SureFire

H&K Begins M27 IAR Deliveries

Even though the US Marine Corps Issues a sole source contract to purchase additional M27 Infantry Assault Rifles to German manufacturer Heckler & Koch last April, the service had to wait for funding. An H&K employee mentioned to me during last month’s SHOT Show that deliveries would begin now that funding is in place.

Today, H&K released these photos of M27s be prepped for shipment to the Marines from their warehouse in Georgia.

For those of you unfamiliar with the M27 IAR, it was first adopted by the Marines in 2010. Made in Germany, the IAR is based on the HK416, a piston driven 5.56mm rifle. The concept behind the IAR was to supplant the belt-fed M249 Squad Automatic Weapon in the Infantry Squad with the more compact box-fed design of the M27.

In 2017, the Corps decided to expand the M27’s role, with the plan of issuing it to all members of the rifle platoon. This decision of limited fielding, based on Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen Robert Neller’s saying, “All Marines are riflemen, but not all Marines are infantrymen,” resulted in the sole source contract awarded last year.

46 Responses to “H&K Begins M27 IAR Deliveries”

  1. jellydonut says:

    “A fresh batch of M27 rifles leaving Georgia headed to the Devil Dogs. If any of you crayon eaters are reading this, please treat them nice, even though we built them to be Marine proof.” https://www.facebook.com/hecklerandkoch/posts/2521788254529112?__tn__=-R

    • robcollins says:

      My Dad was an 0311 Marine. I’d never show a Marine disrespect like that. It makes ME want to fight, take on the chickenshit POG who wrote that, handle their light work… WTF are they thinking?

      • Ex11A says:

        “Pogue,” not POG. It’s not an acronym.

        • SSD says:

          Thanks man!

        • Ex11B says:

          POG: Acronym for Person Other than Grunt

          • SSD says:

            That’s a retronym. Some Pogue infantryman made it up to keep people from making fun of him. Your great grand dad was calling people Pogues.

            • robcollins says:

              I meant people other than grunt. Dad’s MOS of 0311 should have made that abundantly clear, but, keep patting yourselves on the back for your witless distraction from my original point.

              • robcollins says:

                I’ll study up on etymology next time…

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogue

                Retronym. Ooof. Dissed.

                • Kirk says:

                  I think it came out of the pre-WWI term for homosexual submissive–Thus, the term “Pogey bait”, meaning that it was bait for young homosexuals, so they could be lured into a compromising situation.

                  A lot of these words have been obscured by use–The term “gunsel”, for example, also referred to a submissive homosexual, but then someone used it in a detective novel to refer to a criminal gunman, and here we are with two uses of the same word.

          • Ex11A says:

            Pog is a paper chit you got from the PX instead of a coin.

      • Yawnz says:

        They’re probably thinking about how funny it would be to watch someone sperg out over it.

      • John says:

        The guy is probably Army prior service, all in good fun. “Lighten up Francis”

      • TheDudeAbides says:

        “Lighten up, Francis.”

      • James says:

        They call themselves that . They buy crayon cakes for special occasions, make vids on social media eating crayons………….

      • sean says:

        Rob you need to take a xanax and chill the fuck out. I’m presuming you were (at best) a dependant since you’re only talking about your dad’s service. No one in the Corps cares, it’s a meme. If your dad saw you spaz like this over a joke he’d probably be embarrassed beyond words.

        • robcollins says:

          I get the inter-service rivalry. “Chilling the fuck out on Xanax” goes further than I did. “Embarrassed beyond words” snowflakes beyond my original snowflake. Ha!

          Army guys flipping Marines shit flipping Navy guys shit flipping Coasties shit, makes sense, anonymous military equipment providers flipping Marines shit just seems douchy.

          Sorry if being a little irked on the behalf of Marines flipped all of your collective bitch switches. Snivel on….

          • Ttttt says:

            Clrealy, robcollins has never served in the military. Shame & pathetic, trying to use your dad’s mil creds…lol

            • Robcollins says:

              Your reading comprehension sucks, but at least you figured out I wasn’t trying to be a fake. GFY.

