No fear Possum is here!
my unit is 1-41 Inf out of ft.riley. we are mech and have BFV's so i think i will be able to answer anything you need to know. I have been in and around them for over three years, 1 year of that In Iraq. driving and gunning. so now the goods.
all units are different but our guys were issued m16a4's, even the crews. the only people in the company to get m4's were the rto's, platoon sgt, and platoon leader. yes you are very right a m4 would be alot better but we do with what we have. it is very cluttered and small inside the hull.
M231 fire port weapons were dropped back in the eighties.
I didn't know Bradleys still had operational firing ports.
As far as I know Bradley crews are issued a couple of M9 handguns, a couple of M4 rifles, and maybe an M203 grenade launcher.
we still carried m231's in iraq and still have them in the arms room, we have
used them and the brads still have ports for them to be used. i used to love carrying em to the chow hall and getting all the funny looks that came with it!
they fire at approx 1200rds per minute, unless you take out the smallest recoil spring, and that slows down the rate a little, but it is still hard as all get out to keep the muzzle down. we do load all tracers in them unless we don't have adequete ammo to do that, then we go with the norm for or m16.the only m9's we got were for the 1sg and CO, no other crew members had them. and the only m203 was the fire team leader in the back if you had one.
as a crew member i had an m16a4 behind me, 12 mags on me, an m231 under the seat, lots of medical equipment, mt.dews and slim jims!
and that was it!
I know this wasn't in the question but for general info. the brad's weapon systems, for the Infantry now, i don't know about all the others. include a
1)Bushmaster m242 25mm chaingun, that fires HE and AP rds. (my favorite!
)
2)m240c coaxail machine gun that is feed from the right instead of left, has no hand grip, and no heat shield. etc.
3) m231 port firing weapons 2 per track
4) dual tow missle launcher ( FYI tow= Tubular launched, optically tracked, wire guided)
5) kinda sorts a weapon, the smoke grenade launchers!
Hope this helps if you need any in dept intel let me know but that is the basics.