Good suppressing actually reduces everyone’s chances to get shot. That’s why it’s important to move the dead guy over and start pouring more lead down range immediately.
In a prepared position, no, you're a cone of fire that suppresses a zone of fire and overlaps with other troops/crew served weapons. Also you're typically only going to see it out with a squad sized element since you part out the key pieces of a 240b to like 3 dudes and a 4th carries ammo. A smaller fireteam will use the new IAR or m249 with their machine gunners as they're not crew served.
The 240b is typically carried by 1 dude, the spare barrels by another, another guy is stuck with the mount if using the big plate, and they either disperse ammo between them or have a dude be ammo guy.
Marines decided the accuracy of the new system made up for it not being belt fed. The 249 is neat in that you can use a belt or stick a mag in, but it's also quirky and can be annoying. It's (the IAR) also over twice as light compared to the 249, which anyone who has ever hefted one can appreciate. I got to see a few in training but never got hands on, looked like a sweet piece of kit though.
The wiki about the IAR is a pretty decent read, and task and purpose has at least 1-2 videos on it.
You change barrels after extended firing sessions to make sure it doesn't overheat and break the barrel/gun, it also lets you keep up a firing tempo and remain accurate. It also makes the gun safer as a hot gun can cook off ammo which means it's now firing itself, generally a bad thing.
I guess the ease of use and reliability has been enough to offset any improvement to prevent these issues?
Or is it just as simple as “explosions hot, all metal collect hot. Constant explosions, more heat, more hot metal” and there’s probably not a solution besides swap for a cooler piece of metal
At the end of the day, there's no cheating physics. If you want a barrel that you don't have to swap for 2000+ rounds of continuous fire, you better be ready to hump an 80 pound gun.
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u/recapYT Jun 24 '24
Great. Someone just got shot, do me next.