#Interim

The Commandant of the United States Marine Corps (CMC) has stated his approval for an overhaul of the front-line infantry Marine’s gear – including the fielding of the Heckler & Koch M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle as a standard issue rifle, to replace the M4 Carbine. The move comes after considerable debate as to what the USMC’s next infantry weapon configuration should look like. From Military.com’s KitUp!:

After being cancelled in mid-2016, could the M4 Carbine upgrade program still be alive? That is the suggestion from a line in the US Army’s justification for its research budget in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which references an “M4A2 Plus Rifle” as a new weapons development effort:

In a surprising turn of events given the recent public motions towards an all-M27 fleet, the United States Marine Corps has just released a new request for information (RFI), soliciting proposals from the industry for a whole new suite of infantry equipment, including rifles, upper receivers for existing weapons, optics, suppressors, and targets. The new RFI is very explicit as to what the industry can and/or should bring to the table as far as proposals. Below is replicated the “Infantry Rifle” segment of the RFI document, which is just one part out of five:

Since its introduction in 2009, the Marine Corps’ M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle has proven itself as an effective support weapon that offers more firepower and range than the Corps’ other squad level weapons, the M4 Carbine and M16A4 Rifle. This good reception has led many within the Corps to reach an obvious conclusion: The USMC should simply replace their M4s and M16A4s in the Infantry Battalions with M27 IARs. This idea gained so much traction that the USMC has experimented with arming an entire battalion with IARs, and even released an RFI to the industry for 11,000 more IARs.