US Marines considering M27 IAR

[exsonic01]

http://soldiersystems.net/2017/02/10/usmc-begins-process-to-issue-m27-iar-to-every-rifleman-issues-rfi-to-industry/

It seems that the field test is very optimistic for Marines. Their plan needs to pass the congress and budget huddle, and there's not enough production lines for such many M27s now in H&K, but if it passes, than we may able to see the mix of M27 + M4 US marine squad in next CMBS module, if BF considers Marines in next module. 

Edited March 20, 2017 by exsonic01

[MikeyD]

Its interesting how many *other* rifles have been rebuilt under contract by H&K. I recall reading the British BAE-built SA80s were literally falling apart in soldiers hands, in the early 2000s they got rebuilt under contract by H&K (very vague memory about this). US has been having trouble with its M16/M4 design since the 1960s. Every few years they'd tweak something else to make it a *little* more trustworthy than it was before.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

They'll have some work on their hands with all those G-36s they sold to our new eastern allies then. 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/03/the-g36-controversy-intensifies/

Edited March 21, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[gnarly]

3 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Its interesting how many *other* rifles have been rebuilt under contract by H&K. I recall reading the British BAE-built SA80s were literally falling apart in soldiers hands, in the early 2000s they got rebuilt under contract by H&K (very vague memory about this). 

I was only recently educated about this

 

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/sa80-a2-l85-assault-rifle/

[cool breeze]

Can someone explain the thinking behind this?  I'm finding myself pretty confused by this whole IAR thing.  The idea is to trade the SAW light machine guns for the IAR, which is just a slightly more accurate assault rifle with both single shot and full auto?  So its just a slightly more accurate version of what regular riflemen have been using since Vietnam?  The advance is increasing single shot reach from 500+m to 800m?  Does it at least have a longer barrel... or maybe more powder in the ammo?  I'm just not really getting how this is an upgrade at all. If it was a M16 replacement it would be an upgrade.... but its so not a machine gun.  I guess the thinking is that the time for squads having integrated MG support is just now starting to be seen as old fashioned, out of date, ww2 style?

I've always had a bit of mixed feeling about the SAW in the first place, not completely sure it was wise to give up the big bullets, but having 200 per mag was/is pretty great. The bullets got smaller but you got more of them.  This change on the other hand takes the number of loaded bullets per fire team from 200+90=290 to 30+90=120. 

[sbobovyc]

Funny that you mention SA80. It's actually a series that has a rifle and an LMG. The LMG version had even more problems than the rifle. UK ended up hastily buying a bunch of FN Minimis when the War on Terror heated up.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

30rnds of 5.56mm at a time just isn't enough in the fire-support role is it.....I blame Bren-Gun nostalgia. 

[Jotte]

13 hours ago, cool breeze said:

Can someone explain the thinking behind this?  I'm finding myself pretty confused by this whole IAR thing.  The idea is to trade the SAW light machine guns for the IAR, which is just a slightly more accurate assault rifle with both single shot and full auto?  So its just a slightly more accurate version of what regular riflemen have been using since Vietnam?  The advance is increasing single shot reach from 500+m to 800m?  Does it at least have a longer barrel... or maybe more powder in the ammo?  I'm just not really getting how this is an upgrade at all. If it was a M16 replacement it would be an upgrade.... but its so not a machine gun.  I guess the thinking is that the time for squads having integrated MG support is just now starting to be seen as old fashioned, out of date, ww2 style?

I've always had a bit of mixed feeling about the SAW in the first place, not completely sure it was wise to give up the big bullets, but having 200 per mag was/is pretty great. The bullets got smaller but you got more of them.  This change on the other hand takes the number of loaded bullets per fire team from 200+90=290 to 30+90=120. 

IIRC one of the main reasons behind the IAR is that a SAW like the FN Minimi is rather bulky and heavy when clearing rooms, trenchlines etc. And the reasoning is that with new more advanced aiming optics you trade volume of fire for precision fire. Also if I remember the articles about it the USMC intended, at least originally, to keep SAW's as company level assets that could be distributed as needed due to mission requirments.

[c3k]

2 hours ago, TJT said:

IIRC one of the main reasons behind the IAR is that a SAW like the FN Minimi is rather bulky and heavy when clearing rooms, trenchlines etc. And the reasoning is that with new more advanced aiming optics you trade volume of fire for precision fire. Also if I remember the articles about it the USMC intended, at least originally, to keep SAW's as company level assets that could be distributed as needed due to mission requirments.

