Garn.. wish I'd been on FR before so I could've gotten that info.
'Course the AP wish list also had MP5SD2/3's onit..
You're better off with a M16A2 or M4 with a nighttime AN/PVS4 and a Crane SpecWarMod or Ops Inc suppressor on it anyway; the MP5SD is a really limited piece of equipment.
As for the M249, a former airborne NCO and USAF parachute rigger pal of mine joined up with the Guard in the early 1980s, whereupon they made him a HQ company mess sergeant, to replace one who'd been stealing both food and equipment. After he got the missing material replaced and straightened out a few leadership problems within his mess section, his mess operation was the envy of the division, and when 9th Infantry first started testing the HUMMV, he ended up being detailed to them as one of the first to figure out how to outfit the new vehicles for use as frontline mess trucks, back in the days before the Hummer even had a tow pintle installed. The attaboys he got from that project were so impressive his battalion CO figured it was time to use him to solve another problem, and so he became the battalion S2 NCO.
At the time they were running the same more-or-less routine training exercises at the NG training area that took a day's drill time to get there and another to get back. He got the use of a state park for use as a close-in training area, and got the air hours to have one platoon of each company choppered in as *reinforcements* to their company already in place, getting his guys into the field instead of spending their drills on road marches. And instead of using the HQ company scout and mortar sections for aggressors, he got a bunch of members from the local AMVETS and VFW, conservation cops and members of the state search-and-rescue team, who he'd fed a few times as a mess boss. And they were not equipped or trained by the book.
We hit his battalion's HQ company on one of those exercises, and having drawn a pair of M60s, they figured they'd be hit by two platoons. Nope. We locked the guns up in a storage unit, and spread the ammo out among a couple of dozen folks with scoped .308 hunting rifles, and a platoon of WWII reenactors with blank-fring Mausers and German MG34 LMGs. After taking out 80% of the HQ co's officers and senior NCOs on the first day, the *German* platoon hit the remainder on the night of the second day and cleaned house.
That convinced their Battalion CO that they needed both the M249 SAWs they were authorized and the sniper rifles that had previously been a matter of telling one guy per platoon *you're the sniper* but providing no scope, training or additional equipment. That was about to change.
Since even most regular line units hadn't gotten the M249 then, he figured his immediate prospects were between *slim* and *none*...and found out he could draw M14s as sniper equipment, though they weren't scoped M21s. But he had this pal of his who'd been building match Garands, M14s and M21s at Crane, and he figured something could be worked out....
Instead of an M14 per platoon, he drew one per squad, plus a pair extra per platoon for the snipers...and there were still rifles leftover available. When he'd gotten all he could get ahold of, each of his SAW gunners had an M14 with a bipod and he had at least one scoped M14 per platoon in the hands of a guy who'd fired expert with the M16.
When the National Matches at Camp Perry came up that summer, his snipers went and shot their rifles for score at the nationals, and a few got tune-ups on the spot by the top AMU armorers in the country, and they got a ton of experience and good advice; some of the guys went on their own time, and still do- and his NG unit has M24s now. When the first M249s made it to his division, his line platoons were the first to get 'em, since they'd been working for more than a year with a 15-pound autorifle on a bipod...the real change for them was in having the gun beltfed and with changable spare barrels, but they had the squad moves and ammo bearing problems worked out long before. Shortly thereafter, the S2 NCO got himself another stripe and ended up the First Sergeant at that Headquarters Company we'd so thoroughly trounced before. The next time they went to the field, it was with a few more smiling faces than their TO&E authorized, and the aggressors expecting to hit a couple of understrength HQ Coy platoons instead got an overstrength company...and since they were hitting a leg Infantry HQ coy, hadn't bothered with bringing LAWS or TOWs along. They never expected a free-lance armored cav platoon in support....and yes, an M249 makes an acceptable co-ax gun for an old ex-treadhead.
Last I heard, the guy was a Bn Sgt Major. I wonder if he'll make CSM before he gets out....Not a Redleg, though.
-archy-/-