M27 IAR's for everyone & the 15 Man Squad is a thing...

via Marine Times.

Along with the squad drones, each of the Marines in the squad will carry the M27 Infantry Automatic ­Rifle, except for one, which will carry the M38, a more highly accurized M27 with an advanced rifle optic.

That gives the squad better range and a designated marksman in the ranks.

At the same time, each squad will have a grenadier with the new M320 grenade launcher, which users have said is more accurate and also takes the front-load problems off of the Marine’s main rifle.

Though they haven’t gotten them yet, Siverts ­expects that the unit will carry the Carl Gustaf 84 mm recoilless rifle.

The wider Marine Corps plan is to have one per squad and that will replace the current ­positioning, which uses a 0351 infantry assault Marine that resides at weapons company in assault sections that are tasked out to the platoons for greater anti-armor firepower.

Story here.

Mark my words.  The suppressive firepower of having a light weight machinegun will be missed.  Future Marines will wonder why the US Army has it but Marines don't.

There is only one way to make this work but Gunners won't like it.  They're gonna have to call up MAGPUL and order a few tens of thousands of 60 round drum mags and distribute them to Marines.

Oh and they better have armorers forward deployed cause you're gonna have guns break if firefights...especially if they're having to overcome enemy fire.

But ya know what the real deal is?

We picked the wrong gun when we initially picked the H&K.  We should have gone with the Ultimax 100...but that's for another day.

As far as the 15 man squad.

I would love to see how the Squad Leader is able to effectively fight his unit.  One thing is for sure.  We'll be able to spot those bubbas real easy.  They'll be thin as rails and train like marathon runners.  God knows they're gonna be on their wheels running from team to team trying to organize the fight.