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N9NWO
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Sort of split the mission. The M240 took the mounted mission while the M249 took over for the M60 at the squad level (hand carried)
Are you ready for the Army to replace the M4 with the NGSW (6.8mm)?
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marksman13
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Not sure what it is like today, but we carried a 240B several times on foot patrols.
lysanderxiii
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No. we are long way from production, even if funding remains stable. Which I don't see under this administration.
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mcb
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I believe, and the chart above appears to concur, that the combat projectile development was complete at the of of FY19, the over all program is not complete the the primary combat projectile has been finished and does what the Army currently wants it to do. Now they just have to decide which of the three remaining companies is going to launch it.
IMHO if anything is going to kill NGSW its going to be something tied to the supply chain rather than actual field performance.
IMO, it's going to be a discretionary arm, something to give the squads and platoons a leg up on range, when needed,
I doubt the M4's going anywhere, for a while, either.
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N9NWO
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The M4 will be around with the reserves and the support units (logistics, intel, commo).
Nature Boy
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That’s contrary my experience.
Actually the M240 has been in use with the US Army for quite a long time. The 240 was used as the COAX machine gun on the M728 CEV which came out in 1965. And the 249 was never a replacement for the M60, at least not in Combat Engineer units. Even the maintenance section at battalion level had 2 M60's and 2-4 M249's assigned to them during the early 90's. That was what we had when I was assigned to the 40th Eng CBT Bn, 1st AD from Jan 92 to Dec 94.
And from a logistics stand point, it makes sense to go to just one type of light/medium general purpose machine gun. The only advantage to the M249 is it shares ammo with the M16/M4. But I have never saw a 249 that actually fed reliably from M16 magazines.
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N9NWO
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The M240 was seen as too heavy to hump. The M249 is the squad automatic weapon, not the M240. Most M240s were on vehicles. As were Mk19 automatic grenade launchers.
That has been my experience as well, we still had the M60's along with the M249's
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N9NWO
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I do not believe that M249 was mag fed. I have only seen belt fed. However the M249 replaced the M60 as a squad weapon for the most part. The M240 was more fixed mounted on vehicles rather than used on foot patrol.
Dang it, I wish I would have known that when I was assigned to light infantry/airborne units. I never got to mount my M60 to anything except the issued tripod. And we would try to "accidentally" leave the tripod in the arms room when we could get away with it.
Wrong on the M249. The primary feeding method was to use either 100 or 200 round belts but it was also designed to feed from the standard STANAG 30 round M16 magazines. The reason it was designed to use both belts and magazines is incase the gunner ran out of belts, he could get magazines from other squad members. And the 249 did not replace the M60 at the squad level, at least while I was in. The 249 was in addition/supporting role to the 60 so that the squad could be broke down into smaller fire teams and still have machine guns assigned to each team.
I'm sure tactics and training has changed since I got out, but that is how it was for both infantry and engineers units when I was in.
mcb
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The M249 could, in an emergency, be fed with STANAG complaint magazines. Notice the magazine-well hiding between the belt (above) and ammunition box (below) in the right image. They never fed very reliably this way and the malfunctions sometimes damaged the actual magazine feed lips but in a pinch it could be done. Better than throwing empty links at the bad-guys.
.455_Hunter
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When I first read about the M249 as a teen, I interpreted the "dual feed" capability to mean specialty ammo (like AP) could be held in the magazine and selected for use on the fly. Only when I got hands-on with the platform did I learn it was an either/or proposition.
Nature Boy
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By who?
The M60 and the M240G weight almost exactly the same.
Sorry my friend, you’re just flat wrong on this one
Oldschool shooter
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Going to temain the M4 platform in 6mm ARC
marksman13
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Been wrong about plenty of other stuff he’s posted. No need to stop now.
Looks like we have reached the end of this one.
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