The first scientist in the field of the theory of automatic small arms, twice General of the Army V. G. Fedorov. In his work "On the trends of changes in the models of small arms of foreign armies on the experience of the Second World War" in 1944, he wrote:
The introduction of new intermediate cartridges makes it possible to further lighten light machine guns, bringing their weight to 6 kg.
Note that the German military thought did not consider the development of light machine guns for an intermediate cartridge at all and, perhaps, was even right in some ways. The adoption of the Sturmgever provided for the abandonment of submachine guns, carbines and light machine guns, including the MG-42 in the performance of the parking brake. Although a single MG-42 machine gun on a bipod can hardly be attributed to a manual one due to its low maneuverability due to its excessive weight of 12 kilograms.
Further, speaking of unified automation, Fedorov writes:
For the base, the design of an assault rifle can be taken - as the main weapon of a fighter, with loading from a clip and insert magazines; the benefits of this weapon must be respected in the first place compared with the design of a light machine gun, which, with the adoption of an assault rifle will lose its former meaning to some extent and will not be as widespreadas in our time.
This short paragraph expresses three thoughts that have been confirmed by the course of history. First, the unification of a light machine gun and an assault rifle in design. Fedorov was precisely the pioneer in the field of unification. Known for his development of a light machine gun based on his machine gun. Secondly, store food. Fedorov did not even consider ribbon feeding, if only for the reason that in this case there could be no question of unification. Thirdly, as practice has shown, light machine guns for an intermediate cartridge with both magazine and belt feed do not give a significant advantage over the machine gun and have not received widespread distribution.
And yet, the first RPD light machine gun for an intermediate cartridge was precisely with a belt feed. But not much time passed, and even during Fedorov's life, what he wrote about happened. For the first time, a unified AK / RPK link was created. With the creation of a unified assault rifle / light machine gun, the Americans did not succeed. Eugene Stoner tried to counterbalance unification by introducing modularity in the Stoner 63 project. With his project, too, nothing happened, but "modularity" has since become another marketing feature and a bogey of neophytes in online battles on the topic of weapons. In the end, the FN Minimi itself appeared, one of the modifications of which was adopted in the United States as the M249 SAW in 1984.
Apparently, this fact, supported by the conclusions of online encyclopedias like:
Machine gun (FN Minimi) enjoys well-deserved popularity for high mobility combined with firepower, noticeably superior to the firepower of light machine guns such as the RPK-74, L86A1 and others, built on the basis of machine guns, and not created "from scratch" like machine guns.
or
Like its predecessor, RPK-74 is significantly inferior in terms of firepower of foreign small-caliber light machine guns (for example very common in the world of FN Minimi), since it does not have a removable barrel, shoots from a closed bolt and has limited-capacity magazines, makes Rosguard customers excitedly walk around the room and seek funds for development. The task that our grandfathers coped with with the help of the PPSh machine gun degenerated into requirements for a machine gun with a combined power supply on the topic "Turner". Having safely absorbed 15 million for development on the topic “Turner-1” (which no sane specialist doubted), the topic “Turner-2” was raised by 25 million.
The history of the development of small arms under the American low-impulse cartridge is a series of continuous alterations, compromises, outright failures, the roots of which lie in the shortcomings of the cartridge adopted for service and the ill-conceived design of automatic mechanisms. FN Minimi is one of the pages in this story. Let's start with the fact that, according to the survey results, the M249 ranks last in terms of reliability in the entire line of NATO infantry weapons.
In 2001, Marine Corps officer Ray Grundy wrote an open letter in which he laid out everything he thought about this machine gun. I am placing excerpts from it:
ILC (United States Marine Corps) can learn from the Soviet Army, which in the early eighties decided to get rid of the 7.62 mm belt-fed RPD in their rifle platoons and replace them, right, Soviet AR [assault rifle - assault rifle] RPK … RPK is the same AK rifle with a longer and heavier barrel, bipods attached to the barrel, a slightly modified butt (for automatic fire from a prone position) and a sector store of increased capacity.
Soviet engineers understood the problems in the belt-fed department and got rid of them ….. I am afraid that we will need to suffer senseless losses in various situations before it dawns on us that a light machine gun is unusable as an automatic rifle.
Why was a spare barrel included in the kit? Understanding the M249's fire modes will confirm that a spare barrel is not needed to use it as an AR. Frequent fire from it for a long time is 85 rounds per minute. Rapid fire is 200 rounds per minute with a barrel change every two minutes. Show me a Marine who can move around and fire in bursts of 3-5 rounds at a rate of over 85 rounds per minute, and this will be an image of a Marine who misses targets and wastes precious ammunition. Briefly speaking, The KMP added a spare barrel in vain - it is not needed.
My assessment of the M249 SAW is based on my own field experience. How many times have I seen a SAW shooter forced to stop in an attack to eliminate the delay! The nightmare begins after the feed tray cover is lifted to find out the reason for the delay. Often the tape slips out of the tray and falls into the box. The Marine finds himself in a desperate situation. In addition to finding out the reasons for the delay, he needs to decide what to do with the tape. Do I need to shake this tape out of the box, or is it better to look for a new box? All this time, he does not participate in the battle. His weapon does not work, he does not shoot at the enemy and cannot defend himself. His link continues the offensive, and the fire cover that he must provide is absent. In order for the shooter to at least protect himself in such a situation, the ILC must equip the shooter with the SAW with an M9 pistol, just like the M240 machine gunners are armed.
