"Ma Deuce," the 80 year old M-2 .50 caliber machine-gun is finally facing retirement. The new weapon will be the .50 caliber M312. While there have been efforts to replace M-2 for decades, no one has yet come up with a new weapon that's enough of an improvement to justify the expense. But for the last few years, the U.S. Army has been developing the M-307, a machine-gun firing 25mm "smart shells." It was found that by changing just six parts (and removing the electronic sight and computer controls for programming the 25mm smart shells.) you had a lighter (43 pounds versus 128 pounds for the M-2) and much more accurate weapon (because of a very effective recoil reduction system). The tests of the M312 have been encouraging, and the army plans to start replacing its 25,000 M-2 machine-guns in 2005, by issuing M-312's as M-2s wear out (and a lot are doing that these days), or replacing M-2s in infantry outfits where there is a need to sometimes take the .50 caliber machine-gun off the vehicle (all M-2s are basically vehicle mounted) and set it up somewhere else. This was never really practical with the M-2, but is with the M-312. The 25mm M-307 isn't expected to show up until 2010, and will replace .50 caliber weapons as well as the M-19 40mm automatic grenade launcher.
