Revealed! Why U.S. Marines Replaced the M249 SAW With the M27 IAR

The U.S. Marine Corps has explored many options to replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, which has been on the front lines of the United States for over 30 years, and found an upgrade with the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle or IAR.

The Infantry Automatic Rifle has been extensively tested by the Marine Corps since 2010. They examined the pros and cons of the rifle, and after confirming the benefits of issuing it, some battalions were also previously outfitted with this weapon in Afghanistan.

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[pointsoflightradio]

Having your SAW gunners change mags as often as riflemen sounds like a bad idea

[seanmoylan]

I carried both the SAW and the m27 in the Marines as an infantryman and I have to say this decision was dumb. The SAW allowed us to gain and maintain fire superiority like crazy. It had its drawback for sure like its suspect reliability, but that was only because these guns were beat to shit and had been run to the ground. The m27 was nice but it was a rifle trying to do the job of a light Machinegunner, where volume of fire matters

[toddnewton]

It is frustrating to listen to this narrator who does not understand how to pronounce United States Marine Corps; plus he doesn't have a clue how we in the military speak - thus has annoying parsing of words which are irritating. I am guessing it is an AI bot reading words, but no comprehension as to what they are speaking about....

[pheddupp]

AI sucks for narration purposes as shown by the voice saying Marine "corpse" at 00:12.

[skydiver]

Back in the early 1970s, I was an 03-1100 Rifleman who held every job in the Rifle Squad, Scout/Rifleman, Automatic Rifle Man, Fire Team Leader, and Squad Leader. All we had were M16A1 Rifles. In the Rifle Squad, the AR Man was the only Marine on Full Automatic. Many times we had a loner from Weapons Patapon; an M60 Michene Gunner.

[Roamingeast]

The endgame wasnt to replace the M249, but to replace the m16a4. I remember when they FIRST mentioned dropping the SAW for the IAR and my thought was 'they're going to replace every M16 with the M27 and somehow still have the m249 around and this is the excuse.

[johnm]

So let me understand this the Marines did away with the belt fed machine gun to lay down suppressive fire in infantry squad movements for the HK 416 which is just a different version of the M4 carbine with the heavy barrel? Does that even make any sense?

[patgray]

The USMC where every Marine is a rifleman, and every rifleman is a machine gunner.

[TheRoseCurse]

IMO If they are going to replace it then they should probably give the gunners 50 or 100 round drum mags...that frequent reloading is just a dumb idea, and at this point there is no difference between a rifleman and automatic rifleman.

[woltews]

the M4A1 has a full auto setting, not only 3 round burst, just like the M27 ( which has no quick change barrel for sustained fire at all ) and for less money

[davidwas]

I love how the AI never says Marine "Corps" correctly, and called it Heckler and Cock

[Whiskey]

My time as a SAW gunner, u faced challenges that u have to identify to mitigate the problem so u perform your billet duties. Not all SAW are the same....they have different personalities and u must figure out what makes her tick...whether it's more lubrication, cleaning or straight trigger manipulation. I loved my time as a SAW gunner and knew how to make my gun work! Laziness in maintenance is why some guns don't function right! And not to have a gun with a 200 rnds for sustained rate of fire available is ass backwards for this grunt!

[claudiobenassi]

Imho it was replaced because the m249 takes a lot of training to be used without endangering the operator.

[kenfowler]

I guess a bit of back to the future in a sense! AR’s were replaced by M60’s because they were less accurate (better for suppressing fire) and the problem with magazines. In Australia we had the 7.62 version of the Bren ( which I loved) & the L1A2 (an automatic FNFAL). We we told the M60 was better, until of course you have to carry it and fire while moving - the belt was a pain! Then the minimi bought back the magazine, but the barrel flexed, put a 7.62 style barrel on it bored to 5.56. It gained weight, also with 5.56 everyone had to carry more mags! Then there was a requirement for heavier hitting power - MAG58 solved that problem and on and on it goes! Replacing a belt is a pain, but that’s why we had a number 2. And at 900 rounds a minute so can changing 30 round mags! Anyway we shall see

[aaron]

I would take a SAW with 200 rounds vs 30 round magazine….. but if a 60 round mag Ava, maybe it would be a compromise

[jaybailleaux]

40-50 round magazines with fluted heavy barrel of proper alloy for the job. Maybe a variable rate of fire. Going back to the days of Lewis machine gun, BAR, or Bren gun.

[jameshendrickson]

My experience in the Marine Corps was that the m249 SAW was a problem with a Marine attached to it, not only would it tend to hang fire, misfeed, double feed, and cook off, when deployed in a firefight, with assigned Marine rifleman also tended to draw fire. So multi dimensional weapon platform.

[romainfr]

I love how by US marine corps standards every french soldier is now an automatic rifelman.

[WarriorsBreakfast]

I loved my Sassy Sawcy, carried her for years. I would have changed the spare barrel to be shorter for urban operations and enhanced the drum latch because the plastic ones just didn't hold tight. Improvise, adapt and overcome, Oorah!

[hunterphfr]

I humped the M249 SAW for quite a while. Including a tour overseas. I’m not buying any of this. The extra weight was a small price to pay for the firepower it provided.