welcome to the world of weapons: January 2013

Wednesday, 30 January 2013

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW)

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon SAW

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW)

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW) Ammo

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW)

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW) Ammo

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW)

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW) Ammo

M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ( SAW)

The M249 light machine gun (LMG), previously designated the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), and formally written as Light Machine Gun, 5.56 mm, M249, is an American version of the Belgian FN Minimi, a light machine gun manufactured by the Belgian company FN Herstal (FN). The M249 is manufactured in the United States and is widely used by the U.S. Armed Forces. The weapon was introduced in 1984 after being judged the most effective of a number of candidate weapons to address the lack of automatic firepower in small units. The M249 provides infantry squads with the heavy volume of fire of a machine gun combined with accuracy and portability approaching that of a rifle.
The M249 is gas operated and air-cooled. It has a quick-change barrel, allowing the gunner to rapidly replace an overheated or jammed barrel. A folding bipod is attached near the front of the gun, though an M192 LGM tripod is also available. It can be fed from both linked ammunition and STANAG magazines, like those used in the M16 and M4. This allows the SAW gunner to use rifleman's magazines as an emergency source of ammunition in the event that he runs out of linked rounds. However, this will often cause malfunctions where the magazine spring has difficulty feeding rounds quickly enough to match the SAW's high cyclic rate.
M249s have seen action in every major conflict involving the United States since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. Soldiers are generally satisfied with the weapon's performance, though there have been reports of clogging with dirt and sand. Due to the weight and age of the weapon, the United States Marine Corps is testing the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle with plans to partially replace the M249 in Marine Corps service

Development

In 1965, the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps' primary machine guns were the M2 Browning and M60. The M2 was a large-caliber heavy machine gun, usually mounted on vehicles or in fixed emplacements. The M60 was a more mobile medium machine gun intended to be carried with the troops to provide heavy automatic fire. Both were very heavy weapons and usually required a crew of at least two to operate efficiently. The Browning automatic rifle, the army's main individual machine gun since its introduction in World War I, was phased out in 1957 with the introduction of the M14 rifle, which had a fully automatic mode. "Designated riflemen" in every squad were ordered to use their weapons on the fully automatic setting, while other troops were required to use their rifle's semi-automatic mode on most occasions to increase accuracy and conserve ammunition. Because the M14 and M16 rifles had not been designed with sustained automatic fire in mind, they often overheated or jammed. The 30-round and 20-round magazines of these weapons also limited their sustained automatic effectiveness when compared to belt-fed weapons.
The Army decided that an individual machine gun, lighter than the M60, but with more firepower than the M16, would be advantageous; troops would no longer have to rely on rifles for automatic fire.Through the 1960s, the introduction of a machine gun into the infantry squad was examined in various studies. While there was a brief flirtation with the concept of a flechette- or dart-firing Universal Machine Gun during one study, most light machine gun experiments concentrated on the Stoner 63 light machine gun, a modular weapon which could be easily modified for different purposes. The Stoner 63 LMG saw combat for a brief period in Vietnam with the USMC, and later on a wider scale with the U.S. Navy SEALs.
In 1968, the Army Small Arms Program developed plans for a new 5.56 mm caliber LMG, though no funds were allocated (5.56 mm ammunition was viewed as underpowered by many in the armed forces). Studies of improved 5.56 mm ammunition, with better performance characteristics, began. The earliest reference to studies of other caliber cartridges for the LMG did not appear until 1969. In July 1970, the U.S. Army finally approved development of an LMG, with no specified caliber. At this time, the nomenclature "Squad Automatic Weapon" (SAW) was introduced.[10] Actual design of alternative cartridges for the LMG did not begin until July 1971. A month later, Frankford Arsenal decided upon two cartridge designs for the new LMG: a 6 mm cartridge and a new 5.56 mm cartridge with a much larger case. Neither design was finalized by March 1972, when the Army published the specifications document for the planned SAW. The 6 mm cartridge design was eventually approved in May that year. Prior to July 1972, SAW development contracts were awarded to Maremont, Philco Ford, and the Rodman Laboratory at Rock Island Arsenal. These companies produced designs with Army designations XM233, XM234 and XM235 respectively—X denoting "experimental". Designs were required to have a weight of less than 9.07 kg (20 lb) including 200 rounds of ammunition, and a range of at least 800 meters (2,600 ft).
When the time came for developmental and operational testing of the SAW candidates, three 5.56 mm candidate weapons were included with the 6 mm candidates: the M16 HBAR, a heavy-barrel variant of the M16 designed for prolonged firing; the Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN) Minimi; and the HK 23A1. The initial round of tests ended in December 1974. In February 1976, the Minimi and Rodman XM235 SAW were selected for further development. At this time, opinions of the 6 mm cartridge were beginning to sour due to the logistical implications of providing yet another ammunition type to the infantry. In June, it was requested that the SAW specifications document be revised to emphasize standard 5.56 mm ammunition. In October, the requested revisions were approved, and bids were solicited for the conversion of the Rodman XM235 to 5.56 mm. Production of the converted XM235 was awarded to Ford Aerospace, and its designation was changed to XM248. A new M16 HBAR variant, the XM106, was developed in 1978, and soon after, Heckler & Koch lobbied to include a 5.56 mm conversion of its HK 21A1 (instead of the standard 7.62 mm NATO ammunition it was built for) in future SAW testing. The latter model was designated the XM262. At this time, the Minimi received the designation XM249. Testing of the four candidates resumed in April 1979.
In May 1980, the FN XM249 was selected as the best choice for future development on the grounds of performance and cost, while the HK XM262 reportedly came a close second. In September, FN was awarded a "maturity phase" contract for further development of the XM249, and testing of the new weapon began in June 1981.The official adoption took place on February 1, 1982.
The new gun entered U.S. Army service as the M249 squad automatic weapon in 1984, and was adopted by the U.S. Marine Corps a year later. The U.S. production model has a different butt from that of the regular Minimi. It is manufactured in the FN factory in Columbia, South Carolina.
Although found to be reliable and accurate, the M249 was considered to present unacceptable hazards in the form of an exposed hot barrel and sharp edges. There were also complaints that the front sight required special adjustment tools. On August 23, 1985, then-U.S. Under Secretary of the Army James R. Ambrose suspended M249 production pending the development of the product improvement program (PIP) intended to fix these problems. Congress deleted funds for the M249 from the Fiscal Year 1986 defense budget, then retroactively set aside the program's prior year's funds from the M249 program for other purposes, including retirement and pay raises. Over 1,100 M249s already issued were to remain in use, but be retrofitted with the PIP kit when it became available. Over 7,000 remaining M249s were to stay in storage at depots until corrective changes could be made. The PIP kit was eventually developed and implemented, and production of the M249 resumed. In 1994 the M249 squad automatic weapon was re-designated the M249 light machine gun

