Too much Hollywood for me
I’m a little suspicious of anything the Army does to help me carry more weight, but VTWoody will probably reenlist if he can carry one of these (Army.mil link);
Read the story about the piece of equipment that some resourceful grunts designed what the article calls a “game changer”.
Category: Military issues
Those Red Bulls are some motherf!@kin’ geniuses!
Pretty neat. Not sure what kind of weapon they’re feeding, but a lot will depend on if the feed pawls can stand to stress. If they can Rock On!
Gotta love the 34th!!! two Companies from the 168th INF and a Company from the 133rd were our Force Protection in Afghanistan in 1004-2005, God bless the Red Bulls, they do good work! I wish I had had one of those in 2009-2010 for my Iraq tour, would have made carrying the 240, my M4 and M9 sooooooo much easier!
Mr. Roy’s comment about doctrine reminded me of this picture.
http://i56.tinypic.com/2lxc8h.jpg
That’s some good thinking, and I’m glad those grunts on the sharp end got the credit.
Necessity is the Mother of all invention. Now if they can attach a minigun to it. . .
#4 FlyingCow … 🙂
Flying Cow: Ain’t that the truth!!!!!!
Doc, I will stick to my 240B!
ARE YOU KIDDING Lucky? Did you NOT see when that SEAL (wait no he was a UDT) got waxed and that other dude picked it up and mowed a whole fucking jungle WITH BULLETS! Why the hell WOULDN’T you want that? Or what about Mythbusers when they LITERALLY cut a tree (thick oak one) with a 30 second burst? DUDE. The Muj would be SO fucked.
I know Doc, I know, but a man portable Minigun would way a metric fuckload compared to the 240B, plus, imagine clearing a stoppage in that thing!
Doc, It’s a great idea however, as I’m sure you know, the combined weight of the ammo AND the battery pack to power it is a deal breaker.
BUT-there is a company called Blacklight Power that just may make it doable. Two orders of magnitude (100x) increase in energy release from a CHEMICAL reaction. Really fascinating concept.
Thing is, there’s already a beltfed-backpack out there in mass production, on the commercial market, and has been for a few years:
http://www.tyrtactical.com/products/details/backpacks/mico-light-and-heavy-machine-gunners-assault-pack/
But still, those Iowa boys are badass. Necessity is the mother of all invention. My hat’s off to them!
Damn, does this mean we have to not make fun of Jesse for a while?
I think these guys should get into the gun makin’ business when they get out. Some guys in WWII invented the belt holder for the B17 guns…so they could link hundreds of rounds and not have to reload in a fight…the NCOS who came up with the idea never got credit as their capt took the glory.
Never heard of an MK 85, had to look it up. It appears to be just an M249 that fires 7.62(like the M240, AK47, M14, and old M60), rather then the 5.56 like the M4/M16. Doesn’t say how they were utilized, but it hints at least that one of the two fire teams was given this weapon. That quote of not having an ammo bearer points in that direction. This does kind of make sense though.
The designated marksman carries the M14 because of long range accuracy issues. Something had to be done to fill the middle void of 300m and the long range snipers.The Army has been having serious problems with the 5.56 at long distances since the start of the war. They don’t call Afghanistan a 500m war for nothing.
The next generation rifle is almost surely going to have a large calibur round. That has been floating out there for awhile now. I saw a candidate of 5.6-something being tossed around, that would be similar to the differance between the AK47 and the AK74. Whether thats 7.62 or something else, who knows.
Okay, waiting for all the weapons experts to chime in, and tear me a new one.-Cedo
P.S. How fast do you think the Army can put a patent on it? Oh wait… only the USMC is allowed to do that.
A “rack grade” M-16A2 with iron sites can hit man-sized targets out to 500 meters given a little more training. I only say that because I did it after a little more training from Designated Marksman instructors; it was my own issue rifle from the rack. The problem is two-fold: first, most soldiers never get past basic rifle marksmanship and never get that extra training to let them do what the weapon is capable of doing. Second, the M-4 has mostly replaced the -16 in theater (we* never saw ANY other U.S. forces with -16s), and you give up some muzzle velocity and long range accuracy when you go carbine.
That said, I’d love an M-14. =)
*We’re the Nasty Guard; we only turned in our muskets for the deployment.
#17 “Second, the M-4 has mostly replaced the -16 in theater (we* never saw ANY other U.S. forces with -16s), and you give up some muzzle velocity and long range accuracy when you go carbine.” This is correct, though I was just pointing out the the M4 was the carbine version of the M16. I know some of the Marine units headed to Afghanistan, were actually reissueing out M16s instead of the M4. They didn’t want to be known as “carbine force” and wanted the added range.
“A “rack grade” M-16A2 with iron sites can hit man-sized targets out to 500 meters given a little more training.” The average soldier is just never going to hit man sized targets consistently if ever, at 500m with the M16, the Army has done studies on it. Thats why the M4 should be replaced, atleast in the nonurban environment of Afghanistan with the M16. Its part of the controversary with the 5.56 vs the 7.62, that an stopping power.
“That said, I’d love an M-14. =)” Were you the actual designated marksman or did you just receive the additional training?
Just to demonstrate how old I am… We still carried M-14’s on the Ustafish. (we also had 1911 .45’s and 870 12 gauge riot guns. ) I think FBMs were the very last units of the military to be issued the M-16, and it happened after I left the Navy in 84.
I’d love to have one of those rifles now.