Yes, that's what has been said. Of course, the cognoscenti understand the true purpose. By grabbing a bunch of piston operated M4/M16s (check out the difference between direct impingement and piston operated...gotta find a link...ahh, here's the first one I found: http://info.stagarms.com/blog/bid/297530/The-difference-between-Gas-Piston-and-Direct-Impingement-technology-for-an-AR-15), the USMC can then show how much better the HK416 is when compared to the issued M16s.

So, according the secret plan, the USMC will have HK416s in each squad...AND...they'll keep the SAW. Of course, they'll demonstrate/test the HK416 and "discover" how much better it is than the M16.

That forces the Navy to budget for new HK416s for every Marine rifleman, and reissue the SAW back into the squads because you need something with more "oomph" than the standard rifle.

A cognoscenti told me this.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

1. The "M4/M16 is unreliable" thing needs to die in a fire.  It's not a perfect weapon at all, but it's higher rate of failure in the middle east is about the same to other nation's rifles when exposed to the hybrid blast furnace-sand blasting station that is that lovely sandy place..  

2. There's some discussion to if a full up machine gun is useful at the fireteam level, or if it just slows them down.  This is especially profound for the USMC who place a high emphasis on dismounted movement.  The logic of the IAR is to keep the mobility up, but give a weapon better suited to suppression effects than simple rifle fire.

3. There's also question to if the M249 is ever really enough machine gun, as generally full on MMGs seem to get the job done better, while the LMGs place a heavy carrying weight burden on small units. Basically the tyranny of being the "lesser" middle choice.  

[db_zero]

I agree the M-16 is unreliable is a hold over from the past that has been discussed endlessly. Pretty amazing it's been around so long.

imo the next revolution may be ceaseless ammo. If it can be perfected and perhaps a bullet in the 6.5 range you may get something revolutionary but then again the military probably has other more pressing priorities.

[cool breeze]

6 hours ago, c3k said:

So, according the secret plan, the USMC will have HK416s in each squad...AND...they'll keep the SAW. Of course, they'll demonstrate/test the HK416 and "discover" how much better it is than the M16.

That was my thinking too when this issue crossed my mind late at night, maybe its just the Marines being the Marines and trying to get their hands on every piece of fancy tech they can.  it seems like it is surely an upgrade to the assault rifles, so if they are just really hoping to carry em all I'm all for it.

 

2 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

2. There's some discussion to if a full up machine gun is useful at the fireteam level, or if it just slows them down.  This is especially profound for the USMC who place a high emphasis on dismounted movement.  The logic of the IAR is to keep the mobility up, but give a weapon better suited to suppression effects than simple rifle fire

I agree with your post generally but what about the IAR makes it more "suppressive"  than a basic rifle? Unless the supression comes from putting holes in the enemy and I see how that works.  The IAR is more accurate which makes more dead enemies and the dead are suppressed but I don't think that's what you mean.

Edited March 22, 2017 by cool breeze

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

9 hours ago, cool breeze said:

That was my thinking too when this issue crossed my mind late at night, maybe its just the Marines being the Marines and trying to get their hands on every piece of fancy tech they can.  it seems like it is surely an upgrade to the assault rifles, so if they are just really hoping to carry em all I'm all for it.

 

I agree with your post generally but what about the IAR makes it more "suppressive"  than a basic rifle? Unless the supression comes from putting holes in the enemy and I see how that works.  The IAR is more accurate which makes more dead enemies and the dead are suppressed but I don't think that's what you mean.

The concept is that while the volume of fire from the IAR is lower, it puts more rounds into the target area.  The M249 at max range puts more lead around the target, but the idea is at the 500+ meter range, dispersion has made for a less effective suppressive area.  The M27 in theory delivers more of the rounds it puts out into the same neighborhood, which should give good suppression results.  

I'd reccomend zipping over to the wikipedia page on the thing, it gives a pretty lengthy run down at the M249 vs M27 argument.  

In any event, it's supposed to replace the LMG with a weapon that does a similar thing, only with some different balances and design choices (less rounds out for lighter and more accurate).  If it's a good idea, I'm not sure.  I know many units kept the M249 loaded with the 50 round "nutsack" instead of the 200 round boxes for walking around precisely because of how unwieldy the fully loaded M249 was (switching over to the 200 round box once a good SBF was established).  If I had to re-do stuff maybe a squad level M240L would be better vs a LMG for every team.  

[cool breeze]

Yesterday right after reading your response I read the rest of the wikipedia article, and a bit about H&Ks free floating barrels; quite an impressive gun.  I see it was intended that it use a 100 round mag, seems once they get that sorted out it will be unarguably better than the M249.  And it seems like it might be an ok replacement for it as is, either way I'm all for them getting them.  I think in the future they could hopefully replace the m16/m4, they seem like a straight big upgrade.  It seems like this opens up the possibility of re-adding a squad level MMG like the M240L.  Squads have been carrying around two main forms of ammo for so long, boxed machine gun ammo and magazines for riffles, that it seems like they might as well keep doing it. It also makes sense, since you are upping the range of your riflemen, to up the range of the machine gun support to keep it longer range than the rest. 

