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Lighter Machine Guns, Too, Enter The Fray.Now the Army is trying a new approach to lighten the load for troops patrolling the crags and mountain passes of Afghanistan. In a few weeks, a battalion’s worth of soldiers in Combined Joint Task Force 101 in Afghanistan will get scaled-down plate carriers, lighter plates, new packs and new boots, all intended to subtract at least 20 pounds from their 60- to 130-pound combat loads.
I'm sure that Ken will mention his concerns about the durability of the Mk 48. Not sure why they didn't go with a version of the M240E6. It weighs 23.5 pounds. And they could take a few more off, if the USMC Thermally Stable Machine Gun Barrel RFP bears fruit, which I am inclined to believe it will.Army machine-gunners in Afghanistan are now going into battle carrying the MK48, a special operations forces weapon that’s 30 percent lighter than the standard M240B machinegun.
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