Marines to test, evaluate 4 auto-rifle models
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 3, 2009 6:21:57 EST
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — Like it or not, it’s coming.
The Corps is moving forward with plans to test replacements for the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, and will receive initial deliveries this spring, Marine officials said.
The Infantry Automatic Rifle could be fielded as early as October 2010, said Maj. John Smith, the weapon’s project officer at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va. Testing is expected to begin in April on four finalists competing for the contract, with Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 1st Marine Division involved in the process.
“It’ll be fleet Marines that are testing it,” Smith said. “We’ll be collecting data and getting feedback from Marines. All of [the weapons] could meet our needs, but we need to dig a little deeper and get the input on what the average Marine thinks.”
The push to include Marines in the process hasn’t stopped grumbling across the Corps. Many grunts question the wisdom of reducing the number of SAWs, light machine guns with a 5.56mm, 200-round belt that allows Marines to unleash a tremendous volume of fire when threatened. The IAR will employ the same 5.56mm, 30-round magazine used with the Corps’ main service weapons, the M16A4 rifle and M4 carbine.
“My big concern right now is that loss of fire,” said Staff Sgt. Craig Wilcox, an infantry unit leader who deployed to Afghanistan twice and Iraq once, and is now a combat instructor at the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based School of Infantry-East. “We’re taught from day one that the SAW is the center of the squad itself. When you’re looking at dropping all those rounds, you’re going to lose your ability to maneuver and fire as quickly and efficiently as we have done in the past,” Wilcox said.
It’s a long-running debate in the Corps — even in the community that made the decision, said Patrick Cantwell, a former captain who serves as the Corps’ small arms capability officer.
Should the Corps cut weight to increase mobility? And if so, what should a new weapon offer?
A look at the finalists
The four finalists in the IAR competition, announced in December, stand in stark contrast to the SAW, which is more than 40 inches long and weighs about 16½ pounds empty. The weapon jumps to more than 22 pounds when loaded with the 200-round belt.
The lightest of the replacements under consideration is Heckler & Koch’s IAR, which weighs 7.9 pounds empty, with a 36.9-inch stock that collapses to 33 inches. The heaviest is FN Herstal’s entry, which weighs 11.2 pounds and has a 38.8-inch stock that collapses to 36.3 inches.
The other two finalists in the competition are made by Colt Defense, maker of the M4. Labeled the Colt 6940 and Colt 6940H, they weigh 10.1 pounds and 9.28 pounds, respectively, and vary because they have different heat sinks and upper receivers. Marine officials did not elaborate on the differences, but said the variations merited another look.
“They both performed very well, which is why they made the cut, but we needed to test them more to tell them apart,” Smith said.
Company officials at each of the three manufacturers remaining in the competition were tight-lipped about their products. HK and FNH, which makes the SAW, declined interviews, but provided specifications and photographs of their weapons, while Colt officials declined to be interviewed or release details about their products. The Corps released photographs and a basic description of each Colt weapon.
“Obviously we’re pleased to be included in the competition,” said retired Maj. Gen. James Battaglini, chief operating officer for Colt. “We’d rather let the results speak for themselves.”
The finalists diverge most clearly when it comes to their operating systems. Only FNH’s IAR fires from both the open- and closed-bolt positions, a requirement to keep the heat down when the Corps initially announced the competition. Cantwell said “that restriction went away” as officials surveyed their options.
“In a perfect world, we would like a [weapon firing from the] closed-bolt, because there are advantages to that, but we kind of took what we got and weighed the pros and cons, like the accuracy and the weight and the other elements,” Cantwell said.
Both of Colt’s weapons fire from the closed-bolt position using a direct gas impingement system, Marine officials said. HK’s IAR fires from the closed-bolt position using a gas-operated system.
The IAR finalists vary from the SAW in other ways, as well.
The SAW, first fielded in the 1980s, provides a sustained rate of fire of 85 rounds per minute. The sustained rate of fire available in the FNH and HK models is 12 to 15 rounds per minute, with a maximum effective rate of fire of 36 rounds per minute for 1,200 rounds or 75 rounds per minute for 600 rounds, company officials said.
At a cyclic rate, the SAW can fire more than 750 rounds per minute. FNH’s IAR fires from 560 to 640 rounds per minute at a cyclic rate, while HK’s fires 700 to 900.
