other part. That tactical change means that bullets are not just used to HIT the enemy - they are used to keep the enemy's head down. That means that each part of a platoon or squad in front line combat is alternating between providing suppressive fire - while others are advancing or maneuvering for positional advantage - and then maneuvering to advance while the other part switches to suppressing enemy fire. In WWII, you had A machine gunner, with troops armed with semi-auto Garands and bolt action Springfields (or, at the end of the war, carbines - eg, Okinawa); by mid-Vietnam, EVERYONE was a machine gunner, with an ~automatic weapon in their hands. That tactical change, in what weapons are used for, chews up ammo fast. Based on one source, the number of bullets fired per enemy kill reported in the civil war (1861-65) was 60*; in WWI (1914-1918) it was 300; in 1941-45 WWII it was 25,000; by 1975 (Vietnam war) it was 50,000, and in the 2001 Afghanistan invasion by US, it was 250,000. * That was considered, post-civil war, to be an embarrassment, and one of the motivating factors for the formation of the National Rifle Association in 1871. It also later led (1903) to the establishment of the Civilian Marksmanship Program: to train the citizens - i.e. militia - to be more effective marksmen in combat.

[@leadhead7338]

Who would have thought, im watching MR. Stoners Future Weapon Program, while in 2021 im at the same time holding Guns&Ammo artice on the NGSW (Next Gen Squad Weapon) R.I.P Sir

[@arcblooper2699]

Crazy how plastic telescoped ammo is exactly what they’re looking at now

[@MandoWookie]

That case telescoped autocannon round is in fact currently in use by some military's(Germany is one I think) in their IFVs. And poly cased conventional ammo is being adopted by the US for aircraft weapons currently.

[@berryreading4809]

Look at the older Textron LSAT program... nothing new under the sun 🌞 if stoner would've had a modern Eotech on his FARC 3 or his 86 lmg it would've been on the cover of soldier of fortune and used by special forces! Lacking neccessary electronic components to drive the optics development is what truly held back his circa 1980's advanced weapon concepts... in my opinion anyways... if you want to truly see his work in modern form check out the 2018 Knights Armament LAMG, as Reed self admitted they took the great design off the shelf, dusted it off, made it suit modern expectations and showed the world what they're missing for about the 4th time now 😄

[@boss350z5]

Took till 2021; but now the US Army is adopting telescopic polymer ammo... stoner was a genius...

[@berryreading4809]

Check out the textron LSAT, the idea has been in working form for a long time, however it's a heavily design dependent weapon for reliability, and has not had any "real" military development time to perfect it, so still not a great choice for a "replacement program" would be better suited as a standalone test platform run by rangers or special forces for starters to get the perfection timer started up 😉 (imagine a beltfed machine gun with a hidden chamber, no extractor and an op-rod shoved straight through the middle of a plastic shell... literally an impossible malfunction to clear without tools, because the action is stuck midway and cannot be field stripped 😐 you won't see that in Textron's promotional videos 🤣 but there was a reason special operations units passed on the LSAT... supposedly Textron has improved some of those design flaws, and changed to more heat resistant plastics, but that chamber is still buried deeper than a bullpup's due to the inherent design, which is already starting with poor footing 😳 We'll have it figured out in another 35 years though 😄 ya know just after the military standardizes on electrical impulse for launching projectiles instead of pressure from smokeless powder 😂👍

[@livingcorpse5664]

And then they'll mention how he predictable this when talking about the history of telescoped ammunition while conveniently leaving out they treated him like crap and sabotaged him.

[@tlshortyshorty5810]

Also how we’re using smart scopes and augmented reality tech to fire from the hip, just like he said

[@danielcurtis1434]

And then they decided to go to 80,000 PSI with steel reinforced brass!!!

[@borkwoof696]

No, they’re not.

[@tlshortyshorty5810]

I’m honestly astounded how well he predicted modern day development

[@rondobrondo]

He predicted the future of the new Vortex sight that is going on the new military rifles

[@josephk.4200]

That system on the board seems to resemble the Textron NGSW bid.

[@griffith5269]

It's a very similar action, however the ARES-OLIN ACR was in a bullpup format, whereas the Textron NGSW is in a conventional layout

[@aker1993]

Because it is

[@SilverStarHeggisist]

Watching this just makes me think "imagine what we could have had"

[@livingcorpse5664]

That's kind of how I feel about our space programs. We should be a lot further now then we actually are, but the U.S. and Soviet governments missed the bigger picture, only see its use for military purposes, so when the Cold War ended they started cutting back on the budget for their space programs. Ironic it took a bunch of rich guys doing their own space programs to get the U.S. to properly fund NASA again just on he off chance they might discover and capitalize on something before the rich guys do (and make sure they aren't going full blown terrorist and sneaking weapons up there). Typical human race, pissing contests seem to be the motivator for funding things.

