Weapon Name- LSAT 6.8mm Remington
Round Type- 6.8mm Remington Caseless
Over-all length- 36.1 inches (Stock Retracted)
Barrel length- 16.5 inches
Weight- 9.9 lb (4.5 kg) Empty, 10.9 lb with 40 round detachable box magazine, 12.25 lb with 100 rounds, 14.5 lb with 200 rounds,
Rate of Fire- 650 rounds/min
Feed Mechanism- Belt Fed; or Detachable Box Magazine
Round Capacity- 40 round box, 100-200 round soft pouches
Effective Range- 600m
Range- 1000m
Accuracy- 1.5-2 MOA
Accessories- Picanty Rail
Quick switch firing mechanism- N/A
Scope/Sights- Picanty Rail
Muzzle Velocity- 785 m/s
Firing System- Gas-piston; push-through feed-and-ejection; open, swinging chamber
Miscellaneous/electronic information- Essentially a caseless, light machine gun refitted from firing 5.56mm rounds to 6.8mm remington rounds.
Basic Information
Development began with the two types of weight-reducing ammunition, and a light machine gun to serve as a testbed and technology demonstrator. Use of an LMG for this purpose is notable, considering its greater technical complexity than infantry rifles. The use of advanced computer simulations to accelerate development may have mitigated this, and the less significant LMG platform succeeds at being less conspicuous to unwanted media attention. For development, the use of extensive computer simulation and modelling reduces both time and expenditure for prototyping and testing. The program also uses a 'spiral development' approach, whereby the weapon and ammunition is rolled out in stages or 'spirals', each stage producing a new version that is an improvement on those from previous spirals. A competition down-selected the design concepts of various companies to leave an AAI Corporation-led team of companies as the developers of the weapon system. The cohesive team of companies is combined with government support to ensure success. The parallel development of the two ammunition types meant that, if the caseless ammunition effort succeeded, much of the development work gained with the composite cased weapon could be applied to it, and, if it failed, the composite-cased version was likely to succeed on its own.
The LMGs built made a 44% and 43% reduction of weight (for the cased telescoped and the caseless weapons, respectively). Secondary goals have also been met: the LMG has the potential to improve battlefield effectiveness (due to its simpler and more consistent weapon action, its light weight and low recoil, and its stiffer barrel); its use of recoil compensation (with a long-stroke gas-system, for example) has produced positive feedback regarding controllability; the simpler mechanism of the LMG is both more reliable and easier to maintain; a rounds counter has been integrated to improve maintainability, and the weapon is capable of accepting other electronic devices; improved materials used in the chamber and barrel have reduced heat load on the weapon; and the weapon cost is equivalent to the existing M249.
The LMG design is a traditionally (non-bullpup) laid-out machine-gun. It has many of the capabilities of other light machine guns, such as a quick-change barrel, a vented fore-grip, belt-fed ammunition, an ammunition pouch, and a roughly 600 rpm rate of fire. New features include the unique weight, a rounds counter, and a highly stiff and heat resistant barrel achieved with fluting and special materials. Possibly the most radical part is its firing action: the weapon uses a swinging chamber. The chamber swings around a longitudinal pivot; it swings from horizontally parallel with the pivot (the firing position), to vertically parallel (the feed position), and back again. A long-stroke gas-piston is used to operate this action. A round is fed into the chamber at the feed position using a rammer, and the new round also serves to push a spent or dud round out of the far end of the chamber. Such rounds are pushed forward, parallel to the barrel, and they slide into a separate mechanism that ejects them out of one side of the gun. The advantages of this whole action include its simplicity, its isolation of the chamber from barrel heat, and its positive control of round movement from extraction to ejection. In the caseless firing version of the weapon, another mechanism is introduced to seal the chamber during firing (which is why the caseless weapon is roughly 1% heavier).
The round simply is a 5.56mm styled round replaced with the larger 6.8mm Remington round and with the proper powders substituted. Due to the interchangeable nature of the 5.56mm and 6.8mm Remington round, it is relatively easy to design a 6.8mm remington styled round for the same weapons system.
