U.S. Army Getting New Machine Gun Round, Special Ops Getting New Sniper Bullet

In the photo for this article, the Soldier seems to be firing the SAW with the 200 round drum. In the 90s, that was a plastic drum with plastic "cleat" (not sure what else to call it) where connected to the weapon itself. The 200 round belt would bang against the plastic making a very loud noise every time you took a step and on account of the plastic "cleat" the drum would often fall off. However, we got issued some 100-round canvas bags with zippers that had metal "cleats" instead of plastic. You would take the 200 round drum, pull out the belt, twist in half to get 2 100-round belts, load those into your canvas zipper bags and you were then quiet and didn't have anything falling off your weapon. But I don't see those in most photos. So, either they have fixed the 200 round drums, or folks don't seem to know about the canvas bag alternative. I realize this had nothing to do with new ammunition, but if you made it this far, thanks for reading.

Couple posts on this yesterday or day before as will. Seems to be a mixed bag on whether or not this is a good idea. I'll let you infantry folks decide on that. As long as my bomb is no less than 500lbs of he I'm happy.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the “new “ rounds will do in combat.