[@SilverStarHeggisist]

@@livingcorpse5664 that's what evolution does, evolution loves competition. Personally I think it's great it's finally entered private sector. The problem had been it being a near monopoly by governments for decades, and government doesn't need to operate on a timely, profitable time table, so the moment a outside force doesn't force them to go faster, they drag their feet. Now we're seeing space travel that actually supports itself or at least attempts to, rather then relying on stolen money to do it. And thanks to the space companies wanting to make money, NASA had to stop doing wings for civilians that go to space, because too many people were going to space, which is a good thing, as costs drop, eventually this will open space to everyone the way airline flights opened to everyone.

[@livingcorpse5664]

@@SilverStarHeggisist Yeah its cool space tourism and medicine might become a thing in my lifetime. It'll pay for itself. Space programs may be behind where they should be (imagine what we would have) but man the renewed interest in space is making up for lost time and we, as a species, are catching up to where we should be real fast.

[@SilverStarHeggisist]

@@livingcorpse5664 and space tourism is just one way they can make money to get on to bigger things, like eventually space mining.

[@FortuneZer0]

27:30 Hello modern optics systems.

[@SilverStarHeggisist]

I thought the same thing

[@FishFind3000]

He was really ahead of his time

[@edwardx.winston5744]

Seems to me that the bullet in these plastic cylinder rounds makes quite a hop from its starting point until it hits the lands of the barrel’s rifling. I wonder if that might be a problem long-term, with the increased possibility of lead fouling or misalignment. That said, the way that cylinder carrier moves up to mate with the chamber is very interesting. With plastic ammo, my first thought was that the intense heat of a chamber would melt and/or burn plastic casings. That mini “elevator” moving up to mate with the chamber only for an instant seems like a brilliant solution.

[@surgetsann]

Textron's current rifle in the NGSW program works exactly the same way. There's a lot of videos on it if you're curious.

[@classifiedad1]

I don't think it would be a long-term issue, given that revolvers have had similar issues ever since someone came up with the idea half a millennia ago, and they seem to be doing quite well for themselves.

[@smorrow]

There's always gain twist. But really, do we actually know how fast the bullet is pushed in by the booster charge versus how fast it's pushed in by the bolt?

[@alexm566]

22:30 and now we have red dots

[@jasondiaz8431]

The current Army is going In the wrong direction with a larger round.

[@fuckheinschitt239]

this true. and it makes me annoy.

[@SilverStarHeggisist]

I think I see the advantage of a Red Dot sight.

[@berryreading4809]

That's truly what held back Stoner's "future weapons" if he could've had a modern eotech we might be running around with FARC 3's, LMG 86's and playing with his case telescoped ACR 😄 lack of low cost micro electronics hindering optic design is what really prevented Stoner from seeing the full potential of his designs while they were still novel concepts 🤷‍♂️ now it's just rehashed idea's covered in mlok with groups of engineers further complicating an already somewhat complicated design 😄 except for the stoner 86 lmg derived Knights LMG, and thier newer 2018 LAMG... those are terrific, but expensive and really only suitable for special missions units 👍

[@SilverStarHeggisist]

@@berryreading4809 or you're colt, that wouldn't know how to design something new if their lives depended on it.

[@berryreading4809]

@@SilverStarHeggisist they did 4 interesting projects in 60 years, that's good for colt, unless they just took them from what is now "Colt Canada" I can never remember how Diamaco is spelled lol 🤣 now their "innovative" products are cheap outsourced parts slapped together by another contractor with colt stamping thier logo and adding 20% 🤦‍♂️ maybe if the CZ acquisition of colt works out they can become a respectable company again 😒

[@icantalktrash]

Is that the 75mm dart for the hstvl behind him?????

[@smorrow]

"To my knowledge no-one has really tried [30:58] before" That's how miniguns work though.

[@tlshortyshorty5810]

I mean no one’s tried to make a standard issue minigun rifle for good reason

[@appidydafoo]

22:36 - The Pucker Factor™ and all that

[@davidfisher9026]

If all you are supplied with is 3 mags of 20 rounds you aim your shots - like in British Army in Falklands war, you bloody well aim your shots.

[@DroppingBombs4ever]

Quad stack magazine would have been better

[@markcoffman9522]

Shows how the Army fights the last war. 50 meter targets in the jungle. Afghanistan the need was 800 meter 556 ammo and rifle.

[@coomman-e4j]

I have intrusive thoughts about larpers (and professionals) acting like no anecdotes from people like Stoner and other veterans are relevant and its only GWOT bullshit

[@jamestamu83]

Crappy, unreliable gun. Should have modeled after the AK platform, and copied its robust direct-impingement piston design. What a terrible gun that only runs when everything is CLEAN and perfect. Unacceptable in combat. JUNK.

[@JR-zi9vj]

manufacturer and quality issues not Developer. blame uncle sam.

[@SUBARCTICPSYCHO]

You're talking about the M-14, right?

[@hairydogstail]

During the early 1980's NATO ammunition testing the M16 was the most reliable and accurate rifle tested by NATO..Try again..