First U.S. Army Unit Just Received Long Awaited M4 And M249 Replacements
March 31st, 2024Garand Thumb goes over the new SIGs. This is big departure from the the M-16/M-4 and M249 variants used for decades:
Via: The Warzone:
Troops from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell have become the first to get the Army’s next-generation rifles and light machine guns chambered in the new 6.8mm round. This marks the first time in some six decades that any Army unit has gotten all-new small arms, with a completely new caliber of ammunition.
The Army announced yesterday that soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, “accepted Next Generation Rifles and Automatic Rifles [on March 28] in preparation for New Equipment Training (NET) in April.”
In April 2022, Sig Sauer was chosen by the Army over competitors including General Dynamics and Textron Systems to deliver the Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) system. The NGSW family consists of Sig’s M7 rifle, previously known as the XM5, as well as the company’s belt-fed M250 light machine gun based on the same platform. Both come with matching suppressors.
