75th Rangers will take SCAR to war

[jimmy olsen]

Looks very easy to take apart and clean.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/05/army_scar_051109w/

75th Rangers will take SCAR to war

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 14, 2009 5:40:06 EDT

About 600 members of the 75th Ranger Regiment will soon take the Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle into battle.

The 600 SCARs are the first of 1,800 that U.S. Special Operations Command began fielding in early April, SOCom spokeswoman Air Force Maj. Denise Boyd told Army Times.

SOCom chose the SCAR system — which consists of the 5.56mm MK16 and the 7.62mm MK17 — to replace weapons including the 5.56mm M4A1 carbine, made by Colt Defense LLC.
VIDEO

The command selected FN Herstal to develop SCAR in 2004 after holding a competition to find a reliable, modular weapon system for its elite forces.

The SCAR has a short-stroke, gas-piston operating system. The upper receiver is aluminum and houses a free-floating barrel for improved accuracy. The lower receiver is polymer to help reduce weight. Both versions can be equipped with different barrel lengths to suit missions ranging from close-quarter fights to long-range shooting.

Operators can chose a 10-inch, 14-inch or 18-inch barrel for the MK16 and a 13-inch, 16-inch or 20-inch barrel for the heavier MK17. Each of these can be changed out by the shooter in minutes, FN officials say. The MK16 uses a 30-round magazine; the MK17 uses a 20-rounder. Eighty percent of the parts are common to both the light and heavy versions to reduce long-term maintenance costs, FN officials say.

The SCAR also includes the MK13 40mm grenade launcher, designed to fit on both the MK16 and MK17 or fire in the stand-alone mode.

Like the M4A1, both versions of the SCAR can fire on full automatic. The conventional Army's M4 carbine uses a three-round burst instead of full auto.

In addition to the M4A1, the SCAR system is intended to replace:

• The MK18 close quarter battle rifle, similar to the M4A1 but equipped with a 10.5-inch barrel.

• The MK11 special purpose rifle, chambered in 7.62mm.

• The MK12 special purpose rifle, chambered in 5.56mm.

• The M14 rifle, chambered in 7.62mm.

SOCom and FN officials do not talk about the cost of SCAR, but the Nov. 5, 2004, initial award for the contract was $634,390. Special operations units from all services will receive the SCAR, but it's unclear when that will happen, Boyd said; commanders are determining how many they will need.

"The intent is to field to operational elements at the beginning of their training cycle and to run the weapons through an entire work-up and deployment in order to determine weapon mix, barrel mix, total number of weapons required," Boyd said.

[Grey Fox]

It's a nice rifle. Atleast look base.

[Alcibiades]

Interesting....  Would be years before my unit saw it though.


Thought Spec. ops preferred hk416 at this point?  Though they do look similar.

[Razgovory]

I just remember it from Crysis.  I didn't think it was a real gun.

[derspiess]

Interesting....  Would be years before my unit saw it though.

The rifles the local National Guard unit loaned to us to use in ROTC were M16A1's

And I'm pretty sure the M60's we trained with at ROTC Advanced Camp were Vietnam vintage 

[Alcibiades]

When I first got to my unit in January 2007, my *INFANTRY* company still had M16A4s.   Yeah.  We replaced them in April of that year, but I was kind of surprised that an infantry unit in the active component would still be forced to use M16s.

[Berkut]

What is wrong with th 16A4? Isn't that the standard combat rifle still?

[Razgovory]

What is wrong with th 16A4? Isn't that the standard combat rifle still?

For the Marines.

[Alcibiades]

Army uses the M4 now..... 

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Army uses the M4 now..... 

... which is really just a carbine version of the M16A4.

[Alcibiades]

Shorter barrel, collapsible butt stock, lighter...  That's about it....  It's just not a musket like the m16.

[Berkut]

I thought the M4 was just used by particular units/missions, while the 16 was still the standard issue.

I could certainly imagine that in most close range fighting you are going to see in counter-insurgency, the M4 would be a lot handier.

Does it have a noticeably shorter effective range?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I don't know offhand what the effective ranges are, but considering the two weapons fire the same cartridge the drop in effective range should be roughly proportional to the reduction in effective barrel length.  In other words, if the effective barrel length is 15% shorter the effective range should be roughly 15% shorter.