          • John says:

            It is collective because we all served. You didn’t, so we know what’s up. Unless you’re 12 join up and you’ll understand the collectivism and the joke, Francis

      • Vic Toree says:

        This is why we can’t have nice things.

        Well this, and the Marines always breaking the nice things, but mostly this.

        • Kirk says:

          The funny thing is, that whole crayon-eating thing? That’s straight out of the Marine Corps. I’ve never, ever heard anyone else talk about it. Marines, though…? It’s like a major point of pride, or something.

          Like most self-effacing humor, though, it’s only funny when the source is “one of them”. I’ll rib Marines all day long for stuff that’s “outsider joke compliant”, but the insider stuff, that’s borderline offensive? Leave it the hell alone, guys–That’s for the Marines to use.

          It’s like the whole “N-word” deal; if you’re black, it’s fine to use it however you like. Not black…? Don’t touch that with a ten-foot pole…

          • robcollins says:

            Thanks Kirk, I think you get where I was coming from, which wasn’t to piss anyone off, the opposite, I thought it was shitty bashing Marines, and got bashed by both the admin and guys not witty enough to write for duffelblog. For all I know, the dude who wrote that on the H&K FB page may have been a Marine…. Trolls gotta troll…

            The admin, surprised/disappointed me. 5th point = Courteous. (he should get where that’s from, maybe, and maybe get where I’m from, maybe…)

  2. Brody Kennen says:

    The media person at H&K is getting out of control, though. Haha

  3. Sneaky nerd says:

    Look at Tony Tough Stuff over here.

  4. Kurt says:

    So the whole platoon will have full auto capability.
    Didn’t the Russians come up with that concept like 50 years ago?

    • Sommerbiwak says:

      Actually the Wehrmacht had a few units equipped with Stgw. 44 and MG42. Fun switches for everyone.

      The story of how and why the M16 A2 (and thus the A4) came to be is a long painfully dumb one. The whole jerking over “automatic rifles” the USMC gunner community did over introducing these was painful too. In the end they adopted a not-castrated assault rifle. Took them only three decades…….

      • John says:

        Still had the full auto A3 though never seen one

      • Kirk says:

        Yeah, the “improved” A2 was a bit of a cluster-fuck, to be honest. About the only thing I ever saw the utility for was the improved handguards and buttstock material–The longer length of pull and everything else on that thing was poorly conceived.

        The really irritating thing about that whole process is that the stuff that should have been updated/fixed never got addressed–It was like the USMC proponents for it just did a laundry list of things they wanted on a match version of the M16, and that’s what got into the A2 package. Stuff like improved coatings and/or design features getting modified? LOL… That’s unnecessary. We could have had Tenifer coatings on the bolts, cold hammer-forged barrels, and a whole host of other and real product improvements, but what did we get…? LOL.

        The thing that really pissed me off about that whole thing was that, so far as I know, nobody ever came out and talked to anyone actually in the field, before hacking off on that abortion. If they had, I’d have been more than happy to drop a little list of things on my own, starting with that whole set of issues surrounding coatings and rust-proofing the weapons. The ergonomic issues I’d have addressed would have begun with the idiotic sling system, and progressed to adding ambidextrous controls, something that was already on the market back then, but somehow ignored as an issue.

        The guys who pushed through the A2 program have very little to be proud of, to be quite honest, and the jobsworthies in the Army that just signed off on it? Even less.

        • sommerbiwak says:

          LTC(ret) Lutz postings )screenname coldblue) on the whole thing on ar-15.com are quite enlightening how procurement politics tick. He was the Marine officer in charge of the USMC side of things. Looking back he is not too proud about the end results. e.g. the thicker muzzle end he wanted to take back, but the process was already to far along to change that. That nothing was changed apart from the flattop upper and dropin rail system on the A4 is the real shame carrying these old mistakes forward.

  5. Neil says:

    And the same gun as nearly a decade ago with not a single upgrade. A shame…

    • Sommerbiwak says:

      Blame the red tape the Pentagon is wrapped in.

