"New Machine Gun Will Blast Like Battle Tanks" ... as if!

Yeah, sure.  I've heard this before.  It was bullshit then, it's bullshit now.

Army's new machine gun will blast like battle tanks | Fox News: The Army’s new weapon will look like a light machine gun, but will put M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank-style blasting power literally at the fingertips of U.S. soldiers.

In 1970 Vietnam, while I was on "Profile" for an extreme case of "Bamboo Poisoning", the US ARMY put me on profile (light duty.)

I got a lot of scratches which were infected because they were not treated; it took 5 years for the sores to heal up ... nasty stuff!

While I was on "Profile", in the rear with the gear, the Army decided I was lolling around doing nothing, so they assigned me to the task of testing and evaluating a 'new weapon".

I don't recall the nomenclature, but it was a shoulder-fired, four-round semi-automatic rocket launcher which would launch rockets (essentially the M72 Rocket Launcher) from a "Man-Portable" platform used to disable enemy "armor"..

The "platform" weighed about 50 pounds when loaded, and it required an "assistant gunner" to carry 4-round reloads.  It may not have been the best usage of infantrymen, since the Viet Cong didn't have a lot of tanks

At the end of the test, my evaluation was that the mechanism was too heavy to carry in a combat environment, deprived the army of two infantrymen who were more effective with common shoulder-fired weapons, and served no discernible combat function because the burdoned infantrymen were unable to keep up with an infantry platoon during movement in the field.

Besides which, the rockets seemed unlikely to actually "Bust" a dirt-bermed bunker which was common in NVA fixed positions such as those I had encountered in at least two combat assaults.

(The M72 rocket was a "tank buster", and we never saw an NVA tank during my 1969-1970 tour.)

My sores healed up and I was returned to active duty.  I never saw any response from "higher" to my evaluation .. but the four-round semi-automatic M72 rocket launcher was never issued to troops in the field.   I decided that I had performed my duty by nixing a bad concept.



Now the army has a new "Bright Idea";  a machine gun which will "blast like battle tanks"?

I also spent some time as a tank commander in Vier Nam, and I've fired the main gun on a "Battle tank" (whatever that is .. is there a tank that isn't a "Battle Tank"?)   I like the fire-power, but it's cumbersome, worthless in swamps (where guerrillas hide) and you can hear the tanks coming from a mile away; easy to avoid, and fun for infantry to run up behind them and slap a simple charge of TNT on their drive train.  Tank Commanders are a preferred target for snipers, and when "buttoned up" the TC can't see infantry sneaking up to disable his tank with a two-pound  charge of TNT and a short fuse.

(NOTE: Viet troops could use a simple bundle of dynamite stick, coated in grease.  Light the fuse, slap it among the external drive-train ... the grease would make it stick in place ... and run like hell.  One blast would put an American tank out of combat for WEEKS while the crew waited for new drive wheels, roller wheels, and track plates.)

The advantage of a tank is that it provides heavy armor to protect the platform and the crew.  It also allows the crew to bring artillery-level "Direct Fire" on an enemy position, along with protection for the crew while using .50-caliber machine guns against the enemy.   It's a mobile heavy machine-gun position with cojones.   Any position you can't take out with Ma-Deuce, you can blast to smithereens with the main gun.

So what's all this about a machine gun which will blast like a battle tank?

OMG, have the Democrats taken over the Pentagon?  Because this sounds like even more of the Liberal Bullshit, only now it is infecting the Army!!!

The problem with War is that it's run by Politicians.