{"id":16529,"date":"2010-01-07T03:25:27","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T08:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=16529"},"modified":"2010-01-07T03:35:27","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T08:35:27","slug":"happiness-is-a-belt-fed-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=16529","title":{"rendered":"Happiness Is A Belt-Fed Weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around the time I was seperating from the Marine Corps, there was a lot of talk in infantry units about how the Marine Corps was trying to replace the SAW in line infantry fireteams with a project called the Infantry Automatic Rifle (IAR)<\/a>. Last month, the Marine Corps selected what is essentially an HK-416<\/a> with a longer, heavier barrel as the IAR. The Marines Corps says that it will not completely phase out the SAW from its inventory, keeping it around for tasks such as base security and for use on vehicles. Some of the stuff I have read on the IAR has stated that the SAW will still be in an infantry battalion’s T\/O &E, but it wasn’t clear on how it would be employed. Even though the Commandant has expressed doubts about the program, the IAR is waiting on approval for production from Congress<\/a>. The Army will not be participating in the IAR program.<\/p>\n

I think the Marine Corps is making an incredibly stupid decision pursuing the IAR as a replacement for the SAW. The intent behind removing the SAW from the rifle squad is to increase the mobility and speed of the squad by replacing the “heavy” and “cumbersome” SAW with something lighter. According to the Marine Corps Times, when Marines pushed into Baghdad in 2003, the average fighting load was about 50 lbs. Now that is what I call a “Quantico stat” (meaning it came from some pogue’s office in Quantico) so I am going to add 20 lbs to that number. In 2009, Marines were going into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan with close to 90 lbs (110 lbs) of gear on average. Every grunt that has deployed to either OIF and OEF in the last couple years knows damn well that the majority of that weight increase has come from the increased weight of body armor and other personal protective equipment (PPE). E-SAPIs, side SAPIS, neck protectors, groin protectors (I’m not opposed to this one), nape protectors… I’m sure there is other people here that could add to the list. All these things have added a tremendous amount of weight to the grunt’s fighting load. Not to mention that the Modular Tactical Vest (MTV), which replaced the Interceptor in Marine Corps service last year, is two pounds heavier than the Interceptor and restricts movement more than the Interceptor and is much more difficult to put on. Some units are deploying with lighter plate carriers to Afghanistan but almost everybody heading over to Helmand still has to haul their MTV. So whats weighing down the rifle squad more? 60 lbs of PPE per Marine or 2 or 3 17 lb SAWs with about 30 lbs of ammo each distributed among the squad?<\/p>\n

The SAW is not perfect. It is heavy and anybody that has humped one knows its a beast. It is a lot harder to maintain than an M4 or M16 and it is definitely a lot less reliable. Nobody can dispute however that the SAW, when properly employed, can dish out an incredible amount of firepower and adds a lot of lethality to a rifle squad. The Marine Corps understood this when it introduced the SAW and that is why over the last twenty years the Marine Corps has built the rifle squad and fireteam around the SAW. Removing the SAW from the infantry will require that the Marine Corps completely rethink how the fireteam is employed and retrain infantry unit leaders. More dangerously, it will reduce the lethality of Marines operating in Afghanistan where often the only thing that has saved Marines from being overrun is a massive amount of fire superiority, which the SAW provides.<\/p>\n

The IAR is unforunately just another bullet on a list of bad decisions that Marine Corps has made about gear over the last few years. The Lightweight Helmet, while superior to the old PAGST, is still heavier than the Army’s MICH and has a lower cut which makes it harder to shoot in the prone (which is while most Marine Corps Sniper and Recon units use the MICH). The ILBE pack, while probably great for hippies hiking the Appalachian Trail, doesn’t work well with body armor. Worse the Marine Corps has recognized this and is going back to the MOLLE which the Marines Corps replaced years ago because of its crappy plastic frame. I’ve already talked about the MTV.<\/p>\n

If the Marine Corps wants to reduce weight and increase mobility, invest in developing lighter body armor and synthetic materials to use to build new SAWs which are lighter than current models. The Army is already doing it with the 240 and other weapons. The Commandant thinks this is a stupid idea, but since he is playing politics with this decision just like he did with the MTV, he is just going to sit back and let System Command make the decision.<\/p>\n

No doubt replacing the SAW will increase speed and mobility. It will also make it easier to run away from a fight when you are\u00a0 outgunned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around the time I was seperating from the Marine Corps, there was a lot of talk … Happiness Is A Belt-Fed Weapon<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}