New Army "Caliber Configuration Study"

[Tony Williams]

Upon what do you base that opinion, Tony? The info from Guardsman26 says only that LDAM is "envisioned to replace the Medium Machine Gun." There's no mention of limiting LDAM to just replacing tripod-mounted 7.62mm MMGs. It sounds to me like it's intended to replace all M240 MMGs, even those carried on patrol and fired from the bipod.

LDAM is supposed to replace the use of .50 cal in the anti-personnel supporting fire role as well as the MMG, which means it needs to have a comparable hit probability at equally long ranges. While the gun can be as light as the M240 (as the GD LWMMG shows) the ammo is still going to be substantially bigger and heavier than 7.62mm, not good for portable weapons.

In any case, the M240 is too heavy to be ideal as a standard squad weapon for dismounted infantry (hence the costly efforts to develop the M240L and the adoption of the MK48), so I would expect the LDAM MMG to be concentrated in support fire elements at platoon or company level, and assigned to squads for specific missions in which its very long range will be needed.

As I said, I would expect CLAWS to be the ammo for standard infantry rifles, DMRs (probably) and bipod-mounted LMGs, with the weight of the latter being no more than the M249. The Army wants "overmatch", but it also wants weights to be reduced as much as possible.