That'll work. Now, give me 3 of those 6 grenade rounds equipped with proximity sensors.
Posted on 03/10/2006 4:09:18 PM PST by SandRat
CAMP MERCURY, Iraq (March 9, 2006) -- Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to want one.
Marines with Regimental Combat Team 5, based in Camp Fallujah, test-fired the latest in the Corps’ arsenal of weapons’ improvement, the M-32 Multiple shot Grenade Launcher. It’s a six-barreled, 40 mm beast of weapon that has just about enough attitude for Marines.
“I thought it was pretty bad the first time I saw it,” said Cpl. Jason H. Flanery, a 23-year-old mortarman from St. Louis, Mo., assigned to RCT-5’s Personnel Security Detachment.
The M-32 MGL looks like something straight out of an action movie or a weapon ginned up by designers of futuristic video combat games. It’s a bare-bones, shoulder-fired weapon with a bulging six-barreled cylinder. There’s no bones about it. This thing’s all business when the trade is knocking out bad-guys at a distance.
“You can put six rounds on target in under three seconds,” Flanery said. “I thought this thing was sick.”
Sick might be right for the insurgent on the other end of the sight. The M-32 MGL is step up from the M-203 grenade launcher Marines have used since post-Vietnam days. It fires similar 40 mm grenades and at similar distances. It just puts more rounds on the bad guys faster.
“The ‘203 has been around since the ‘60s,” explained CWO4 Gene A. Bridgman, the regiment’s gunner, or weapons expert. “It keeps improving. This is a progression in the weapons system.”
Flanery put the comparison of the two similar weapons in more simple terms.
“It makes it obsolete,” he said. “It’s that much better.”
The idea to bring M-32 was the brainchild of Marine gunners across the Corps, explained Bridgman, a 43-year-old from Garden City, Kan. During an annual symposium, they decided an improvement was needed over the M-203. One option was to bring back a rifle-grenade. The M-32, won out, however, and now each Marine battalion will field them as an experimental weapon.
Bridgman added the M-32 isn’t a new idea altogether, though. Brazilian, Italian and South African military have carried them in the field for years. Marines, though, took it one step further.
A fore-grip was added and a scope was mounted to the top, eliminating the old leaf sights like that of the M-203. The scope allows a Marine to follow the grenade to the target and immediately adjust and follow up with a lethal volley of indirect fire.
“The ‘203 was on shot at time,” Bridgman said. “The ‘203 became a signal weapon. This is more of an offensive weapon. With this, you shoot, adjust and fire for effect.”
The average Marine said it’s just about that easy to shoot. Lance Cpl. Alexandro R. Raymundo, a 20-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., isn’t an infantryman. He’s a network administrator by trade. He shot the M-203 before during initial training, but this was his first time picking up the M-32 MGL.
“I thought it might be like the ‘203,” Raymundo said. “But is shoots more rounds, faster. It’s really simple. I had ‘hands-on’ once. I picked it up really quickly.”
As far as how it felt shooting it, Raymundo said the weapon was about as beefy as it looks.
“I felt like there’s more recoil than the ‘203 and the trigger’s a lot heavier” he explained. “It’s heftier than the ‘203.”
His likes about the weapon included the small scope added to the rail-mount system on top of the weapon.
“The optic was nice,” he added. “It’s a lot easier to sight in.”
Of course, there’s the part about lots of things going “boom” downrange too.
“My favorite part was being able to fire out so many grenades and not have to reload between each shot.”
Sgt. David G. Redford, a 35-year-old from Kennebunkport, Me., has more practical experience when it comes to what grunts like in the field. He’s an infantryman by trade and has logged in his own hours carrying the M-203.
“I didn’t know what to think about it before we came out here, but it’s nice,” Redford said. “It’s easier to shoot. You don’t have to constantly load. If you run into something, you’re already loaded.”
Redford predicted that most infantry Marines will welcome the addition of the six-pack attack weapon.
That’s exactly the reaction Bridgman wants to see. Adding the M-32 MGL could realign the way Marines operate at the small-team level. Fire teams could become more lethal, more mobile and more independent. The idea of a dedicated grenadier might just be reborn.
“Now you have your own indirect fire support right in the fire team,” Bridgman explained. “You have someone who can lay down (high explosive rounds) against someone in a trench. It would be used against enemy in fighting holes or behind cars, because of the indirect nature of the weapon. It’s the only weapon aside from mortars,” at the small team’s disposal.
Still, Bridgman stressed the weapon is only experimental. Marines will be gathering data about its’ effectiveness and durability from experiences on the streets of Fallujah.
For Flanery, though, the M-32 is already welcome.
“I think it’s one of the most simple and effective weapons systems,” he said. “I just want buckshot rounds.”
The Octagon.
That'll work. Now, give me 3 of those 6 grenade rounds equipped with proximity sensors.
A Marine with 6-PAKS in his Tri-Ceps and Bi-Ceps you can dream about the rest.
I need one. Does it come in other colors?
USMC GRAYGREEN or GREENGRAY
USMC Green with a black barrel or black barrel at the end of USMC GREEN
heaheaheahea I WANT ONE!
phoomp phoomp phoomp phoomp phoomp phoomp
bam bam bam bam bam bam
I'll take the second one. The first one doesn't go with my outfit.
A 40mm sawed-off Shotgun,.....hmmmmmm.... would that be a 3-gauge?
Very neat, compact and sexy...
Hmmm, Six 40mm rounds in 3 seconds...
Has anyone seen how many 81mm rounds a well trained and scared to death M-29 mortar team can put out in 3 seconds?
Just 3, would put far more death and destruction on the target in the same time - and at greater distance, I believe...
The BIG advantage of this neat package is the size, mobility, speed, single grunt operation, shooter is right up front where the threat is and not out of sight behind you, less risk of "friendly fire" deaths and no need for "aiming stake" orientation...
Semper Fi
With one of those, humblegunner you will be no more.
1.2 Ga with Buckshot or even Birdshot and no Choke. What a pattern spread that'd have.
Reload.
Now if they could fill those 40MM rounds with willy pete......
L
I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a M-32, the most powerful grenade launcher in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky?....Well, do ya punk?
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