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Originally Posted by StanTheMan
Interesting spiel about the M27 and L86. I'm with FCM about the IAR and it's requirements, indeed seems a bit kooky. Excalibur and c552 make an even better point as well - Wanting even a psuedo-base of fire weapon that has no high-capacity (belt-feed, etc) or QCB does indeed seem silly and counter-intuitive. Might add more to this later but all-told, it still just seems like some 'gee-whiz' shit - Trying to create some uber gun that does it all when the simple fact of the matter is there's just no one weapon system that can do everything. Bah.
Back to topic - I thought the XM8 had a kinda neat look to it, but otherwise I didn't really care for it one way or the other.
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I think that the idea of having a series of modular weapons that share components is a pretty good one. Not in terms ofthe idea that people would be switching out barrels, handguards and stocks depending on what they wanted to do on that day, but rather from a maintenance/training commonality point of view and also having making it more practical to have a wider variety of weapons more suitable for different roles.
I think one of the problems with this kind of system though is that people think that the LMG variant can replace a SAW or M240 in a squad, which it can't. Rather a better idea is to replace one of your rifleman's weapons with an LMG variant. Similarly a sharpshooter variant is not a replacement for a true sniper rifle.
I think the idea of an LMG variant of a rifle is actually a better one today, as you have greater acceptance of the idea of a casket magazine like the Surefire 60 rounder (the 100 rounder is pretty much useless for military use IMHO). Back when you had the XM8 LMG (and similarly the MG36) the only real option for a higher capacity magazine was a Beta-C or a drum, which have pretty big practical and logistical problems for general military use. Firstly, they are incredibly volume inefficient when compares to normal magazine or belts as they are an awkward shape with large hollows, so they need special pouches and you can practically carry only a couple of them. Also they are more fragile than a standard magazine or belt and introduce the extra failure element of them having their own winding mechanism which has to be maintained. Lastly, they tend to be a PITA to load.