Cased Telescoped 5.56mm and 7.62mm Machine Guns from Textron, on Display at [AUSA 2017]
We have already seen the 6.5mm CT Carbine prototype brought out by Textron for the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, but TFB also got an up close and personal look at Textron’s cased telescoped machine guns. Textron has two different cased telescoped belt fed weapons in testing right now: A 5.56mm CT light machine gun, and a 7.62mm CT medium or general purpose machine gun.
Textron’s 7.62mm CT Medium Machine Gun, below:
According to Textron, the 5.56mm machine gun weighs around 10 pounds, unloaded, while the larger 7.62mm machine gun weighs about 14.5 pounds unloaded. According to program officer Kori Phillips in an interview conducted for TFB, this light weight was achieved through the use of finite element analysis (FEA): “The weapon is as weight efficient as any weapon is going to be; you can make it thicker or sturdier, you can add material to it for drop testing and field testing and that kind of stuff. As far as the function of the weapon goes, it’s bare-bones, as light as it can possibly be.” In addition to being designed via FEA, the major components of both machine guns were produced using sintered metal 3D printing, a process evident in the surface of the 7.62mm MG’s receiver, shown below:
Many of our readers asked why the 7.62mm CT medium machine gun was chambered for a 7.62mm round as opposed to the 6.5mm CT round. The answer is that the external dimensions of the cylindrically-shaped 7.62mm and 6.5mm CT rounds are the same, so the medium machine gun can be chambered for either round with a simple barrel swap. Currently, testing is ongoing with 7.62mm due to the availability of projectiles in that caliber, and as a baseline for comparison against the M240. The 6.5mm round is currently its own test bed, designed primarily as a demonstrator to illustrate the capability of CT ammunition when combined with lightweight projectiles. If a low drag CT round were adopted, it would in theory be re-optimized for the latest requirements, whatever those ended up being.
Textron’s 5.56mm CT Light Machine Gun, below:
More photos:
Nathaniel is a history enthusiast and firearms hobbyist whose primary interest lies in military small arms technological developments beginning with the smokeless powder era. He can be reached via email at nathaniel.f@staff.thefirearmblog.com.
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Ya wanna know what irritates the shiite out of me, with all this?
Great; we're doing new MGs for the Army and Marines. I'm happy. Ecstatic, even--This is an area that has languished for decades.
However, on the other hand, I see feck-all being done to modernize and/or improve the stuff that really matters with these things, the accessories and tripods. Why?
You get down to it, and the real reason we're having this whole "overmatch" controversy is that we're trying to answer fires being delivered from outside the range fan from which we can deliver effective counterfire from a bipod-mounted MG. Off a bipod, you're gonna get around 800m, it won't be easily repeatable, and you have to rely on the skill of the gunner and the guy calling his damn fire. You want to fire back at someone out around 1500m, who is firing at you with a PKM, you're gonna have to get real lucky, or have a semi-trailer load of ammo backing your ass up, so long as you're firing off that bipod.
So... Riddle me this: Why the hell aren't we working on doing something about that? Whether it is as simple as an improved bipod/tripod setup, a gyroscopic stabilizer for bipod fires, or a semi-autonomous PackBot robot with the gun mounted on a mini-CROWS setup, I see nothing being done along these lines. You want to be able to answer a PKM at 1500m, you need to be less worried about the gun, and more worried about the platform you're firing it off of. And, I see jack-squat being done to improve the support platforms...
Makes you wonder, that does...
I agree PK. She’s a beaut