USMC have made it official

[GhostDragon]

It has been rumoured for a while that the USMC has wanted to replace the m4 with the M27 to me it seems like a strange decision but what do you think?

 

Also seems like they have made it official now. Article doesn't say much though.

 

http://americangg.net/hk-replace-m4/

[Amentes]

It's really just a straight upgrade of the M4s, which is a long time coming.

 

It may well signal the end of the Marines attempt to re-implement the IAR concept; especially given that Marines in the field treated the M27 like an M249, more or less rendering the attempt a failure.

 

The question I'm left with is whether this means every grunt will be issues an M27, or if the intent is to rig yet another designation for what is essentially a pimped HK416.

 

They've got 27 and 38. Maybe they need a 49 too?

[Amentes]

Also, IAR abuse has been going on since bloody world war 1. Barrels getting cooked, fun stuff.

[Minipily]

Heckler and Koch are a great company, not just in the sense of making firearms but just business in general. They took Europe by storm and now with them having a large factory in America to specifically make military issues firearms, it's safe to say they are taking America by storm.

 

M27 is a good rifle, it's highly accurate and capable of area suppression with higher accuracy compared to the M249 SAW which is why it was considered to replace the rifle all together. I mean, you've got a 16 inch barrel on that puppy so the Marines have got two 16 inch guns to be playing with.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if the rifle also replaces the M249 SAW all together, seeing as it is getting old and many Marine variants are not getting properly maintained. Having a rifle that can suppress an area more accurately and reliably is a great benefit while also needing to accurately suppress with less rounds meaning less ammo is chewed through in battle. Lastly it means that Marines walking through mountainous terrain do not need to worry about a heavy rifle and ammunition load.

 

Main issue with the above point is, though it sounds good on paper, in the heat of battle the idea of "less rounds, more accuracy" is thrown out the window. The L85 LSW being a strong example.

 

We'll have to see how it plays out, the US Marines are incredibly under funded so it may take a while for it to take good effect. Regardless, I'm sure the USMC are happy to have a new weapon system that will be easier and hopefully cheaper to maintain while giving all the pro's a H&K firearm can give you.

[Ryko]

According to the M27 entry on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M27_Infantry_Automatic_Rifle) it was announced in December 27.  It's actually pretty informative on the reasoning, but I'll summarize some salient points:

• portability and maneuverability (the M249 is 22lbs loaded, compared to the 9lbs for the M27). However, it would take around a 20-magazine load to carry the same amount of ammo with the M249.
• similarity in appearance to other rifles in the squad, reducing the likelihood that the gunner will receive special attention from the enemy.
• facilitation of the gunner's participation in counter-insurgency operations and capability of maintaining a high volume of fire. 
• Caliber was specified as 5.56×45mm with non-linked ammunition, so as to achieve commonality with existing service rifles.
• The battalion leadership also saw the M27 as better at preventing collateral damage, as it is more controllable on fully automatic than the M249.
• With the M27 IAR, the idea of suppression shifts to engaging with precision fire, as it has rifle accuracy at long range and fully automatic fire at short range.
• With a shrinking budget, the Marine Corps is looking at ways to implement the IAR as a multipurpose weapon.

Taking into account these items, it's not terribly surprising to see the Marines looking to replace its fleet of M4s with full-auto M27s. The Army just upgraded all its M4s to M4A1s, rather than do another procurement (they have a lot more bodies on the ground to arm, anyway). But you have to wonder if the intent is to essentially turn every marine infantryman into a Dedicated Marksman: while suppressive fire seems to make a lot of sense, when the M249 is firing away for even a handful of seconds, it's a loud target that's fairly easy to pinpoint, and when the AR is under fire, he's loaded with a heavy, cumbersome weapon that makes it more difficult to maneuver.

 

I think on our next op I might suggest our AR take a M27 with a bunch of mags to see if the concept bears fruit.

[GhostDragon]

Yeah Im not too surprised with the decision though I would have e expected a 416 rather than the M27.

Was slightly more surprising due to the test they conducted a few years ago where the fireteams used more ammo when using them.

I'm infavour of the change personally I love the guns that HK make and the quality of them

[GhostDragon]

6 hours ago, Ryko said:

 

I think on our next op I might suggest our AR take a M27 with a bunch of mags to see if the concept bears fruit.

The difficulty with this is having an Ar running this it doesn't really work too well, the USMC decided to replace the m4s because swapping the ar too meant the team used on average more rounds.

 

[Noah_Hero]

9 hours ago, Ryko said:

I think on our next op I might suggest our AR take a M27 with a bunch of mags to see if the concept bears fruit.

Keep in mind that RHS only offers 30rnd mags for the M27 instead of the 50rnd mags it should have!

