New US army belt fed machine gun
- Thread starter hawk-i
- Start date
Why would anyone want a M240 or C6 platoon MG while the SAW M250 at the squad / section level is half the weight, 1.5X of the range and 30% ammo weight saving?
7.62NATO is dead. Expect M240 in dismounted roles in the US get purged along with the M249.
The rest of the NATO will be seeing FN and HK 6.8 conversion kits for their 7.62 guns soon.
7.62NATO is dead. Expect M240 in dismounted roles in the US get purged along with the M249.
The rest of the NATO will be seeing FN and HK 6.8 conversion kits for their 7.62 guns soon.
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.277 fury 3000fps @ 80000psi. 700 rounds a minute. Man that thing hauls ass.
Love GarandThumb and his content. Great video.
Love GarandThumb and his content. Great video.
Wasn't there a couple countries in NATO who didn't adopt 5.56 instead keeping 7.62 for all their grunts up until the 1990s? Like Portugal?
Anyway, I'm just saying that NATO adoption of .277 isn't a sure thing. Heck .338 Lapua is in a grey zone too.
Portuguese finally gave up a year or two ago with FN SCAR 16. No one uses 7.62 "rifles" anymore.
7.62 GPMG and GPMG used as LMG are wide spread in NATO. The brits are one of those that ditched minimi and went back to GPMG as a section level MG. They probably will be the first to jump on the wonder 6 LMG outside of the US and hasten the evolution.
Eventually FN and HK will make conversion kits for their Evol, FN MAG, MG4 and MG5. The US already sent out a solicitation to use 6.8 in FN M240.
338 MMG is "big", and the ammo is also bigger. I can't really see it being the GPMG that replaces FN MAG as a platoon MG.
Another "evolution" will be 6.8 DMR and SASS. Just off my head I remember 6.8X51mm out of a 16" drops at 800 yrds is like 25% less than 6.5CM out of a 26".
7.62 GPMG and GPMG used as LMG are wide spread in NATO. The brits are one of those that ditched minimi and went back to GPMG as a section level MG. They probably will be the first to jump on the wonder 6 LMG outside of the US and hasten the evolution.
Eventually FN and HK will make conversion kits for their Evol, FN MAG, MG4 and MG5. The US already sent out a solicitation to use 6.8 in FN M240.
338 MMG is "big", and the ammo is also bigger. I can't really see it being the GPMG that replaces FN MAG as a platoon MG.
Another "evolution" will be 6.8 DMR and SASS. Just off my head I remember 6.8X51mm out of a 16" drops at 800 yrds is like 25% less than 6.5CM out of a 26".
5.56mm works fine in short range engagements, especially the newer bullets. If it ain't broke... I can see the greater US Army and its allies keeping 5.56mm for quite some time in their individual soldier scale weapon systems (AR15 variants and comparable weapons).
The issue with the M249 (or our C9) was the unreliability and high maintenance requirements. If the M250 resolves this, awesome!
The issue with the M249 (or our C9) was the unreliability and high maintenance requirements. If the M250 resolves this, awesome!
The legend of US 'my way or the highway' attitude that keeps on giving. Imagine if the US wasn't so pig headed in insisting 7.62 NATO being developed and standardised (for NATO) and .280 British was pursued? We would have had 3/4 of a century of developing an intermediate military round like 6.8mm ....
Kinda a yes or no, if we had ended up with 280 British we will still end up developing 6.8X51now - there is simply not enough case capacity to deliver the mass and velocity in a short casing for a 130 to 140 gr projectile to defeat ceramic plates. it would also be a whimpy GPMG round getting even more outmatched by 7.62X54R, which they would have to create something else or even stick with 30-06. And I won't surprised if 5.56 would still end up taking over.
The interesting thing is the US is already asking low velocity reduced range 6.8X51, because their current range template cannot accommodate the increased range of the new ammo.
An interesting point is, the reduced range 6.8 may end up taking over the real 6.8. Think of all the legacy M240 MG in ground and aerial platforms, they all have 22" + barrels. They don't need to jack up the pressure to reach 3000 fps, the extra 8" barrel will do. This means a conversion kit could be easily made, including the M134. All the European NATO army who are not interested in switching to new GPMG and MG ( like MG5 and FN MAG) will just do a conversion . The reduced range 6.8 then becomes the NATO standard.
We may end up with the situation like green tipped 6.8 for the LMG and emergency use, no colour for all others , something like that.
The modern infantryman's job it seems, is to squat in a hole in the ground, until an adversary decides to remove his particular hole in the ground with some standoff munition or tube artillery.
The days of OPERATIONAL OPERATORS playing cowboys and indians with lightly armed irregulars in the hills of Afghanistan are OVER.
