Marines carry six-pack attack (WOW!! Now that's a 6-PAK!)

Marine Corps News ^ | Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva

[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.”

[SandRat]

hmmmmm.... wonder if we should write in to mail call and direct Gunny R Lee Emry to this baby just to make him smile?????

[visualops]

That's a BFG!!

[AngryJawa]

Nope, I'm in GA, but I'm a big fan of anything that results in sadness for Code Pinko.

[King Prout]

Gunny probably owns the prototype.

Hell, Gunny probably gave BIRTH to the prototype!

;)

[SandRat]

Well, I just went to the Mail Call url and sent a note off to Gunny asking if he could show it on his show.

[Professional Engineer]

Wow, it looks like a BFG9000!

[Noumenon]

Get some.

[A.A. Cunningham]

putz

[Travis McGee]

What's really great about 40mm in a city, is that you can fire it right straight through windows several hundred yards away, killing all of the bad guys who are hiding behind solid cover and making occasional pot shots.

[King Prout]

eh?

[Travis McGee]

From my perspective, that would be SO wrong!

[river rat]

Damn! You're right..
I had a mental block, refusing to think of a "mortar" as a direct line of sight weapon....

A super grenade launcher....

Semper Fi

[Calvin Locke]

Christopher Walken used a similar weapon in a merc movie. "Dogs of War", maybe?

[vrwc0915]

mk19 time was the best time of the year :)

[going hot]

Looks like a larger version of the old streetsweeper shotgun. The one with the multiround cylinder.

[Nita Nupress]

My "oh yeah," it must be noted, was directed at the GUN, not the GUYs.

LOL! Yeah. Uh, huh...

[going hot]

http://world.guns.ru/shotgun/SH09-E.HTM, sorry, no html skills.

[vrwc0915]

Have you seen this upgrade to an oldie but goodie?

FAE for a SMAW

SMAW Novel Explosive (SMAW-NE) The Marines were so impressed with the success of thermobaric weapons used in Operation Enduring Freedom that they approached Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head and requested a shoulder-mounted version of their own. The Indian Head Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (IHDIV, NSWC) (teaming with the Marine Corps Systems Command, NSWC Dahlgren, and Talley Defense Systems) responded to an urgent US Marine Corps need for a shoulder-launched enhanced-blast warhead, by delivering the Shoulder-Launched Multi Purpose Assault Weapon--Novel Explosive (SMAW-NE) in 2003. The highly successful collaboration spanned only nine months from concept development to weapon system fielding. This team used their expertise in warhead design, fuze design, test, manufacturing, systems safety, and systems integration in providing a solution to this technical challenge. Among many other enhancements, this modernized weapon includes a new warhead case design capable of penetrating brick targets and a thermobaric explosive fill that provides an enhanced lethality.

[Travis McGee]

You gotta love it!

[itsamelman]

Almost as cool as the one I got...