Join me yet again as I go into a frothy ranting rage about the Army aiming a 155mm canister shell filled with buckshot at its foot and pulling the funny boom string over its continued development of its next-gen infantry armaments.

Previous rants I’ve had about the Army’s choices in armaments

The U.S. Army has inked a contract with firearms company FN America, LLC to continue development of its Precision Grenadier System prototype, according to an announcement ahead of the U.S. Army Association’s annual conference.

Army officially committing to yet again flatten its infantry’s combat capabilities after officiating the SIG Sauer’s M7 rifle and M250 automatic rifle as new the standard armament of the army. See my link above to previous ranks for my gripes about those rifles.

The agreement, officially a Prototype Project Opportunity Notice contract worth $2 million, advances development of a next-gen weapon system and ammunition the manufacturer claims will be a significant upgrade over past legacy grenade launcher iterations.

Starting contract pay is 2 milly but who knows how much it’ll balloon up to with time and corruption.

The latest deal is expected to enable enhancements of the weapon’s reliability and ensure the platform can be seamlessly integrated with preexisting Army systems, according to the announcement.

“Enhancements of the weapon’s reliability” and “seamlessly integrated with preexisting Army systems” really don’t fill me with much confidence if I’m the one having to hump the piece of shit for days at a time.

“Once developed and implemented, this weapon system could radically change future battlefield strategies,” Mark Cherpes, president and CEO for FN America said in a release announcing the contract. “It will offer new capabilities at the squad level and upgraded tactical options, giving the warfighter a more effective systetime.

I’d be filled with existential dread if I was the designated boom boot putting my life on the line with this dogwater nade launcher.

The soldier-portable FN Multipurpose Tactical Launcher, or MTL-30, is a shoulder-fired, semi-automatic weapon that shoots a 30mm grenade on a flat trajectory at an effective range of 500 meters.

Folks do you know why the man-portable grenade launcher was developed? It was developed as a tool to lob anti-personnel explosives in an arc trajectory for the purposes of hitting dead spaces in the sectors of fire of an infantry unit. A dead space is an area where conventional rifle fire can not hit, i.e a wall or a ditch. Meaning a weapon with an arc trajectory is needed to either flush out or neutralize enemy forces in those dead zones.

I’m gonna be generous and assume the Army isn’t completely brain-drained and is ordering this rifle with arc trajectory shooting capabilities but at minimum this is putting a lot more failure-points in their dog-water product that lead to troops dying because they had to fiddle with their shit to get it to work instead of just loading-aiming-shooting.

But sure make it an expensive-fucking glorified shotgun instead of just issuing a nelly for anti-drone capabilities.

While current 40mm grenade launchers employed by ground combat units are fired using a higher trajectory, The MTL-30’s ability to hit targets using a flat flight path should expand its applicability in combat.

Dawg its only got like 5 rounds per mag and they’re shit-ass heavy. Not including all the fancy wunder-waffen bullshit kinds of round variants they’ll griftvent to get more of that sweet taxpayer moolah, the fact that still pisses me off is that the squad is losing a rifleman with genadier capabilities for a pure grenadier. Less volume of fire, less ammunition, less capacity and capability to stay deployed in the field.

Weapon flexibility, from close-proximity fighting to taking out drones, was a focus of an Army solicitation of the prototype released earlier this year.

You can’t make an all-in-one weapon. That’s how you end up with dogshit that sucks at doing anything it was “flexibly” designed to do

“The PGS is anticipated to be deployed as a soldier’s primary weapon system, providing organic, close-quarters combat, counter-defilade and counter-UAS capabilities through a family of ammunition to ranges in concert with the rest of the squad’s battlespace, and requiring minimal resupplies to support,” the Army’s solicitation read.

Lmfao fucking cope. The new rifles ammo is shitass heavy and bulky as is so you can’t carry as much = less volume of fire, and you’re now down a rifleman because of this shitass design = less volume of fire. And this dogwater nade lobber’s ammo - while lighter than a 40mm - is bulky, heavy, and takes up a lot of limited carrying capacity. If you want more nade ammo you gotta cross-load it across your squad, meaning they got more shit to carry meaning less space for their own ammo or other needed shit, and crossloading means you’re also fighting your automatic rifleman for that cross-load space too since the auto-rifle is the cornerstone for infantry defense formations. Fucking cope.

Countering troops in defilade would ultimately require a round capable of piercing natural or artificial cover barriers that conceal enemy personnel.

You remember how I earlier was talking about dead spaces? That’s what they’re talking about. A defilade is, in very basic bootspeak, any space ahead of where you’re shooting from that is recessed below the ground you’re standing on. If you’re standing on a mountain then everything around you that’s below the point you’re standing on is in defilade to you. Halfway up the mountain? Down is defilade, up is crest.

Anyways A FUCKING ARC TRAJECTORY WEAPON IS THE FUCKING POINT OF NEUTRALIZING ENEMIES IN DEAD SPACES SUCH AS DEFILADES

FN America’s Precision Grenadier System, meanwhile, is built with a modular, Picatinny-style rail system for mounting optics or other attachments, and includes Magpul-designed M-LOK system points on the handguard for hard-mounting additional accessories.

Grift talk. Barbie doll your bolter out with trumpian god-emperor seals of purity and shit.

An ambidextrous design allows right- and left-handed personnel to quickly operate the bolt catch, magazine release and safety.

That should be universal at this point, not a reason to jack up the costs by another 10k for basic shit.

The MTL-30 can also be equipped with various muzzle suppressor options, according to FN, and can be loaded by detachable 3- or 5-round box magazines.

GRIFT GRIFT GRIFT GRIFT

The weapon’s lower receiver, which is modeled after the widely-used M4, comes with a 6-position telescoping buttstock and modular cheek risers for added stability when firing.

Jesus christ this is all BASIC SHIT SHUT THE FUCK UP

Development of the MTL-30, which measures 34 inches long and weighs just over 10 pounds, was influenced by a combination of real-time soldier feedback and battlefield priorities that continue to evolve in places like Ukraine, the company said.

Oh hey they managed to shave off a bit of the weight from the last time I checked in with its production R&D saga. Good for them I guess.

FN America, the U.S.-based arm of the Belgian arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale, runs its manufacturing operations out of Columbia, South Carolina

Please also start manufacturing explosives in-house so you can whoopsie yourself into kingdom come like those other dipshits that just went up like a match.