Design details

The M249 is a belt-fed light machine gun. It fires the 5.56×45 mm NATO cartridge, usually a combination of one M856 tracer and four M855 ball cartridges fed from M27 linked belts. Belts are typically held in a hard plastic or soft canvas box attached to the underside of the weapon.
It fires from an open bolt and is gas operated. When the trigger is pulled, the bolt and bolt carrier move forward under the power of the recoil spring. A cartridge is stripped from the belt, chambered, and discharged, sending a bullet down the bore. Expanding propellant gases are diverted through a hole in the barrel into a chamber. This pressure moves a piston providing the energy to extract and eject the spent casing as well as advance the belt and compress the recoil spring, thus preparing for subsequent shots. At 1,041 mm (41 in) long and 7.5 kg (17 lb) in weight (10 kg (22 lb) including a 200-round belt and plastic ammo box), the M249 is a cumbersome weapon.
The barrel has a rifling twist rate of one turn in 180 mm (7 in). Because firing heats up the bore, the air-cooled barrel is equipped with a mechanism to remove and replace the barrel assembly with a spare. A folding bipod with adjustable legs is attached near the front of the weapon, though there are provisions for hard-mounting to a M192 Lightweight Ground Mount tripod or vehicle mount. The M249 provides accuracy approaching that of a rifle, combined with the sustained volume of fire of a machine gun. Its original gas regulator offered two different gas port sizes, allowing cyclic rates of fire of 725 rounds per minute (r/min) or 1,000 r/min. The latter setting was intended for adverse conditions such as an excessively dirty firearm or cold weather. The two-position gas regulator was discarded as part of a product improvement program. Sustained rate of fire, the rate of fire at which the gunner can fire continuously without overheating, is approximately 85 r/min.

M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle

M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle

M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle

The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) was a family of United States automatic rifles (or machine rifles) and light machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge and designed by John Browning in 1917 for the U.S. Expeditionary Corps in Europe as a replacement for the French-made Chauchat and M1909 Benet-Mercie machine guns.
The BAR was designed to be carried by advancing infantrymen, slung over the shoulder or fired from the hip, a concept called "walking fire"—thought to be necessary for the individual soldier during trench warfare.[1] However in practice, it was most often used as a light machine gun and fired from a bipod (introduced in later models).[2] A variant of the original M1918 BAR, the Colt Monitor Machine Rifle, remains the lightest production automatic gun to fire the .30-06 Springfield cartridge, though the limited capacity of its standard 20-round magazine tended to hamper its utility in that role.[2]
Although the weapon did see some action in World War I, the BAR did not become standard issue in the U.S. Army until 1938 when it was issued to squads as a portable light machine gun. The BAR saw extensive service in both World War II and the Korean War and saw some service early in the Vietnam War. The BAR has since been replaced by the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon as the standard issue light machine gun in the U.S. Army

