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| 12/6/2011 By Sgt. Elyssa Quesada Rifleman Lance Cpl. Corey Wilson participates in a live-fire exercise aboard USS Makin Island here Dec. 6. Wilson, 20, who hails from Spray, Ore., serves with Battalion Landing Team 3/1, the ground combat element for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The unit embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14, beginning a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions. |
Going strictly by the photo it would appear that 11th MEU has decided on how its going to deploy its IARs.
If the good Sgt's caption is correct then they are going to be used by Riflemen and not Machine Gunners...it also appears that high capacity mags aren't part of the weapons fit (yet) and it would appear that its precision suppressive firepower will be called upon in much the same way that Designated Marksmen were.
If I'm right, then it looks like we haven't really upgraded at all. What we might have accomplished is to find an M-16A4 and M4 replacement but other than that, this appears to be a flawed concept.
How is this a flawed concept? I was a 0311/0331 and the M249 SAW was the finiquiest weapon we had in the company.
ReplyDeleteThe IAR is a sound concept, to lighten the load while making a weapon that you can fire from anything other than the prone and hit something. When we did the "Urban Warrior" lab we found the Saw was only good for "base of fire"
because it appears that what we're doing is making a designated marksman with a different caliber round.
ReplyDeleteinstead of using M-110's we're using IAR's. instead of using refurbished M-14's we're using IAR's.
i could see if you were looking to put down a real base of fire but that's not whats being emphasized with this weapon. its precision is being emphasized and we already had this.
sorry but this isn't a step forward in my opinion. if it was really about hitting something in other than the prone then why was the ultimax shit canned so early in the trials? why isn't the Marines working with the Army to lighten the M249? the paratroop model is lighter and so is the SOCOM offering.
and if you want a blast from the past then bring back the M-60E4. you could fire that from the standing position and hit what you were aiming at and could still maintain a high rate of fire.
How many times have I said field the damn M110 already!!! Give the designated marksman what they've been asking for and put a lethal long[er] range round in the fireteam.
ReplyDeleteHuge waste of time, money, and political capital to field a weapons system we already have in the M16A4 (and to some degree with the M4).
And there's not a damn thing wrong with the M249, except the weight of ammo, which the IAR didn't solve unless you give up suppressive fire which makes it an exercise in stupidity.
Here's the ideal fireteam: M4/M16A4 x 2, M249, M110. Is there any mission that team couldn't handle?
that fireteam could handle all prescribed missions! i just don't get the need to field this IAR ...waste of money but its a shiny new toy so everyone is going to fall all over it. awful shame is what it is.
ReplyDeleteWe tried that with the M240G's it's better to get someone to put a shoulder for you to stabilize it.
ReplyDeleteI just dont see what the past 3 commandants are thinking about how we fight. We don't have a Track replacement but we have all these MRAP's.
We have Ospreys that don't have any real teeth. We are looking for space ships and overcomplicated new systems. We're a second Army now.
Btw Sol the LHA's had 5 inch guns. The Wasp class ships are the ones they did away with well decks and 5 inch guns. Like we're some generic Air Assault unit.
hmmm i thought i had that right...after all i did post a pic with the USS Tarawa if i said that it was a LHD then my bad.
ReplyDeletebut as far as the well deck i thought that wasn't going to be an issue until the USS America class came online and i thought they were going to fix that after the first one came online and start putting well decks back on. i'll check.
i'm not tracking with your 240G comment though.
The iar...I've got mixed reactions to this weapon. I think we should of gone the para or socom route with the saws. Instead I felt the iar should be in some ways a way to supplement fire power to the squad ( a gunner) gives you a multi purpose weapon for each fire team (dm and autogun)
ReplyDeleteBlack cell, we have all those mraps because all my aavs keep being blown up with grunts inside of them. As for the mg-22 its got teeth, the 30 mm turret that can be mounted puts pain on the enemy commanders just have to use it. We would out run our gunships when we deployed with osprey so our command started requesting for one osprey to mount the gun to give us light gunship coverage untill cobras came on station. Worked great, much better than any ch53 or 46 remember its a transport helo.
And to this day I've never felt like a second land army. Hqmc, should of killed that dead. We still operate from the sea in our meus yeah, we gotta little heavy but hey it was a gaining season now we cut to look sexy. (Powerlifting reference)
John great reply, Im from before the Corps went all high speed low drag. Before they got all Call of Duty Modern Warfare. My concern is mostly about the loss of our identity. We lost the AAAV and there seems to be no real replacement in the near future. F-35B looks like its hated on more than anything flying. Amphibious ships that have no well deck. It was looking like HQMC had lost its damn mind.
ReplyDeleteA loss of identity isn't going to occur. The loss of the EFV only proves the point. We are going to be using the AAV longer than almost any other ground vehicle in the Corps.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 will prove that point as well. The Navy bought the Corsair in WW2 and when problems occurred with it and carrier operations they ditched it. The Corps keep with it and it proved to be a powerfull asset threw Korea.
The early America class may not have a well deck, but thats fine we haveother ships with well decks that can perform the duty as part of a task force. As a future FO I would like to see the 5in guns make a come back.