The current deplorable state of infantry weapons development can be traced to the 1968 and 1986 machine gun bans. By taking out the lucrative civilian market that rewards good new designs, the private development of machine guns of all calibers withered and died. Now government driven development efforts routinely suffer from the design-by-committee syndrome, with little to show for decades of failed attempts at defining and developing new guns.

 

It's telling that all major infantry weapons currently in use were designed before 1968, and that many attempts at introducing replacements were either failures right out of the gate, or quickly phased out in favor of what was used before.

FN Minimi, in service as the SAW - Introduced 1974.

Beretta 92FS in service as the M9 - designed 1972

Javelin - designed late 1980s

How many civilians buy machine guns anyway? Not rifles, machine guns. A tiny percentage of military procurement, I'm sure.

Finally, American machine guns have never been the best, with design flaws and production errors. It's telling that the modern machine guns in US Army service are Belgian.

Out of curiosity. How does Singapore's CIS 50MG heavy machine gun compare to the Browning M2? Is it any better?

 

Browning M2

"Finally, American machine guns have never been the best, with design flaws and production errors."

 

Really? I guess that's why anyone outside the former Com Bloc who uses an HMG uses the Browning M2.

He was probably referring to the abysmal M73, and the less than perfect M60, which no one has ever accused of being better than the M240 or MG3.

Even so, as someone who has spent more than a few nights stripping and cleaning an M2, I think that the design could be a little lighter, and a little simpler...

He was probably referring to the abysmal M73, and the less than perfect M60, which no one has ever accused of being better than the M240 or MG3.

Even so, as someone who has spent more than a few nights stripping and cleaning an M2, I think that the design could be a little lighter, and a little simpler...

I carried an M-60 in the Army...it was heavy but I never had any issues with it...It was reliable, accurate, easy to strip and clean... I had no issues trusting my life to it. Now the M-16's I used were shit...granted they were the M16A1's but what a godawful piece of crap...bad magazines, double feeding, slightest hint of dust and it would jam, 5.56 poodle shooter round...I thanked God everyday that I was carrying the Hog.

I thought that the comment about other MGs was germane, as people were making suppositions about why the M2 hasn't been bettered

IMHO this looks like a cost-saving exercise - the M2HB does the job and can be expected to go on doing the job with little expense and no need for retraining and re-equipping.  The XM312's low rate of fire is often mentioned in comparison with the M2, but then long bursts of fire are rarely made so the cyclic rate is not that relevant.  In ground warfare, the ability to put an accurate four-round burst into the target at range is the idea, not spraying away the whole belt, and I'm told the 260rpm of the XM312 did give some very accurate groups.  And most modern helicopters carry ATMs that will kill at much further than 2000m, so ground-to-air is a bit optimistic and not really a good reason to can the XM312, especially as it would have been much lighter than the M2, to the point where it is practical as a foot-slogger's weapon when the M2 has become almost universally vehicle-mounted.  But, the XM312 would have come with the added expense of new training, new parts and purchasing, etc.  As regards the CIS 50MG it looks like it only got selected for the SAF because it was from Singapore.  As far as I know, I don't think it's been picked up by any other country, they all seem happy with the M2 or the almost-as-old Soviet DShK.

The XM312 was lighter than the M2, and a weapon you can carry and provides firepower/2 is better than one that you can't and has firepower^2.

The trouble with the XM312 is that the ammunition is as heavy as it ever was, so you need a vehicle to truck that about with, so you don't gain anything by having a lighter gun. If you could make the ammo lighter, then the reduced rate of fire of the XM312 wouldn't be such a killer, especially if it was dual-role with airbursting projectiles

The rate of fire that kills the XM312 isn't the number of rounds it throws out in a minute (it's the same for both guns), but the number per second. The M2 can fire twice as many rounds before the enemy has the chance to get into effective cover, which is important in the sort of fleeting engagements that characterise modern warfare.