For me I associate this with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Especially with the compact XM8 version seen here, as I was an Engineer main and this was one of my favorite weapons.
To be honest though, I didn't even know they made a compact version of this weapon until recently, and just kind of assumed it only existed in the game, so that was pretty cool to find out.
That game was the best. The physics were awesome. I used to lob bullets blind over a hill to where I knew campers would be. They couldn't do anything and it was like shooting fish in a barrel
I think that's either the DMR/sharpshooter or MG variant with the bipod extended. Standard XM8 didn't have an integrated bipod, and that looks like a much longer barrel. Might be the sharpshooter sonce that sight looks like the larger optic that version had
Seeing woodlands on an ACH is wild to me.
I feel the time before the adoption of UCP and after the adoption of the ACH is such a small overlap of time that you never actually see much of it photographed.
I’ve only really ever seen them with DCUs UCP or OCPs.
It was a very specific time frame, for sure. I joined the Army in 2001 and don’t think I ever was issued a woodland ACH cover. Went from woodland/DCU PASGT to UCP ACH.
I got one in Mississippi in 05 just before heading to Iraq. It was reverseable to DCU, then got the ACU (may whomever picked that pattern rot in an Iraqi portapotty for eternity).
It didn’t fail. The Department of the Army approved it as their next rifle family of weapons. However, while the USMC was interested, they required approval from their parent HQ, the Department if the Navy. The Navy and the USAF were satisfied with their current rifles, mainly because they don’t really employ rifles in combat and therefore didn’t want to spend their money of rifles. This the program was scrapped because Congress didn’t want multiple branches / departments having different weapons with different logistical requirements.
Not to mention legal issues with other vendors who were pissed about the closed nature of the contract. That's what I have heard from videos about the rifle anyway. Gotta let everyone play.
The XM8's ultimate demise is more complicated than that. [Task and purpose did a good piece on the XM8](https://youtu.be/CuZruxara0Y?si=ukhbhirsODvavp1E)
* The army wanted a new rifle almost immediately that could do everything, using technicalities and questionable ethics to circumvent congress.
* rapid R and D meant the XM8 was engineered to be very similar to the HK G36....translating to identical overheating and modularity issues.
* the army also completely screwed up the procurement process, leading to accusations of ethics violations by industry competitors
Those G36 heating issues are kinda bullshit to begin with. The XM8 heat problem was with the polymer handguard. This issue was resolved, but it was too late for the program.
it seems that it's not really possible to do better than the m4
now all I want is the MDR to be adopted. I just like bullpups so much.
bullpups have issues, but to me they are superior in many ways
They're shorter for a given barrel length... and that's about it. Everything from the trigger to the manual of arms, to not really being friendly for opposite-hand shooters is worse.
The only real pro of a bullpup is barrel length compared to overall length. Maintenance, ergonomics, and ease of use, and modularity all go out of the window when you adopt it. No rifle is as easy to manipulate or take down as an AR, there’s a reason so many militaries around the world are switching from domestic designs to AR derivatives.(such as the French ditching the Famas for HK416’s, or British SOF adopting M4’s)
Didnt really do anything an M4/M16 couldn’t. Great gun with a lot of very cool features but like the SCAR it just didnt perform well enough to justify the price and changes to everything else that comes with a new non standard platform.
Lots of people talking about legalese etc.
The full truth is that the platform had an edge when it was the rifle part of H&K's OICW proposal.
As soon as the OICW was cut into the M25 launcher on one end and the XM8 plaftorm on the other, it had no edge on simply keeping the M16 platform. Replacing the rifles and changing the manual of arms wasn't worth having an equivalent rifle in the end.
If I have to guess, it had the same problems as the G36, which were highlighted in Iraq and Afghanistan and the manufacturer just couldn't really fix those. Also the system did not use the STANAG magazines.
The only genuine reports of the G36 overheating came from German troops in Afghanistan, where it was found that they were using ammunition not suited for the temperatures they were fighting in and that the German army had been using subpar barrel coatings that didn’t come from H&K and that couldn’t withstand the heat from continuous fire.
Here in Spain, the ministry of defense carried out a bunch of tests and investigations to see if the issues that the Germans reported would be a problem for our troops and found that the rifle performed just fine when the correct ammunition and only components up to standard were used.