Sunday, 27 January 2013

LSAT

LSAT

LSAT

LSAT Ammo

LSAT

LSAT Ammo

LSAT

LSAT Ammo

LSAT

LSAT Ammo

LSAT

LSAT Ammo

The LSAT light machine gun, of the LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technologies) program, is a developmental, powerful light machine gun. The purpose of the program was to develop a lighter, yet very reliable LMG. The program was initiated in 2004, when the Joint Service Small Arms Program (JSSAP) challenged the American defence industry to develop a lighter small arms and also design lighter ammunition.[1][5] The LMG provides a major reduction in weight over legacy weapons, as well as improvements in other areas, such as controllability and reliability.[2] As of 2008, it has two configurations, one that fires cased telescoped ammunition, and one that fires caseless ammunition.[2] After further research and development into both technologies and the platforms that fire them, one of the two variants shall be chosen for production
History
Development began with the two types of weight-reducing ammunition, and a light machine gun to serve as a testbed and technology demonstrator.[2] Use of an LMG for this purpose is notable, considering its greater technical complexity than infantry rifles. The use of advanced computer simulations to accelerate development may have mitigated this, and the less significant LMG platform succeeds at being less conspicuous to unwanted media attention. For development, the use of extensive computer simulation and modelling reduces both time and expenditure for prototyping and testing. The program also uses a 'spiral development' approach, whereby the weapon and ammunition is rolled out in stages or 'spirals', each stage producing a new version that is an improvement on those from previous spirals. A competition down-selected the design concepts of various companies to leave an AAI Corporation-led team of companies as the developers of the weapon system. The cohesive team of companies is combined with government support to ensure success. The parallel development of the two ammunition types meant that, if the caseless ammunition effort succeeded, much of the development work gained with the composite cased weapon could be applied to it, and, if it failed, the composite-cased version was likely to succeed on its own...
Design
The LMGs built made a 44% and 43% reduction of weight (for the cased telescoped and the caseless weapons, respectively). Secondary goals have also been met: the LMG has the potential to improve battlefield effectiveness (due to its simpler and more consistent weapon action, its light weight and low recoil, and its stiffer barrel); its use of recoil compensation (with a long-stroke gas-system, for example) has produced positive feedback regarding controllability; the simpler mechanism of the LMG is both more reliable and easier to maintain; a rounds counter has been integrated to improve maintainability, and the weapon is capable of accepting other electronic devices; improved materials used in the chamber and barrel have reduced heat load on the weapon; and the weapon cost is equivalent to the existing M249. The standard LSAT machine gun weighs 9.4 lb empty, compared to 17.6 lb for a standard SAW. Cased telescoped ammunition weighs 40% less than brass cased ammo, so a 100 round ammunition belt weighs about 2 lb for the LSAT, compared to 3.3 lb for a brass cased belt

The LMG design is a traditionally laid-out (non-bullpup) machine-gun. It has many of the capabilities of other light machine guns, such as a quick-change barrel, a vented fore-grip, belt-fed ammunition, an ammunition pouch, and a roughly 600 rpm rate of fire. New features include the unique weight, a rounds counter, and a highly stiff and heat resistant barrel achieved with fluting and special materials.[1][7] Possibly the most radical part is its firing action: the weapon uses a swinging chamber. The chamber swings around a longitudinal pivot; it swings from horizontally parallel with the pivot (the firing position), to vertically parallel (the feed position), and back again.[8] A long-stroke gas-piston is used to operate this action. A round is fed into the chamber at the feed position using a rammer, and the new round also serves to push a spent or dud round out of the far end of the chamber. Such rounds are pushed forward, parallel to the barrel, and they slide into a separate mechanism that ejects them out of one side of the gun. The advantages of this whole action include its simplicity, its isolation of the chamber from barrel heat, and its positive control of round movement from extraction to ejection. In the caseless firing version of the weapon, another mechanism is introduced to seal the chamber during firing, accounting for the slightly increased weight of the caseless version.
Testing
In late 2011, about 20 soldiers participated in a two-week assessment of the LSAT light machine gun at Fort Benning, Georgia to demonstrate its capabilities against the M249 SAW. In one test the soldiers, half armed with SAWs and half with LSATs, marched six miles in full combat gear then fired at targets to measure stress and muscle fatigue. Another test had the soldiers sprint 200 yards wearing body armor and a basic load on ammunition, then rapidly engage close-range targets. A third week involved soldiers of the 75th Ranger Regiment performing a squad maneuver live-fire exercise in an urban setting. Feedback from participants favored the LSAT for its lighter weight and decreased recoil. Soldiers remarked the LSAT had better accuracy than the M249. The semi-automatic option made it more viable for room clearing. One Ranger even said the LSAT performed better than the Mk 46 machine gun used by special operations forces.[9] The eight prototype weapons fired a combined 25,000 rounds, moving its cased telescoped ammunition to technology readiness level
Future improvements
The designers project further improvements. These include improved projectile technologies, such as greener bullets and a more lethal calibre,[1] as well as the integration of electronics, such as rounds counters, and lasers for sighting, target acquisition, and steering.Also some sort of optic with built in target aquusition and tracking.[4] The Army is pursuing cased telescoped ammunition. This development is far along, and they say a new LMG could be fielded within two years (2014) with unequivocal support. The Marine Corps is pursuing caseless ammunition, which is less developed and will take several more years to refine.[10] A compact version is also being developed with a 4 inch shorter barrel and folding, telescoping buttstock