As the Marine Corps moves towards the 21st century, it is looking forward to the new varieties of MREs due to be fielded by the Army. But don't be surprised if the USMC finally begins to produce rations to its own design and specification. The Commandant's Battle Lab at Quantico, Virginia, is studying the problem from a purely "Marine" point of view, and may yet produce field rations with an "expeditionary" flavor.
Fire Support
Marine units are primarily infantry-based formations, which depend upon the fire of supporting units to achieve their objectives. Supporting fire must be both accurate and lethal to allow lightly laden Marines to stand up to everything they might have to face, from irregular forces (as encountered in Somalia and Liberia) to conventional military units like those in the Persian Gulf. Without firepower, Marines have to trade their lives to take objectives; and the American people simply will not accept excessive casualties. Thus, Marines have a great professional interest in fire support. Almost every Marine can read a map, use a radio, and call in fire from ships, aircraft, or artillery. A single rifle platoon might receive air support from AV-8B Harrier IIs or AH-1W Super Cobras, and artillery support from a battery of 155mm guns, or an offshore destroyer or cruiser. The Corps is currently suffering a severe shortfall of fire support. In the five years following Desert Storm, the Marines and the Navy lost over half of their total fire-support resources with the decommissioning of the lowa-class (BB-61) battleships and retirement of many support aircraft and artillery units. This is a source of severe concern to Marine and Navy leaders.
Browning M2 .50-Caliber Machine Gun
To listen to an old Marine "Gunny," you would think it was the most beautiful of women. The M2 .50-caliber machine gun is a favorite heavy weapon of Marines and ground troops everywhere. This heavy machine gun provides a base of fire for the rifle platoon and company. It forces the enemy to keep his head down and confronts him with a threat he must neutralize. While he is trying to knock out the damned machine gun, Marines can maneuver onto his flanks or close with his position. A heavy machine gun can shred dry-wall or wooden buildings, or unarmored vehicles. At short ranges and favorable angles it can even penetrate the side or rear plating of armored vehicles. This makes it a very dangerous piece of equipment to have in your pocket.
The "50 cal" first entered service with the U.S. Army in 1919, too late for service in World War I. During the Second World War it was standard armament on American fighter and bomber aircraft, and was widely employed as an anti-aircraft weapon on every kind of ship and ground vehicle. The M2 is an automatic recoil-operated, air-cooled machine gun that weighs 84 1b/38 kg. Recoil-operated means that it uses an ingenious arrangement of levers, cams, and springs to capture part of the recoil energy to extract and eject the spent cartridge case, feed the next round, load it, and fire it. This cycle repeats as long as the gunner holds down the V-shaped trigger located between two hand grips at the rear of the gun. Release the trigger and a latch secures the mechanism in the "open bolt" position, ready to fire again.
The .50-cal can be found in the turret of the AAV-7/LVTP-7 amphibious tractor, on the simple pintle mount on the HMMWV, and on the high-tech coaxial mount on the Avenger air-defense vehicle. The weapons platoon of a Marine rifle company fires it from a hefty 44-1b/20-kg tripod. It takes at least two Marines to carry the weapon, plus men to carry cans of ammunition. The ammunition is assembled into belts with reusable spring clips called "disintegrating links," which are stripped off by the gun's feeder mechanism. The rate of fire is 550 rounds per minute, and gunners are trained to fire short bursts to conserve ammunition. The theoretical maximum range is 4.22 mi/6.8 km, and the M2 has even been used for "indirect fire" at high angles of elevation to create a "fire-beaten zone" on the other side of a hill. In typical battlefield conditions the practical range is about 1.1 mi/1.8 km. The legendary lethality of the M2 derives from the heavy charge of propellant in the cartridge and the superb ballistic shape of the projectile, which has a distinctive "boat tail." There are several ammunition types. These include target-practice (TP), armor-piercing solid-shot, armor-piercing incendiary (API), and high-explosive (HE).
Over the years, many firms have produced the M2 on license from the holders of John M. Browning's original patent. The current contractor producing the M2 for the U.S. Department of Defense is Saco Defense, Inc., and the FY-1994 unit cost was $8,118.00. Its unique combination of range, lethality, durability, and simplicity guarantees that the M2 will soldier on well into the next century. In fact, the last Marine M2 gunner has probably not yet been born.
Mk 19 40mm Machine Gun, Mod 3
Back in the 1960s, deep in the swamps of the Mekong Delta where a well-concealed and heavily armed Viet Cong ambush might lurk around the next bend in the river, crews of U.S. Navy patrol craft discovered that .50-cal machine gun fire was often insufficient to break up an attack. They needed a weapon that could spew out a stream of explosive grenades to suppress enemy forces. To meet this need, the Navy developed the Mk 19, officially classed as a "machine gun," but actually an automatic grenade launcher. The Mk 19 had a long and troubled development cycle, earning the nickname "Dover Dog," after the Delaware arsenal where it was designed. After a series of modifications, it has proven itself in service with the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. The Mk 19 is an extremely simple weapon using the "blowback" principle. The barrel and receiver assembly recoil against a heavy spring, and as they rebound, the next round is loaded and fired. The weapon fires the same family of 40mm grenades as the M203 launcher attached to the M 16 rifle.