Talk:Heckler & Koch XM8

Reasons for failure?

Supposedly this weapons system was to become the new standard rifle of the US army, but I'm at a loss as to why it was eventually cancelled. The "obvious answers" might be that "American weapons companies like having their stranglehold on equipping such a nice customer as the US army" or that "H&K didn't bid low enough" (as said by the old army truism "remember, all of our equipment was made by the lowest bidder"), but I think there's more to the story than either of those.

H&K's bid to make this "modular weapons system" adaptable to four battle field roles (standard carbine for standard infantry use, compact carbine for PDW use, automatic rifle with bipod and hi-capacity magazine for SAW-type use, and finally a designated marksman variant with a longer barrel and better optics) certainly sounds like a "hostile takeover" strategy of the corporate kind--was it possibly too ambitious and too threatening to corporate interested to have all those weapon types supplant all those individual weapons being used (and paid for) by the US armed forces? Asking everyone to "hand over your M4s, your M249 SAWs, your FN P90s, and your M14s--we've got something better than those which will do all 4 jobs!" definitely could cause some stocks to fall.

Finally, if the XM8 really is just the G36 in a different exterior, why didn't they make a more ambitious and less conventional design, possibly in a bullpup formation? The SA80 (also designed by H&K) had its hiccups early on but appears to be a reliable weapon today, and with the experience gained from its development and deployment I don't see why a better version could be made for the XM8 project. The ambidexterity problem could even be solved with a little ingenuity, kind of like how the FN-F2000 is ambidextrous not because it ejects down like the FN P90 does, but because it dribbles rather than spits spent casings.

I would like to see more of this rifle in movies and games, possibly even with more use of its "transformational capabilities" as well. Seeing a film character rapidly change his XM8 compact carbine variant to a DMR variant could be nice.

Any answers from those in the know would be appreciated. Mazryonh 04:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

look like arming an army is more complected then it seems. Rex095

Hopefully no more seeing these in movies

I really hope a lot of action movies and even games of the future to come would stop using the XM8 to be the image of "the rifle of the future" look. Even I made the naive mistake once and thought this rifle was cool, I hope that new comers into the world of firearms will wise up quick and see just because it looks kinda cool and spacy...doesn't mean it's NOT a complete piece of crap. Excalibur01 10:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)