[IMHO]

@cool breeze, quick change barrel? Belt feeding?

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

18 hours ago, IMHO said:

@cool breeze, quick change barrel? Belt feeding?

Right now every fourth guy in a Marine rifle squad as a M249 LMG.  The debate isn't so much "is the M27 a better machine gun than the M249?" because clearly, the M27 as not a machine gun is worse.  The debate is if there isn't a better fit for a four man element than a fairly large, heavy, and difficult to use on the move weapons system.

My dismount-y time was with the Cavalry, and we did not have M249s by MTOE but we managed to get some anyway (we got them through flagrant sneakiness that while not illegal certainly was not how the supply system was intended to be used).  Being able to choose to not take them with was actually really useful, because if we were doing a raid mission that was basically "leave HMMWV kick down door" it wasn't very useful at all, while if we were doing more conventional dismounted operations, they were a good base of fire.

This isn't as far as I can tell the USMC ditching machine guns, it's just setting the default weapon for the automatic rifleman in a fireteam to something better suited to how they envision "light" dismounted fighting, with the ability to bring LMGs if it seems like a reasonable choice.  

[HerrTom]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this serve essentially the same role as the RPK did in the Soviet army? It's a rifle slightly better suited to automatic fire compared to the standard issue.

Though at some point I think they replaced the second automatic rifleman with a normal rifleman and gave the other a PKM. Anyone know why? Did they deem the RPK ineffective? Maybe following PzSrktWfr's logic on conventional warfare you want the heavy hitting guns?

[exsonic01]

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/02/10/usmc-releases-rfi-11000-iars-rumors-abound-pure-fleeted-m27-standard-rifle/

So, according to this article, it seems that "replacing all M4" is wrong, rather, M27 will replace M249. 11000 is too small number to replace "all rifles" for Marines, it needs at least 30k ~ 40k M27s to do so. 

[HUSKER2142]

On 27.03.2017 at 8:49 PM, HerrTom said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this serve essentially the same role as the RPK did in the Soviet army? It's a rifle slightly better suited to automatic fire compared to the standard issue.

Though at some point I think they replaced the second automatic rifleman with a normal rifleman and gave the other a PKM. Anyone know why? Did they deem the RPK ineffective? Maybe following PzSrktWfr's logic on conventional warfare you want the heavy hitting guns?

 

Reason for failure is small ammunition in the store. If the Ministry of Defense of Russia ordered shops for 60 or more shots, the PKK would remain in service. And PKM / PKP compensates for all this with its firepower.

Причина отказа малый боезапас в магазине . Если бы МО России заказало магазины на 60 и более выстрелов , РПК остался бы на вооружении . А  ПКМ/ПКП компенсирует всё это своей огневой мощью .

[DreDay]

On 3/31/2017 at 6:21 PM, HUSKER2142 said:

 

Reason for failure is small ammunition in the store. If the Ministry of Defense of Russia ordered shops for 60 or more shots, the PKK would remain in service. And PKM / PKP compensates for all this with its firepower.

Причина отказа малый боезапас в магазине . Если бы МО России заказало магазины на 60 и более выстрелов , РПК остался бы на вооружении . А  ПКМ/ПКП компенсирует всё это своей огневой мощью .

That's part of it. In addition, Russian military experts seem to be of a belief that something as heavy as a SAW (as in PKM/PKP) should be firing a true rifle round and not an intermediary cartridge in order to fully compliment infantry squad's range and firepower. BTW, as far as I know RPKs are only left in service with Naval Infantry; while all other infantry formations have equipped their squads with PKM/PKP.

Edited April 4, 2017 by DreDay

[SgtDeadly12]

On 4/3/2017 at 8:39 PM, DreDay said:

That's part of it. In addition, Russian military experts seem to be of a belief that something as heavy as a SAW (as in PKM/PKP) should be firing a true rifle round and not an intermediary cartridge in order to fully compliment infantry squad's range and firepower. BTW, as far as I know RPKs are only left in service with Naval Infantry; while all other infantry formations have equipped their squads with PKM/PKP.

