Sons of Guns on Discovery channel.......

Thanks for the update. Yeah, I once received an M2 from the field with a missing cover plate and a bolt which needed to be entirely replaced. The cartridge was welded to the chamber, and the receiver was bowed from the pressure. I told the kid who obviously just threw the barrel in and fired (without even backing the barrel off) that he was lucky. We then made it standard procedure to make every gunner sit down and watch the M2 training vids, per my request. Amazing what those babies will do. I am like you, I can't hit crap with it. It's great on the turret though.

I can't wait to see that. I might have seen something like it in the past, but not the built-in optics.

 

Oh yeah, that's a beautiful weapon system. Offhand, I can say that it certainly seems to meet two of the major problems with the standard M2 .50 - recoil (hence poor aiming), and the HS&T (resulting in human failures). However, I do not see it ever being serviced in the Army, although other special units will most certainly use it, or something like it in the future. The reasons it won't ever be serviced in the Army are as follows: To convert the 307 into the 312, virtually the entire weapon will have to be dismantled. This creates a massive problem in the field due to the potential for loss of parts, rendering the weapon system useless. What's with all that plastic? I seriously doubt any Army military man will ever adopt a plastic weapon...at least not until we stop firing bullets and move on to lasers. Finally, the optics are beautiful. How many problems can we foresee with this? It gets dropped or banged around, renders the weapon useless. I have seen many "rugged" optics come into an infantry company only to end up being DRMO'd a year later. The weapon system MUST be extremely rugged and resilient, and be made of as few parts as possible. The military command may not see it as a necessary buy option. They care little bout the weight factor or the recoil. The military grunt is 100% expendable. You won't hear them say that, but it is true. The M2 has served its role for so long now, that even though some may feel it is time to move on to a more advanced platform, the fact that it still performs flawlessly is quite impressive. Well, if we discount human error, the M2 is very close to maximum efficiency. So, what do we have aside from that? We have a weapon that can serve 2 roles.

I would like to see this hybrid weapon field tested. If it can survive torture testing and a thorough beating, I would say it might have a chance some day. I would also like to see catastrophic failures to gauge the type of damage to the weapon and the soldier we will be looking at. This test should also include melted barrels, user error issues, etc. Until then, it may be a very nice looking platform and one hell of a performer --but it is certainly no M2; the deuce is at least proven to be reliable.