Re: OICW

Great poetry it ain't but I like the beat, you can dance to it.

Gracias,
Glenn/Triphibious@juno.com
This is my Science Fiction Alter Ego E-mail address.
Historical - Warbeads@juno.com
Fantasy and 6mm - dwarf_warrior@juno.com

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:23:50 -0800 (PST) John Atkinson
<johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>--- Tomb <tomb@dreammechanics.com> wrote:
>
>> [Tomb] OTOH, I hear there is a bit of a thought of
>> moving back more
>> towards the M240 because the M249 is seen as
>> inadequate in some quarters
>> as a squad support weapon
>
>We never moved away from it.  Here's what happened:
>
>Once upon a time, the US Army had an automatic rifle
>(the BAR) and a light machinegun (the M-1919 .30 cal).
> Then came the Great Advent of the Assault Rifle, and
>the automatic rifle was declared obsolete.  It's role
>would be filled by an M-14 firing on full automatic. 
>Also about this time, the M-1919 was replaced by a bad
>copy of the MG34, the M-60.  Yeah, verily it was
>discovered that the M-14 was uncontrollable on full
>auto and the M-16 was introduced.  And it sucked much.
> So the M-16A1 was introduced, and it didn't suck.  So
>in the great wisdom of the Infantry branch, the US
>Army now had a light machinegun (still the M-60, now
>with alphanumeric designations trailing after it's
>name).  We had a rifle (the M-16A1) and an automatic
>rifle (an M-16A1 with the selector lever on full
>automatic).  And verily we discovered in the early
>1980s that this was inadequate.  Lo, the Infantry
>looked across the waters and discovered the
>industrious tribe of Belgae.  And verily did they look
>upon a product of these Belgae and declared it to be
>GOOD.	And they took the Minimi and renamed it the
>M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon and issued it to American
>soldiers in place of the M-16A1 with selector lever on
>full automatic.  And then they looked at their squads
>and said, "Hell, we don't need all these automatic
>weapons" and they introduced the M-16A2 which did not
>go onto full automatic and had a few other
>improvements.	So all was good, and the Panamanians
>and Iraqis were smote mightily.  Then the eyes of the
>Infantry fell upon the Belgae and another of their
>products and said, "Damn, but this is a far better
>copy of the MG34 than we have" and they bought what
>the rest of the world had been calling an FN MAG for
>three decades and declared it to be the M-240.
>
>Now verily, there were a bunch of foreigners who
>jumped on the bandwagon and purchased the M-249 SAW as
>well.	And verily they were struck with a great
>confusion and thought this was a light machinegun! 
>And they spake aloud "This sucketh!" and there was
>weeping and gnashing of teeth.  
>
>And the Americans wondered what in hell the whining
>was about.
>
>John
>
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