US Marines set to field M27 IAR

[Spartan198]

Originally Posted by Markost

I read about that a month ago. Why the hell do you need a heavy barreled 5,56 carbine when you have the Mk 48 in 7,62x51??

Or the smaller Mark 46 if squad ammo commonality is desired, which was one of the original requirements of the SAW program.

Originally Posted by Nyles

Yeah, that doesn't make a lick of sense to me either. I've heard it suggested that this is a backdoor effort to get new carbines but I don't think I buy it. I've never worked with Marines, so their tactics might be different from ours, but given the emphasis we put on winning the firefight this would definately seem like a step in the wrong direction.

I know the UK fielded their own IAR with the L86 LSW, but didn't Canada originally try this with a heavy-barreled C7? Whatever happened with that? I know the L86 performed better as an SDM-R and failed as a support weapon only to be replaced in the latter role by--you guessed it--the Minimi (which I know Canada also uses today).