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The Cdn Army does not need HMGs (From: CANSOF vs. Boko Haram)

Thucydides said:
Fully agree that we have been stripped bare. One of my points is that the evolution of technology can help us make up the deficit. Mini Spikes are about the size of an AT-4 and can be carried and fired by an individual infantryman. This provides the long range ability to overmatch any handheld weapon or machinegun in the light role, as well as take on bunkered or otherwise protected infantry, attack light vehicles and cause damage to even vehicles like up-armoured HMMVW's, MRAP's or similar. A typical section can have 4 (the people not carrying the C-9's or M-203's). As a thought experiment, the Starstreak MANPAD is also quite light and portable, is amazingly accurate due to its mode of operation and can hit with the kinetic impact of a 40mm cannon shell, giving it the ability to damage light vehicles up to LAV class (no explosive warhead, though).

ATGMs like Spike or Javelin are somewhat larger than a Carl-G, but still man portable enough to be carried by the Platoon weapons det. This gives the ability to take on targets out to 2000+ m (I understand the Javelin can reliably hit targets out to 3000m), including heavy armour.

These capabilities are light and portable enough to be integral to the dismounted platoon, and do not *need* to be carried or used by a separate support organization. In some ways this is like the evolution of other weapons systems. Machine guns used to belong to an entirely separate corps, for example, but advances in technology made the MG's lighter and simpler to operate until they are now integral down to the section level.

The problem, of course, is we don't have Mini-Spikes, Spike or Javelin.

And even though the Egyptians proved that this concept worked well in 1973, using Sagger missiles against Israel in the Yom Kippur War, we still do not have anything like this either deployed, or in the pipeline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M14_Malyutka

We have machine guns. Let's get some more. And some bigger ones. Soon.  :nod:
 
A bit of a blast from the past. The "Dover Devil" was a light weight HMG design which was developed in the early 1980's, but rather inexplicably cancelled. It served as the inspiration for the CIS .50 produced in Singapore, and if revived today could provide a much lighter, more robust replacement for the .50 HMG. The thread makes an interesting observation which I had never heard before; the Dover Devil was apparently meant to be modular enough to convert to 20mm, or alternatively Soviet 12.7mm rounds. There is also some reference to thinking about using .60 cal rounds (developed near the end of WWII as more powerful ammunition for aircraft machine guns) and it would also have been interesting if development had gone on longer to think about provision for the FN BGR 15 round as well.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,19011.15.html?PHPSESSID=fclnbg23jud2gi256o6a7rkfu6

Some good pictures of the mechanism in the linked thread.
 

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Not sure why the Army would want to get rid of such a proven weapons platform.  My only problem with them was the reliability issues due to their age. As mentioned the Brits brought them out of storage for their trip to the Falklands. I believe they were used as air defence and as fire bases for their light infantry attacks. 
 
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