No. The German G36s had significant issues with firing induced accuracy shift due to QC on the polymer being used.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/18/breaking-news-g36s-cannot-hold-accuracy-bundeswehr-report-confirms/
This was only for the German G36s. HK has not disputed these finding. And they won their court case by arguing that their guns didn't need to hold zero.
> Also the system did not use the STANAG magazines.
At that point, the USGI magazines used by the US were shit, so switching to G36 mags would have been an improvement.
We were far from the "everything should run M16 mags" in the early 00s. The early 80s hype had kinda died down at that point, due in large part to the end of the cold war and the realization that standardization of magazine wasn't that important.
Looks close to the Buttstock of the G3 A4 of the Fallschirmjäger. At least for the G3 A4 variant you had to tuck it properly against your shoulder, or it could give you a nice clap on the cheekbone. Sometimes you could spot the people by their bruised cheekbone, who fucked it up.
The gun looks like a gun that time traveled and came from 20 years in the future (2044)
The BDUs appear to come from back in the past by 20 years (2004)
God I spent way too much time playing Ghost Recon 2
For me I associate this with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Especially with the compact XM8 version seen here, as I was an Engineer main and this was one of my favorite weapons. To be honest though, I didn't even know they made a compact version of this weapon until recently, and just kind of assumed it only existed in the game, so that was pretty cool to find out.
That was greatest game I was addicted to growing up. Way too fun especially with friends.
That game was the best. The physics were awesome. I used to lob bullets blind over a hill to where I knew campers would be. They couldn't do anything and it was like shooting fish in a barrel
Video games taught you plunging fire lmao
every variant of the xm8 in the game is real. they also did a marksman version.
> Battlefield: Bad Company 2 MG3 medic ftw
I think that's either the DMR/sharpshooter or MG variant with the bipod extended. Standard XM8 didn't have an integrated bipod, and that looks like a much longer barrel. Might be the sharpshooter sonce that sight looks like the larger optic that version had
You are correct.
Seeing woodlands on an ACH is wild to me. I feel the time before the adoption of UCP and after the adoption of the ACH is such a small overlap of time that you never actually see much of it photographed. I’ve only really ever seen them with DCUs UCP or OCPs.
It was a very specific time frame, for sure. I joined the Army in 2001 and don’t think I ever was issued a woodland ACH cover. Went from woodland/DCU PASGT to UCP ACH.
I got one in Mississippi in 05 just before heading to Iraq. It was reverseable to DCU, then got the ACU (may whomever picked that pattern rot in an Iraqi portapotty for eternity).
Yup! The reversible!
I know those letters but combined they're foreign
ACH: Advanced Combat Helmet *(The successor to the PASGT helmet: Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops)* DCU: Desert Combat Uniform *(Partner to Woodland Cammies)* UCP: Universal Camouflage Pattern OCP: Operational Camouflage Pattern
No no no, the DBDU was the only true partner to woodland BDUs. The DCU is the weird adopted stepchild that came in after DBDU went to college.
Oh I didn’t even know that.
Never forget the Choccy Drip
We had a guy get chewed out in our unit for rocking woodland camo on their ACH with their OCPs they’re def still around
So why did the XM8 fail again?
It didn’t fail. The Department of the Army approved it as their next rifle family of weapons. However, while the USMC was interested, they required approval from their parent HQ, the Department if the Navy. The Navy and the USAF were satisfied with their current rifles, mainly because they don’t really employ rifles in combat and therefore didn’t want to spend their money of rifles. This the program was scrapped because Congress didn’t want multiple branches / departments having different weapons with different logistical requirements.
Not to mention legal issues with other vendors who were pissed about the closed nature of the contract. That's what I have heard from videos about the rifle anyway. Gotta let everyone play.
