M27 IAR Hollywood debut
 

I've just read a couple articles about how the Marines are planning on just giving everyone a variant of the M27 over previous M16s as to introduce a new rifle to the corps.

Nothing new to me. I always knew it would be a backdoor to a new rifle. Now they're gonna spend 2K on a weapon that's no better than a $500 M4. Great use of that limited budget there, MC. :rolleyes:

Could also mean they spend less on 249s. Then again, I'm also hearing how they are experimenting on outfitting whole battalions with suppressors.

I was reading about that the other day, apparently they already have suppressors for their M4s and M27s and are getting suppressors for their M249s and M240s from MARSOC. Next comes the tricky part though, in that they are also going to suppress all of the M2HBs. Has any military ever tried to suppress a .50 cal machine gun before?

It can be done. I've seen it in the civilian world, but not sure if the military has the budget for that kind of modification to a gun that was never meant to be suppressed. It's like suppressing the minigun...

Also, does this mean they're suppressing all the mk 19s?

Pfft! You're not thinking big enough.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H0nIPRlt0K...ilencer_04.jpg

Nothing like "advancement" for the sake of advancement, even for the Corps who generally don't have the dough to blow on every new fancy gun and gadget that comes down the line and have generally been able to do their job just fine with the hand-me-downs. But I guess some MICC porkers got new Audis and vacation homes to pay for. :rolleyes:

I thought the same thing too for the Corps until I started seeing every Marine with a $1000+ ACOG on all their rifles and worse, some with no rear iron sights attached

You sure some of them didn't just have the carry handle stuck somewhere out of the way, like this?

http://www.americanspecialops.com/im...6a4-marine.jpg

Although the Marines are definitely drinking the Heckler und Koch kool-aid, I didn't think they were seriously planning to make the M27 (in its current incarnation) a standard infantry rifle? I believe what Excalibur is referring to is a Military.com article which indicated that 5th Marines is going to experiment with issuing the M27 as a service rifle during a pre-deployment exercise. I wouldn't call that a change in procurement strategy.

Also, I've been to the MARCORSYSCOM demo booth this year and last year when I was at Sea-Air-Space. They didn't show off the M27 at all on either year that I have been there, which is a bit surprising, given all the press it has received. Last year, I remember I asked a Marine E-7 at the demo booth what he thought of it. His only impression was that he didn't like the length/weight relative to the M4. (Though this guy was not assigned to PMM 113, which is the Infantry Weapons program office at MCSC, so I doubt he had much testing experience with it, let alone operational experience.)

I think adding an M-27 to each fire team in addition to the SAW would be pretty awesome.

The M27 seems like a good idea, but originally way back when it was just the 416, I remember a certain unit of Marines were issued the 416 and they liked it before it was taken away and then came the M27, which I think is bureaucracy interfering with a good thing. The M27 is longer in not just barrel length but handguard length and I've always seen it issued with a bi-pod AND a vertical foregrip, which adds weight and bulk. Plus that with the additions of a bigger ACOG compared to the other ACOG they put on M4s and M16s, it looks like a very beefy rifle.

This is my personal opinion, but I've never liked the newer 416's stock and that they kept it for the M27 makes an already bulky looking weapon even more bulky looking.