But mainly the M249 is just straigt up the better choice. You want to know why? Good thing I like stats and can tell you why:

 

• First of all: personally I prefer the M249 PIP (Short/VFG) because all the M249 have equal stats in general but different stats when it comes to weight because they differ in what you can attach to them and if they already come with a bipod or not and this one is the lightes of them (not including the "M249" on which you can´t attach anything). This is because it is the short version (=> shorter barrel but that doesn´t effects us on AWE since we haven´t enabled the advanced ballistics for ARs) and the VFG version wich means it hasn´t got a bipod. But you can put on a Grippod wich hase the exact same effect as the default bipod of the other M249s while keeping the rilfe with that one still lighter than the other ones are! So for the weight comparison I will use this since it is just the best M249 you can get on AWE and the closes to the M27 because of the attachement options and the size.
• Now to the comparison:
  • Rate of fire (how many rounds you can put down range per minute): is equal so no winner here
  • Accuracy (how much the weapon kicks <=> how good you can connect shots): The M249 is way better! when deployed that thing shoots a laser-beam while the M27 sprays way too much to connect shots on long ranges. But the worst thing is that the M249 is also more accurate when it isn´t deployed wich means that the M27 just can´t compete on this very point where it should outclass the M249.
  • Range (how far you can shoot until you become more of a mortar): equal so no winner here.
  • Impact (how hard you bullets are hitting): equal so no winner here.
  • Weight (how heavy your weapon is): Clear winner is the M27 with 3,59kg empty and 4,02kg with one Mag loaded whereas the M249 PIP (Short/VFG) s weight is 7,23kg empty and 8,94kg with one 200rnd belt loaded (empty difference: 3,64kg; loaded difference: 4,92kg). This also means that one 30rnd M27 mag has a weight of 0,43kg and one 200rnd M249 belt has a weight of 1,71kg. If you calculate the weight of the ammo in aswell, the M27 gunner would need to take more than 6mags with him (including the loaded one) to have the same amount of ammo as the M249 PIP (Short/VFG) has with only one belt loaded. With this in mind the equal-bullet-volume-weight of the M27 would be 3,01kg of mags(7x because he would need 6,6 mags) + 3,59kg(empty gun) wich summs up to 6,6kg wich would actually make him 0,63kg lighter.
• summary: Yes the M27 would be the lighter choice but the main problem however still stands wich is the way worse accuracy and the issue that the M27 gunner has to reload a lot because of the 30rnd mags. With this in mind there are actually assault-rifles in the arsenal that would do the job better than the M27! So long story short: Replacing the M249 with the M27 makes no sense because you would eliminate the massive killing-potential of the AR who is pretty much supposed to be the top-fragger on AWE because of his insance accuracy that allows him to easily kill enemies at very long distances while basically not having to worry about ammo and reloads wich allows him to lay down a lot of suppressive fire.

 

[Ryko]

IRL, the M27 should be more accurate than the M249, yes? So what we're really looking at is an inconsistency on RHS part?

[Noah_Hero]

1 minute ago, Ryko said:

So what we're really looking at is an inconsistency on RHS part?

Exactly. My text only referred to Arma not to RL.

[Ryko]

Is there a weapon in the current mass of weapons in all the modpacks that does have accuracy similar to what the M249 should have?

[Noah_Hero]

7 minutes ago, Ryko said:

Is there a weapon in the current mass of weapons in all the modpacks that does have accuracy similar to what the M249 should have?

hmm, I would say that RHS did a poor job at balancing in general. The M249 is just way too accurate (especially when not deployed since you can easily kill people at 600m and more!). A LMG that seems to be more balanced would be the L110A2 from BAF. It looks very similar, also uses 5.56mm but kicks way more will not kicking comletely insane. This would then make the M27 a more viable choice because even though the L110A2 has got better accuracy it comes with a lot of weight. This would then balance the M27 in a way that it is more viable when it comes to weight and still to bullet-volume in general but the L110A2 would still be viable if it comes to more accurate fire over greater distances. But more of a problem would be that the M27 got better accuracy than MOST other assault-rifles but is for example outclassed by the HK416 D10 wich got equal stats in general but lower weight... So yeah if you are looking for ways to make the M27 really a viable option I don´t really see any if you want to use all of the RHS gear. You could only force it into the AWE-meta if you blacklist a ton of stuff

[Amentes]

M27 is designed to shoot single-shot, suppressing the same way a Marksman does, by killing the guy next to you so you're too scared to pop your head up.

 

The difference between M27 and M38 is a 10-power Leupold optic, which really tells you all you need to know.

 

The 27 isn't meant to shoot bursts for suppression. It's an IAR/DMR frankenrifle that works pretty well as a DMR and kinda sorta ok as an IAR, except IARs historically never work because the infantry treats them like LMGs. Which is what the Marines rediscovered when they issued them in place of M249s.

 

It's worth noting the IAR concept is entirely superfluous as it's originally a middle ground between the emplaced machinegun and the standard non-automatic infantry rifle. These days, that middle ground IS the standard automatic infantry rifle, except of course the Marines were using old S/1/3 M4s,

 

And clearly the Marines have realised this, as they're now doing exactly that. Keeping the SAW and introducing a S/1/FA rifle to the infantry.

