Just think of the amount of engineering effort it took to make a real rifle that looked like a bad photochop done by a Counterstrike kiddie.
The bullpup flechette rifle with its oddball tandem magazine and repeating grenade launcher manages the almost impossible feat of making the H&K OICW look well-thought-out, svelte, and practical.
That is just wrong.
ReplyDeleteThat's a SPIW, Special Purpose Individual Weapon. They have a bunch of them up the road at the Springfield Armory, over past the Gatlings, mini-guns, and Vulcan M-61's.
ReplyDeleteErgonomics of a railroad tie, combined with the weight of an M-60 and the accuracy of a shotgun.
Mack Qwinn knew most of the guys in the project, and they couldn't stop laughing even as they worked on the abortion.
It looks French, or at least they are the only country to consistently adopt weapons that ugly.
ReplyDeleteGeorgeH, Bugles blow. Sorry, couldn't resist it.
ReplyDelete@Ed? Does Springfield have a museum as well?
ReplyDeleteI've seen pictures of the weapons on display at Rock Island, they have quite a few oddball prototypes and the SPIW would fit right in.
I guessed 'prop'.
ReplyDelete(Something that's always nagged at my - why not give every rifleman an underbarrel GL, a la M203? Seems to be a good bit of firepower per ounce, but I don't have to lug the thing around, so...)
Noah --
ReplyDeleteNot only is the M203 bloody heavy and blocks the bayonet on the M4 (and the bayonet blocks the muzzle of teh M203 on the M16), but you don;t really get all that much for doing that, other than you can throw one humdinger of a first couple of salvos.
But how often do you really need a volley on line of 40mm HEDP from a single rifle squad?
Better to give each rifleman the WEIGHT of the launcher in 40mm ammo for the two designated grenadiers.
Or issue the FN "shoot though" (not blank launched, not bullet trap -- live ammo through the tailboom and out a polymer nose cover) to all your riflemen, and EVERYONE is a grenadier at need, but no heavy launcher. Sure, the 40mm is more flexible in ammo choices, but the overwehlming majority of the time you'll be shooting HEDP anyway. . .
Typing faster than teh speed of thought. . . Those FN widgets would be "rifle grenades" -- specifically the nifty telescoping ones. . .
ReplyDeleteIt takes true engineering talent to get that much ugly in that small a space.
ReplyDeleteButch_S, Springfield has THE museum, before which all others pale. Especialy if you get the Director's tour, a special little stroll through the upstairs pattern rooms in a small group.
ReplyDeleteAll the experimental stuff the Feds played with from the 1790's through the 1960's. Plus lots of captures stuff.
I mentioned the Japanese copy of the M-1, and said I'd heard there were only 6 in the U.S.
The director said "Like these guys?", then took down two of them.
I absolutely fell in love with the Winchester Light Rifle, which competed against the M-16. A beautiful stretched version of the M-1 Carbine in 5.56mm/.223 Rem.
Downstairs you have the movie theater showing endless flicks about the armory and it's products, 80 foot square racks of 1863 rifled muskets reaching to the 20 foot ceiling, lots of every smallarm ever used by the U.S. Military, plus production and experimental machineguns and cannon, most of them made at the arsenal.
Yum!
If you'd like a little bit of brain bleach after that, you could have a look at this.
ReplyDeleteJim
So, no irony that South Korea just adopted an OICW?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/12/01/korea-deploying-k11-airburst-assault-rifles/
I'm skeptical.
ReplyDeleteThe ROK army hasn't been involved in infantry combat since the early '50s. Let's see some AAR's before we hail the wave of the future.