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The M4/M16 series is perfectly capable of the job at hand. As long as you properly maintain it, it works very well. Problems with maintenance stem from people who are improperly taught how to maintain the weapons. A big problem I've seen are people who use too much CLP (Cleaner Lubricant and Protectant). When the initial study said the weapons were "heavily lubricated" this raised an eyebrow with me. When you go to a range, you can tell who soaked their weapon in CLP beforehand because the first few rounds burn a lot of it off and there's smoke coming out from the upper as they fire. Great way to add carbon into the bolt/chamber area. The lesson may be CLP isn't all that great and there may be a need to look at alternative lubricants and cleaners. It's the only substance I've ever seen that claims to perform all three actions at the same time. It doesn't touch my personally owned M4/AR-15 variant.
To me, the points of failure in the design stem less from the direct gas system than from either feeding (magazine issues) or extraction. Neither of these are fatal flaws to the design and can easily be improved upon.
I would think that in order for the US Army to decide to replace the M4, there would need to be something available that offers a revolutionary change (caseless ammo, lasers etc) or a catalyst for change in the form of immense public failures of the M4/M16 series of weapons. Otherwise, it would be tough to justify a change.
All that being said, I was impressed with the little I saw of the XM8 and I prefer the idea of a piston driven upper. Don't see it happening, though.
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