Yes, the RPK is being phased out in favor of PKM/PKPs. However, I doubt that the weight of the RPK was a factor in phasing it out because the RPK-74 is eight pounds lighter than a PKM/PKP. I'd say that the reason the RPK is being phased out is due to the Russians wanting more range and power out of their squad-level MGs. Modern body armor is surely a factor also, because 5.45x39mm at 500m undoubtedly does a lot less damage than 7.62x54mm to a soldier in modern body armor.

[DreDay]

On 4/5/2017 at 0:40 PM, SgtDeadly12 said:

Yes, the RPK is being phased out in favor of PKM/PKPs. However, I doubt that the weight of the RPK was a factor in phasing it out because the RPK-74 is eight pounds lighter than a PKM/PKP. I'd say that the reason the RPK is being phased out is due to the Russians wanting more range and power out of their squad-level MGs. Modern body armor is surely a factor also, because 5.45x39mm at 500m undoubtedly does a lot less damage than 7.62x54mm to a soldier in modern body armor.

Right, what I had meant is that the Russians seem to feel that something that weighs as much as a SAW (i.e. PKM/PKP) needs to be firing a full rifle cartridge; so they don't have a place for a "true" belt-fed LMG firing 5.45x39 in their doctrine.

[Vet 0369]

This possible change might also be driven by the planning that all military commands engage in. They tend to plan to fight the last type of war that they fought. When the Marines landed on Guadalcanel, they carried bolt-action, five-round 1903 Springfield rifles (probably model 1903A1, but I'm not sure of that). Not because of the common misconception that the Marines received the left-overs from the Army, but because the Marine command refused to sign on to the M1 when the Ordance Board accepted it. They wanted to keep their rifles with the 1,000 yard range capability and not the lose 400 yards to the "inferior" M1. Interestingly though, soon after the Army landed and Marines saw the higher volume of fire the soldiers could put out with their M1s, individual Marines began "finding" M1s to use (M1903s and M1s used the same 30-06 ammunition).

After the Korean Conflict, the U.S. developed the M14 to use the NATO 7.62 round with a 20-round magazine.  It was close to the same range as the M1 (intended for long-range fire such as Korean hill top to hill top, remember the last war fought concept) but higher capacity and the ability to add an automatic fire selector switch for automatic riflemen. U.S. troops carried the M14 in Vietnam until the powers determined that a rifleman in a jungle didn't need a rifle with a 600-yard range. Plus, a rifleman could carry almost twice as many rounds (spray and pray to break out of an ambush and such) as the M14. Also, I'm sure the AK-47 had an effect an the design concept.

Enter the conflicts in the Middle East. All of a sudden we have longer ranges possible, but more closely-packed urban areas. Do we now design longer range with close combat capabilities such as a bull pup design? Specialized arms for different situations such as modified M14s and M60 machine guns that are still used by some SEAL teams? As far as I know, Marine infantry stil carry the M16 and the Army infantry still carry the M4 because the basic missions of the two services are different, the same reason a Marine squad is 13 Marines, and an Army squad is 9 Soldiers.

the bottom line is that we can speculate all day about combat arms and why they might be in consideration, but unless we have access to the design specs and concept behind a request for change, we don't KNOW the reasons behind the possible change.

[MikeyD]

My only reference to this is a relative who went into the Marines some years back and absolutely despised his M249 SAW. He thought it was an [expletive expletive expletive]. This may be a function of the Marines habit of holding onto worn out equipment as long as they possibly could. I recall the M60 lmg was considered a wonder weapon when it was first fielded but that particular mg does not age well.

[HUSKER2142]

PU-21 (machine gun with unified feed) , they were not accepted for service.

The reason is simple: under the 5.45-mm cartridge they could not create the so-called. "Rakova's machine" for stuffing machine gun tape (the prototype deformed sleeves when they were laid in a tape). And without it, the tape feeding of the machine gun during the armoring of the tape was virtually manually possible only in "laboratory", but not in combat conditions.But I repeat, if the Ministry of Defense  ordered the shops for 60-90 shots, I would gladly return RPK into service.The Ministry of Internal Affairs ordered several years ago for the Internal Troops,  russian analogue of M249 machine gun.

^{На вооружение не приняли .
Причина проста: под 5,45-мм патрон так и не смогли создать т. н. «машинку Ракова» для набивки пулемётной ленты (опытный образец деформировал гильзы при их укладке в ленту). А без неё ленточное питание пулемёта при снаряжении ленты фактически вручную было возможно только в «лабораторных», но не в боевых условиях. Но повторюсь , если бы министерство обороны заказало бы магазины на 60-90 выстрелов я бы с удовольствием вернул бы РПК на вооружение .МВД несколько лет назад заказало для Внутренних войск , российский аналог пулемёта М249 .}

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ПУ-21

Edited April 15, 2017 by HUSKER2142