meet the highest casualty producing weapon in the entire us army's regular infantry arsenal
the m249 belt fed squad automatic 556 machine gun i say belt fed but i kind of lied it also
has this really bizarre ability to feed through a side magazine port too i'd rather surrender than
be forced to fire it that way gross in this video i want to take a look at the origins of the m249
because it's one of the weapons i carried when i was in iraq and i had kind of a really
mixed experience with it we're going to take a look at its evolution as a weapon
and its use in various combat situations then finally we're gonna take a look at what the
future 249 could look like if you like getting your defense information from a former average
infantryman in their sweatpants then consider firing around at the like and subscribe button
so where did the need for this weapon originally come from well we can trace its roots all the
way back to the year 1965 when the u.s military was unhappy with the belt-fed machine guns that
they were using at the time the m60 and the m2 browning both of these solutions
technically required a crew of two in order to properly operate the military was acting like
goldilocks here they wanted their belt fed machine gun that was just right not too big not too small
and they were looking for a middle child to add to the family and the m249 was just the problem
to fit that role just like a failing marriage bringing in another one always solves the problem
the 249 originally started off development as the larger caliber 762 by 51 millimeter fn mini me
mini me is french for mini machine gun it was developed in the mid 1970s by a man named ernest
verveir ernest was born in 1909 he was a school teacher at a mechanical school before starting
work at fabrique nationale where he became the chief designer in 1954. this guy is seriously
underappreciated he invented the m249 and the m240 yet no one knows who he is just to show you
how significant that is those are two of the three primary small arms used by the us infantry squads
when ernest vervier created the original m249 prototype he probably had no idea that
we would still be talking about it 50 years later or maybe he was a really confident guy
and he did know he did something that i've noticed a lot of great firearms engineers do
they combined and improved upon multiple proven systems from the past while ernest was developing
the m249 he took inspiration from the old world war ii era mg-42's hall type feeding mechanism the
way the weapon works is the bolt starts in the open position pulled back to the rear when the
trigger is pulled the bolt starts to fly forward under the power of the recoil spring and the feed
lever is forced to the right causing the feed pull assembly to turn in the opposite direction
serving up around to be fired a cartridge is then stripped from the belt chambered and discharged
this pressure from the gas moves a piston that provides the energy to extract and eject the spent
casing and advance the belt which prepares the gun for subsequent shots this gives it an extremely
high rate of fire that it's known for some would later criticize the m249 saying it was too high
speed something no one's ever accused me of one of the most weird design quirks that has been around
since honestly i can't say any other machine gun has this is its ability to fire a regular magazine
through a separate side port so let's say you're in a situation where you're out of belt fed ammo
you can still use extra magazines that are lying around and it jams constantly when fed that way
i fired it this way just for fun one time at the range and i think i gave my squad leader a heart
attack he was so offended by the abomination of a sight seeing a belt fed with a magazine in it
what i had done was unforgivable i have to go ahead and chalk this design choice up to the fact
that everyone designing guns in the 1970s must have been tripping balls by the early 1970s the us
army started using the term squad automatic weapon for the very first time in order to differentiate
this gun from the role of the other belt fed crew served machine guns the whole purpose of
this new light weapon would be that it was light enough for one single solitary lonely soldier
to be able to use it as an individual weapon without the assistance of a machine gun crew
this would be the saw's claim to fame allowing one soldier to do the job of two for the pay of one
during the us army competition in 1974 the fn herschel mini-me aka the m249
went up against the m16 h-bar and the hk-23a1 by 1978 the fn mini-me changed its designation
to the xm249 for the americans version and in 1980 it was selected as the best possible
light machine gun out there it had officially won the competition break open the champagne
party at fn herschel drinks on them they've got that sweet sweet dod money to spend wait it's 1982
what's what was the popular way to party back then the xm249 became known simply as the saw
which is a very fitting nickname given its ability to chew through a tree it delivers a sustained
high volume of fire at 900 rounds per minute and 925 meters per second muzzle velocity this is a
perfect weapon for the american infantry's tactics which rely on fire superiority in combat the 249
is the ugly duckling of weapons when it was first adopted it wasn't exactly loved by troops
it was heavy liable to burn your hand and prone to misfires only after a series of incremental
changes did we finally come to appreciate its true value but were the changes enough to fix all