I see no logic in continuing to save the M249 system. As a light general-purpose machine gun, it has its merits. This is too heavy a weapon. It violates the interchangeability of the link ammunition, does not work very well with magazines, as if it shoots only from the bipod and is usually carried in "position three" (cartridges on the feed tray, the bolt is in the forward position, the chamber is empty, the fuse is removed) when approaching the enemy due to what we are not sure about this system.
I am convinced that the ILC should carry out comparative tests of the M249 SAW with the corresponding AKMoid, as the Soviet Army did. … Sofa strategists say that I am too hard on SAW. But experience confirms my estimates. Let's not get the souls of the victims to remind us that if we made the necessary decision and replaced the M249 SAW, we would be more successful and save their lives.
Origanal article.
Full translation of the article:
Let me emphasize once again what experience the American is talking about: The ILC (Marine Corps) can learn from the Soviet Army …
In May 2011, the ILC decided to purchase for trial operation about four thousand M27 IAR (German rifle HK416) to replace the M249 SAW. The IAR stands for the "Infantry Automatic Rifle", a fighter's automatic rifle that can be fitted with magazine-fed bipods. At one time, a similar solution was tested in Sudaev and Kalashnikov assault rifles. SAW - "Squad Automatic Weapon" - an automatic weapon of the LMG class - "light machine gun" of light machine guns. Our PKK falls into both of these categories. As you can see, the game of terms begins again. For us - if on a bipod, then a machine gun. For Americans, if you can shoot handheld, a rifle.
Ray Grundy's wish came true. The KMP got rid of the belt-fed machine gun. The 4-member Marines team includes a fighter armed with an M27 with 21 magazines. Further, there was a logical attempt to complete the evolution of light machine guns - during exercises in August 2016, the American Marines tried to use the M27 as a standard weapon instead of the M4. That is, to abandon light machine guns in favor of a universal infantryman weapon. Whether it will be an M27 or some other, based on AK or AR, but it is possible that this will be a completely logical completion of one of the rounds of the evolution of small arms.
I do not know what was said in the "complementary" reviews about the M27 rifle, which lenta.ru writes about. But here are some famous facts about this weapon:
According to the results of the 2008 tests, prior to the conclusion of the contract for the limited supply of M27 to the KMP, H&K products did not surpass the offerings of other suppliers in terms of reliability. So, for FN Herstal products, 26 delays were obtained, for two Colt samples - 60 and 28, H&K - 27 for 7200 shots under not the most severe conditions, which amounted to 0.38%, which is incomparable with the Soviet 0.2%. In tests for a dust test in 2007, the HK-416 received 3 sleeve ruptures for 6000 shots, which is tantamount to a weapon failure.
With the adoption of the M855A1 cartridge, the M27 started having problems with it. The average lifespan of the bolts when using the M855A1 did not exceed 6000-7000 shots, the barrel life 9000 - 10000. In this respect, the M4A1 Carbine bolt outperformed the M27, having worked 9000 and even 13000 in one of the tests before one of the lugs broke. The reason for the breakage of the stops is the same as in the case of a liner rupture - replacing the gas pipeline with a short stroke rod. When the rod hits the bolt carrier, an overturning moment occurs.
The work for wear between the surfaces of the bolt and the bolt carrier increases, the gap between them increases and a force appears on the lugs, working on a break.
In addition to reliability, there are two other significant issues. The first is maintainability. The M27 has factory warranty assemblies. That is, the repair of individual units is possible only in the factory conditions of the supplier's company. Replacing the shutter is only possible with a shutter frame. The second is cost. The price of one copy without a body kit is 3000 US dollars, and in a set with bipods, optics and rangefinders it reaches 5000. The price of a car is by no means an economy class. Maybe the corps of elite troops can afford such a dubious whim, then the American army did not even consider replacing the M249 with the M27 for this reason. What can not be said about the French, who, having sipped with their FAMAS, seem to have rushed to the other extreme. The Germans gave them a discount on a large batch of the purchase of HK-416, but the French had to step on the throat of national pride by purchasing this sample for $ 4,000.
Summary. With the partial adoption of the M27 by the US Marine Corps into service, the Americans only approached the Soviet experience of the 70s. The level of reliability set by Soviet designers and technologists has not yet been achieved by them. And no wonder. As one philosopher said: "You can't fart louder than a hole in your butt allows." Constructive miscalculations made in the development of the cartridge and the automation scheme set the limit for improvement. Due to technological innovations from the chrome plating of the barrel and the chamber in the early stages, to modern dry lubricants and nano-coatings, evolution has not budged the main indicator of the weapon in the American rifle.
The operation of the belt / combined light machine gun M249 SAW (FN Minimi) showed its low reliability. The effectiveness of such a machine gun in terms of accuracy, maneuverability, reloading speed is not better, and sometimes even worse than a standard machine gun. For this reason, our eventual enemy decided to get rid of him, while we spend money and resources on the creation of such a machine gun, referring to the "positive experience of the Americans." At the same time, the domestic experience gained on the Poplin topic is completely ignored.
It may seem to me, but on specialized foreign forums I often read quite adequate comments of their participants regarding both American and Soviet weapons than on ours. When a message appeared that the Russian Guard ordered the "Turner-2" with an eye on the "experience" of FN Minimi, many of this plunged into a permanent state of Sergei Zverev, that is, into shock. I can feel their questioning eyes on me. And I don’t know what to say.
