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

My take is it failed for a number of reasons. I am a bit of a fan of the XM8 but the biggest design flaw I see is that it lacks Picatinny rails. It only has the Picatinny Attachment Points for mounting of optics. The advantage to that is optics don't need to be zeroed quite as much, but in the real world that's useless because you can't put any existing optics on. Plus, no rails on the side or bottom, so no attachment of lasers (although I've heard the XM8 has an infrared laser built into the optic, feel free to correct me) and you can't attach the M203. While its reloading method is possibly the most ergonomic I've seen, it feeds from G36 mags, and the U.S. uses the STANAG magazine found in the M4/M16.

And yes, cost does have a huge effect to it. I've never seen the cost per unit for the XM8, but I can imagine that it can be pretty expensive. Also, the M16 platform has been in use for so long and it's been drilled so far into the heads of some people that they have trouble letting go of it or accepting that any other design completely different from it might work. Sorry, that was just personal opinion.

One last big malfunction it had is that the reciever melted during extended automatic fire. The sad part is that if HK had put more money into that I'm sure they could've solved it.

I think the biggest thing is just the fact that the U.S. military just doesn't like to change anything and they find no new need for a new rifle. Colt themselves said it took them over a decade to get an extractor spring changed on the M4. The M16/M4 is probably here to stay for a very very long time. Mandaloin 09:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

The production cost for an XM8 is about 400$... The cost for an M4 is 600$ and that of an M16 is 800-900$

Weight and the LMG version were the official reasons for its cancelation. The receiver melting occurred when they were trying to reduce the weight of the weapon to around 4 lbs. Current test/prototype models have increased the weight and the problem has supposedly gone. The LMG aspect also caused issue as there was no easy way to swap barrels if the barrel overheated (though barrels overheating in and of itself was never an issue). Also it failed to improve over the M4/M16 100% in all aspects of weapons performance, which was a mandate put out by the government. One last thing was while most versions of the XM8 used the proprietary mounting system (the circles on the side of the gun), their were some concept models late in testing with traditional rails.

There is a better modular weapons system coming out anyway the Remington ACR.

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)

How is the XM8 a piece of crap? Nobody seems to think there's an middleground with the XM8. Either you love it or you think it's a disgrace not worthy to even be thought of. Why do you hate it so much?

why is there a wierd cartoonish/not-real picture of the XM8 on some pages.itlooks like it has been digitally made ona computer smish34