    • sean says:

      Yeah, they could have had far superior rifles for less money, but because of the bullshit laws around contracting and competing, it’s far easier and faster to equip everyone with something that’s already in the system.

      • SVGC says:

        The Marine Corps wanted the IAR, make no mistake, in their eyes they’re not settling for anything. Yes they tested other options, I could go on and on in detail about those tests, the test subjects, and everything else involved but they got exactly what they wanted and thought they needed. For better or for worse.

  6. Bob says:

    I thought US weapons had to be made in the USA. At the very least H&K should have to open a factory here.

  7. Tom says:

    Why is everyone staying quiet on how they are effectively adopting a new service rifle without going through an open trial/competition? Especially when you have US companies that have products that are just as capable (if not better).

    • sommerbiwak says:

      Trial takes too long. Then the good idea fairy US congress is going to mandate a common service rifle for all armed services to “save money”.

      So the (IMHO ill-conceived) IAR now being leveraged to introduce a new rifle into the USMC through the backdoor looks like the best option at the moment. Although the M27 does not seem to like the M855 A1 EPR. Oh well…

      • Tom says:

        Sure trials may take longer but there is a reason why they exist and that’s to avoid wasting money on outdated designs because someone has a hard-on for H&K products. I really don’t see the urgency either given the draw down from wars in the middle east.

      • Tom says:

        Trials may take longer but there is a reason why they exist and that’s to avoid wasting money on outdated designs because someone has a hard-on for H&K products. I really don’t see the urgency either given the draw down from wars in the middle east.

  8. Lad says:

    For the thin-skinned lads offended by the Heckler and Koch Facebook page, know that it’s not an official, HK-managed page.

  9. PTM says:

    So…anyway.

    I’m drooling over all those HK rifles.

    Maybe HK will mail one to me if i ask nicely?

  10. El Terryble says:

    Not to be pedantic (that means overly reliant on accuracy or formal characteristics, for you Army dogs) but technically the IAR wasn’t meant to “supplant the SAW”. Marine Corps Infantry doctrine, until quite recently with the expanded 15 man squad, was based on the 12+1 man squad comprised of three four-man fireteams with a squad leader, as opposed to the Army’s 8 man squad. The four-man Fireteam was born out of Marine Raider engagement’s with the Japanese, the Raiders being the first American commando units created in World War II, and were provided with a billet expressly designated as “Automatic Rifleman” as a fireteam member. In WWII and Korea, the Automatic Rifleman was equipped with the magazine fed BAR. Beltfed machine guns were not endemic to the Marine Rifle Squad, they were attached as needed from a Weapons Co to a to a Platoon and divided out to the squads as support. With the phasing out of the BAR, and Marine Corps small arms procurement being driven by the Army, the Automatic rifle was replaced on the Fireteam level by the SAW, which is designed to support the Squad, hence its name, the Squad Automatic Weapon.

    Most people would say “so what?” at this point, but what happened is that in Infantry operations conducted in the GWOT during the Marines’ experiences in Fallujah and Ramadi, where dismounted and house to house fighting occurred at a higher incidence than elsewhere in Iraq, the Marines saw the need to return to a true Automatic Rifleman on the fireteam level, as a SAW gunner slowed down and encumbered the Fireteam when it was in the maneuver or conducting MOUT. The SAW was retained on the Squad level, but Marine Corps small unit infantry tactical doctrine was reimposed to allow the Squad and its Fireteams to operate according to Maneuver Warfare doctrine outlined in MCDP 1, and which forms the contiguous framework by which the tactical, strategic, and operational levels of War are linked.

    I’m not in the Corps anymore, but I’ve read the rationale for providing every 0311 with an IAR, I’m told, is that the free floating, cold hammer forged barrel of the IAR greatly increases accuracy and lethality. The Fireteam will still have a designated Automatic Rifleman tasked with laying automatic fire for the team in maneuver, and more than likely equipped with two drum magazines (Magpul D-60), or possibly even at a later date adopting a NATO 7.62mm, AR-10 style weapon. The other members of the fireteam will still be trained to use semi-auto fire and precision shots, excluding situations in CQB and room clearing where auto fire may be called for.