the problems at the end of the day i was a lowly private that got stuck with the 249 when i was in
iraq and i could totally understand the love-hate relationship that most soldiers have with it
it's kind of a rite of passage to get issued the 249 because it teaches you weapons maintenance
and my platoon sergeant figured that i would have a really hard time losing the giant thing
joke's on him i lost it right away fn herschel set up a factory in america in the state of
south carolina dedicated to manufacturing and evolving the 249. even though it had won the
squad automatic competition the challenges with the weapon had really just begun at this point
it had problems with having an exposed barrel which could easily burn soldiers when it got hot
soldiers were annoyed that they had to use special tools to adjust the sights within only two years
the undersecretary of the army james r ambrose had gone and completely suspended production of
the 249 so they could improve it they replaced the original steel tubular stock with a plastic one
this change meant that they could add a hydraulic buffer system in there which would help reduce
recoil and increase accuracy oh and they slapped a handguard rail on there so i don't have to burn my
paws off when i use the thing the addition of the 100 and 200 round fabric soft pack magazines which
we always affectionately called nut sacks in my platoon these replaced the old plastic ammo boxes
which were difficult to click into place and they fell apart easily and no upgrade would be complete
without an addition of the picatinny rails for scopes as is tradition if you've ever tried to
shoulder the thing or fire it from the hip it's incredibly difficult if you're not like me and
you're jacked out of your mind on the other hand troops did like it for its durability and massive
firepower the original 249 had a gas regulator that you could switch between normal and adverse
if it was getting sandy in there and slowing the gun down in the 1991 gulf war the weapon would
face its first large-scale combat test only about 900 troops used the weapon in the gulf war because
it was relatively new at the time but they found it to be incredibly effective in combat the high
rate of fire was able to keep the heads of the enemy down and allowed troops to maneuver around
the battlefield but it also gained a reputation as being cumbersome and carrying the loadout kind
of sucked originally soldiers carried 600 rounds and then later they would change that requirement
to a whopping 1 000 rounds that's 27 pounds of ammo hanging off your kit i didn't have space
for it on my vest i had to put some in a backpack to make matters worse a report from the us army
naytak soldiers center in 2002 found that over 50 percent of the soldiers had problems maintaining
the weapon but 80 believed it was accurate and lethal a 2006 survey of the us military soldiers
who used the saw in combat 30 percent had stoppages so why wouldn't the army just throw
it in the trash at this point statistically out of all of the infantry's small arms the saw is
the highest casualty producing weapon so the army continued to work on improving the 249 after those
disappointing numbers by tossing on a sweet m145 optic which gives the gunner a 3.4 times magnified
view not everyone thought the 249 had problems though lieutenant colonel al kelly of the 1st
battalion 17th infantry said quote knockdown power is poor but is compensated by rate of fire i agree
sir sometimes the old spray and prey mentality is the best way to go the m249 would begin its next
generation of evolution when soldiers found it didn't really meet their needs in afghanistan it
was too heavy to march through the mountains with and it wasn't practical for close quarters combat
the army created the m249 power version which was called that because of its actual intended use by
airborne troops the version had much shorter 13.7 inch barrel and a collapsible stock its overall
length was down to 35 inches now and it weighed 16 pounds so the next step in the evolution of the
m249 is their next generation evoy line which is a direct evolution of the m249 with this version
i feel like they've finally reached the promised land they've made a belt-fed machine gun that's
light enough to fire from the hip like a rifle it only took like 50 years but we finally have
it by using ultra lightweight polymer materials in the construction of the gun they were able to
bring the total weight down to 12 pounds which is a full six pounds lighter than the original it has
a slightly lower rate of fire at 750 rounds per minute even though this new eveloy is not in the
running to replace the army's m249 it will likely be adopted by many of the countries looking for an
upgrade it's not simply a trimmed down version of the 249 either guns.com reported that fn submitted
over a dozen new patents between 2017 and 2020 for the new machine gun components and parts
the m249 saw has given the american warfighter a volume of fire advantage over the enemy
when placed within the us army's fighting doctrine of only maneuvering under suppressing fire
this is the perfect tool for the job future machine guns including the ngsw
all have a range of about 12 pounds now so it's only a matter of time before the
249 is finally replaced the only question is whether or not those fancy new weapons
are as durable as the old ones thank you for watching please remember to hit the
like button and subscribe i'm your host chris cappy you're watching task purpose