Rates of fire for Colt’s models were not released, but the Corps required that the IAR fire 36 rounds per minute for 16 minutes, 40 seconds. The IAR also must fire at a higher rate of 75 rounds per minute for eight minutes, Cantwell said.
Early in the evaluation process, the Corps’ requirement called for the IAR to use 100-round magazines. That was eventually eliminated in favor of using 30-round magazines.
A change in mindset
The idea to replace the SAW dates back to August 2001, Cantwell said, before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were on the horizon. Tired of lugging around the SAW, grunts with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, in Twentynine Palms, Calif., purchased three commercial automatic rifle variants and pitted them against the belt-fed beast.
“What they found was that the SAW had definite advantages, but it also had definite disadvantages, and the two (disadvantages) that they noted were employment speed and accuracy,” Cantwell said. “So they recommended that we go for an automatic rifle for infantry units.”
A month later, the idea was brought to the Marine Corps Ground Board — a panel that includes the four Marine division commanders and the deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations — which reviews recommendations pushed up from the fleet. The board recommended that the Corps pursue the use of a new automatic rifle in September 2001, Cantwell said.
Then came the attacks on 9/11.
The SAW played a prominent role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But SysCom continued to move steadily toward fielding a weapon that could replace it. That competition took a major step in December with the naming of the four finalists.
“The idea is that it’s supposed to bridge the gap between the M16 and a machine gun for small units and fire teams,” Cantwell said. “What we found was that the SAW gunner ends up slowing down an assault, or the SAW gunner ends up getting put in a support fire position, neither one of which is really the ideal use for a fire team.”
In the coming years, the Corps plans to reduce the number of SAWs in the Corps from 11,381 weapons to about 8,000, officials said, causing a variety of changes for grunts.
“The leadership within the infantry community will have to adjust training and [tactics, techniques and procedures] for the IAR,” Smith said. “The Marine Corps spent a long time thinking about this, and the infantry community in particular has spent a long time thinking about this and debating this and understanding what capabilities we wanted out of a weapons system.”
The fielding of the IAR also will have implications on the rifle range, where automatic riflemen will be required to qualify with the new weapon, Cantwell said.
“When a Marine goes to a rifle range and he’s an automatic rifleman, he will be taking his IAR to the rifle range,” Cantwell said. “He won’t be turning his IAR in and drawing a service rifle, which is what he has to do now if he’s a SAW gunner.”
Suppressive fire suppressed
Marines will still use SAWs in many situations, especially for airfield security or overwatch from towers, Marine officials said. But on basic patrols, Marines are likely to find themselves with an IAR in their squad, like it or not.
One infantry corporal with Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Regiment said that without the SAW, things would have been even more difficult when he deployed to Karma, Iraq, in 2006, considered by many to be the most dangerous city in the country at the time.
“If we wouldn’t have had it, we wouldn’t have had enough firepower to know what to do,” he said. “With the SAW, you’ve got a 200-round drum. I’d much rather have 200 rounds ready to go than to have to reload all the time. Not every shot is going to be on target, you know what I mean? I’d rather have more firepower, especially in an ambush.”
Wilcox and the corporal also said that any weight advantage achieved could be negated because Marines will need to carry more ammo to make up for the loss of the drums.
“How many magazines are you going to make me carry on my flak?” the corporal said.
Smith and Cantwell said they understand those concerns, and believe it comes with Marines finding comfort in what’s familiar.
“From personal experience, I went into the fleet as a second lieutenant not [long] after the transition from the M60 to the M240 Golf,” Smith said. “My machine gunners complained about the M240 Golf because when it broke, they didn’t know how to fix it, whereas they had years and years of experience [of learning] how to use bailing wire or whatever to get the M60 working again.”
Cantwell said it will take training to make Marines familiar and comfortable with what comes next.
“The biggest problem is it’s a mentality issue, and the issue [that] a 30-round magazine will go through too quickly,” Cantwell said. “That’s very true — if you use the same mentality that we use right now with the SAW, which is to pull the trigger at everything.
“There will be some training that goes into this,” he said. “We’re looking for a well-aimed shot, and then occasionally shooting a burst into a troop formation or an area target as opposed to what we do now, where we’re much more (laying) area fire with the SAW.”