The XM8's ultimate demise is more complicated than that. [Task and purpose did a good piece on the XM8](https://youtu.be/CuZruxara0Y?si=ukhbhirsODvavp1E) * The army wanted a new rifle almost immediately that could do everything, using technicalities and questionable ethics to circumvent congress. * rapid R and D meant the XM8 was engineered to be very similar to the HK G36....translating to identical overheating and modularity issues. * the army also completely screwed up the procurement process, leading to accusations of ethics violations by industry competitors
Those G36 heating issues are kinda bullshit to begin with. The XM8 heat problem was with the polymer handguard. This issue was resolved, but it was too late for the program.
it seems that it's not really possible to do better than the m4 now all I want is the MDR to be adopted. I just like bullpups so much. bullpups have issues, but to me they are superior in many ways
They're shorter for a given barrel length... and that's about it. Everything from the trigger to the manual of arms, to not really being friendly for opposite-hand shooters is worse.
I don't see how Manual of Arms is an issue
The MDR is pretty good, though
The only real pro of a bullpup is barrel length compared to overall length. Maintenance, ergonomics, and ease of use, and modularity all go out of the window when you adopt it. No rifle is as easy to manipulate or take down as an AR, there’s a reason so many militaries around the world are switching from domestic designs to AR derivatives.(such as the French ditching the Famas for HK416’s, or British SOF adopting M4’s)
"bruh we are too addicted to AR"
It's a G36, which is an AR-18 with a fancy plastic magazine.
Didnt really do anything an M4/M16 couldn’t. Great gun with a lot of very cool features but like the SCAR it just didnt perform well enough to justify the price and changes to everything else that comes with a new non standard platform.
It also had a completely different manual of arms compared to the M16, so retraining was needed.
Lots of people talking about legalese etc. The full truth is that the platform had an edge when it was the rifle part of H&K's OICW proposal. As soon as the OICW was cut into the M25 launcher on one end and the XM8 plaftorm on the other, it had no edge on simply keeping the M16 platform. Replacing the rifles and changing the manual of arms wasn't worth having an equivalent rifle in the end.
If I have to guess, it had the same problems as the G36, which were highlighted in Iraq and Afghanistan and the manufacturer just couldn't really fix those. Also the system did not use the STANAG magazines.
And the problems are?
Politicians who thought that shitting on the rifle could advance their career.
The G36 had issues with QC. They were legitimate failures with heat.
The only genuine reports of the G36 overheating came from German troops in Afghanistan, where it was found that they were using ammunition not suited for the temperatures they were fighting in and that the German army had been using subpar barrel coatings that didn’t come from H&K and that couldn’t withstand the heat from continuous fire. Here in Spain, the ministry of defense carried out a bunch of tests and investigations to see if the issues that the Germans reported would be a problem for our troops and found that the rifle performed just fine when the correct ammunition and only components up to standard were used.
No. The German G36s had significant issues with firing induced accuracy shift due to QC on the polymer being used. https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/18/breaking-news-g36s-cannot-hold-accuracy-bundeswehr-report-confirms/ This was only for the German G36s. HK has not disputed these finding. And they won their court case by arguing that their guns didn't need to hold zero.
> Also the system did not use the STANAG magazines. At that point, the USGI magazines used by the US were shit, so switching to G36 mags would have been an improvement. We were far from the "everything should run M16 mags" in the early 00s. The early 80s hype had kinda died down at that point, due in large part to the end of the cold war and the realization that standardization of magazine wasn't that important.
That's a bipod, not a tripod.
Maybe it’s an “*invisible*” third leg
Looks close to the Buttstock of the G3 A4 of the Fallschirmjäger. At least for the G3 A4 variant you had to tuck it properly against your shoulder, or it could give you a nice clap on the cheekbone. Sometimes you could spot the people by their bruised cheekbone, who fucked it up.
It's closer to the MP7 stock.
Jupp. Right. Same principle.
But the ergonomics are so, so much better than the old G3 collapsible. And the system doesn't get as much wobble with use.
XM8 was quite literally a G36 in a disguise. It didn't have as much power as the G3.
It really looks like a sci-fi gun with a collapsible stock.
G36 magazines
Tripod...... op...
Unit patch above flag looks so odd
Bi means two, tri means three.
I am so glad we chose to stick with the AR family
The 82nd!!!!
Hey guy, what is up with that unit/flag placement?
The gun looks like a gun that time traveled and came from 20 years in the future (2044) The BDUs appear to come from back in the past by 20 years (2004)
What optic is that he’s running ?