well folks... the day of the saw gunner is dead, and box magged M4's will be milsim.period.
you can thank the United States Marine Corps!
looks alot like a HnK 416 if you ask me!
The IAR was born of a concept founded by the USMC. It harkens back to the Browning Automatic Rifle. This light automatic rifle (not light by today’s standards) was an open bolt, gas operated, magazine fed light machine gun. It was employed by selected members of the USMC squad to provide light machine gun suppressive fire.
The LWRC IAR has dual fire modes. In semi-automatic, it functions closed bolt. If you toggle the selector from semi to open bolt automatic, the rifles bolt remains closed for the first ignition increasing ignition probability to 99.7% allowing the infantry automatic rifleman to take point on patrol, or be the first through any door. After that, the weapon will fire from the open bolt allowing light automatic fire support. When you release the trigger between strings of fire, the bolt remains to the rear. When you pull the trigger again, the bolt closes and fires continuously until the trigger is again released with all the advantages of an open bolt machine gun. To go back to closed bolt semi-automatic fire, you switch the rifles selector back to semi. The bolt closes chambers a round but does not fire. When you pull the trigger, you will get your 1 aimed shot with each pull. This offers all of the advantages of both types of systems with the disadvantages of neither.
The USMC recognized that the Browning BAR of WWII and Korean genealogy filled a role in the squad allowing accurate devastating suppressive fire reliably without the necessity of a quick-change barrel, or belt fed operation. That role was left to the General Purpose Machine gunners. Rarely on section attacks, breaking contact, or advancing to contact are rates of sustained fire required that of a true belt fed machine gun.
Currently the M249 squad automatic weapon undertakes that role. It is a belt fed, gas operated, open bolt light machine gun. The SAW was a purpose built weapon designed to counter cold war Soviet tactics of massed infantry and dismounted mechanized infantry pouring through the Fulda gap in extended line frontal attacks. The name of the game when countering the Soviets was massed troops and massed firepower. For an infantry section to compete with this, the SAW was born.
Today’s soldiers train and fight an entirely different enemy, in different territory and by different means. No longer are there long lines of demarcation between foes. No longer are they facing a massed horde from a fixed defensive position. The areas of operation are replaced by the geography of an urban landscape complete with schools, places of worship, hospitals and residences. There are nooks and crannies and impromptu defensive or ambush positions built into the landscape. Warfare has become fast and very fluid with far more movement of smaller elements of the battalion to defeat the enemy quickly and decisively through precise tactical fire and maneuver. It is not always clear who the enemy is or who the innocents are. Soldiers fighting small groups are far from the support of their compounds or encampments. They are fighting a low intensity conflict of short lived hit and run ambushes, fighting patrols, and small unit tactics.
On the modern battlefield, the SAW has proven to be a burden on the designated SAW gunner. The weight of the system, the unwieldiness of the belted ammunition, and the reliability issues introduced by using belted ammunition in dusty dirty and sandy environments all present problems. Frequent dismounts and remounts from vehicles or aircraft, or fighting from vehicles and aircraft require a handy multipurpose weapon that can provide light machine gun support, while having the inherent capabilities of a carbine.
The environments we fight in decrease the reliability of the SAW. When the weapon is in condition 1 (cocked open ready to fire), the chamber, feed tray is all-open to dirt and debris. When patrolling with an open bolt weapon, the sensitive areas of the weapon are all open for ingress of dirt that could prevent the chambering of a cartridge when the soldier pulls the trigger. His belted ammunition either in his belt box or loose must be kept as clean as the internals of the weapon or it will simply drag the dirt into the action as the gun pulls the belt into the feeding mechanism.
Those who do not understand the role of a magazine fed light automatic rifle are still fighting the last war and not looking to the vast majority of operations undertaken today.
The SAW gunner is very closely relegated to his function in the section. He cannot use his SAW to take deliberate surgical aimed shots at enemy combatants because his weapon is open bolt only operation. The entire weapon jerks as the trigger is pulled as the return springs of the action strip, load and fire a round. In a situation where accurate instead of suppressive fire is required, the saw gunner is an ineffectual member of the Squad. As described, in a low intensity conflict, most of the enemy killed are the result of deliberate surgical fire and not volumes of suppressive fire as they would on the open fields of West Germany against an invading horde. To drive this point home, it should be noted that the SAW has almost no place in small unit SOLIC (special operations low intensity conflict) operations and many units do not have them in inventory for lack of a more suitable solution.
The SAW gunner cannot be the first member of a “Stackâ€
hah.