[Amentes]

2 minutes ago, Noah_Hero said:

The M249 is just way too accurate (especially when not deployed since you can easily kill people at 600m and more!). A LMG that seems to be more balanced would be the L110A2 from BAF. It looks very similar, also uses 5.56mm but kicks way more will not kicking comletely insane.

 

The M249 is too accurate, but it shouldn't kick much more than it does. It's a heavy gun, which isn't entirely undesirable in an LMG.

[Noah_Hero]

7 minutes ago, Amentes said:

The M249 is too accurate, but it shouldn't kick much more than it does. It's a heavy gun, which isn't entirely undesirable in an LMG.

True IRL but the problem in game is that the other MGs do kick way more wich is not only completely stupid but also causes balancing issues without a lot of gear-restrictions.

 

*EDIT*: Just think of the FN Minimi SPW from APEX that we have blacklisted because it it is a laserbeam. The M249 kicks nearly exactly the same! The only difference is that the FN Minimi SPW has got lower RPM, more weight and a lower impact. So to be totally honest the OP FN Minimi SPW is actually better balanced than the M249...

[GhostDragon]

It's important to remember that as far as I know they are keeping the 249 as of now. Just replacing the m4 due to as I said above the marines using more rounds overall.

 

I believe they are staying with a 30 round mag but I may be mistaken on that one

[Minipily]

44 minutes ago, GhostDragon said:

I believe they are staying with a 30 round mag but I may be mistaken on that one

US Military is trying to update the NATO Standardisation (STANAG) to use 40rd magazines for 5.56 rifles, CMAG has already made designs and CMAG in general will probably be the next NATO Standardisation.

 

Not to mention that they want to get a more lethal round anyway, but creating a new cartridge is expensive and 7.62x51 NATO proves too heavy and frankly dangerous as the Falklands War proved. I believe the plan was to try and use 6.5mm such as ArmA 3 shows as the NATO STANAG, though if this is the case, it's going to take a while to go through and take effect.

 

If 7.62x51 was to become a NATO STANAG round for the Rifleman (because civilian property isn't a priority), the British Armed Forces DMR design or perhaps a HK417 design may soon become a regular service rifle. However I highly doubt NATO will want to use said caliber as a regular round, like I said, too dangerous.

[Amentes]

I assume you mean PMAG Mini?

[Minipily]

8 hours ago, Amentes said:

I assume you mean PMAG Mini?

That'd be the one, Magpul basically.

[Amentes]

https://www.magpul.com/products/pmag-40-ar-m4-gen-m3

[Minipily]

That would be the puppy right there.

 

I believe the US Military are aiming to get that sort of magazine (Magpul/40rd) as a NATO STANAG magazine to replace current older issue 30rd. Magpul's are already flooding the military anyway but I believe many if not all are bought with a soldier's pay wage.

[Johnson]

The M27 wont replace the M249, but instead its implementation is intended to create further distance and consistency between a "Machine Gunner" and "Autorifleman".

 

The USMC want to replace the M249 with the M240B since the M249 sits at a strange position between those two billets.

[JANXOL]

On 3.02.2018 at 5:11 PM, Noah_Hero said:

True IRL but the problem in game is that the other MGs do kick way more wich is not only completely stupid but also causes balancing issues without a lot of gear-restrictions.

 

*EDIT*: Just think of the FN Minimi SPW from APEX that we have blacklisted because it it is a laserbeam. The M249 kicks nearly exactly the same! The only difference is that the FN Minimi SPW has got lower RPM, more weight and a lower impact. So to be totally honest the OP FN Minimi SPW is actually better balanced than the M249...

If I am not mistaken, the FN Minimi and M249 is the exact same weapon with a different name. Also the m249 should kick less than other lmgs, since as far as I know that is true IRL. It has a hydraulic system for recoil reduction, so the kick is much less than you would expect from the looks of that thing.

[Noah_Hero]

2 hours ago, JANXOL said:

the FN Minimi and M249 is the exact same weapon with a different name

No, they´ve got a bit different stats. Like stated above: different RPM, accuracy, impact and weight. (Just make sure to check them in the virtual arsenal and not on the server because most of the stats on the server are incorrect due to the "fixed arsenal" mod)

2 hours ago, JANXOL said:

m249 should kick less than other lmgs, since as far as I know that is true IRL. It has a hydraulic system for recoil reduction, so the kick is much less than you would expect from the looks of that thing.

No idea about that one but I`d still say that thing should kick more than it does in Arma. Not only is hipfiring that one pretty much without it kicking all nosense but hitting accurate at 600m+ while beeing deployed and going full auto seems a bit extreme aswell

[JANXOL]

On 4.02.2018 at 9:33 PM, Noah_Hero said:

No, they´ve got a bit different stats. Like stated above: different RPM, accuracy, impact and weight. (Just make sure to check them in the virtual arsenal and not on the server because most of the stats on the server are incorrect due to the "fixed arsenal" mod)

 

I meant IRL. I think m249 is the exact same weapon as FN Minimini just manufactured in US.