LMT Defense, America’s premier weapons manufacturer, is pleased to announce that it has begun delivering weapon systems and providing new equipment training (NET) to the Estonian Defense Force (EDF). A unique MARS-H 7.62 caliber rifle with a piston operating system was developed for this contract. This new variant, in the 7.62 family of rifles, utilizes LMT’s patented Monolith Rail Platform (MRP). LMT Defense plans to offer the 7.62 piston operated rifles and components.
The contract award was announced in May 2019 LMT Announcement. The rifles are the LMT Modular Ambidextrous Rifle System (MARS) family of rifles (5.56 and 7.62) – Developed in 2014 and delivered, under contract, to New Zealand Defense Force. The MARS weapon platform is a true ambidextrous system – including: bolt catch, bolt release, safety selector, magazine release, and charging handle. Additionally, the EDF purchased 40mm grenade launchers.
These EDF rifles include a single position piston setting, a bayonet lug, and a European-style trigger that allows the operator to put the rifle in the safe position when the hammer is un-cocked. Furthermore, shot counters have been installed into a new LMT ergonomic grip.
Pretty legit.
AR, the world’s best form factor.
Love the rail-mounted 40mm, LMT’s svelte 40mm is much preferable to the HK320 hunk of poop.
Super easy to maintain in this very modular configuration. Can easily update configuration fleet-wide if needed.
You can use the 320 on it’s own, can’t do that without a completely separate stock system with the 203.
The HK320 is much better from a maintenance standpoint than the M203 when it comes to 2nd echelon maintenance. The easier ability to run the 320 stand alone is also an important consideration as Yawnz mentions. During testing for the Marine Corps before changing over, it was decided standalone use would be the primary use case for the 320.
Yes you can use the overweight 320 standalone… both 40mm’s require accessories to be useful after you add an optic rail, a holster (I prefer the S&S precision one), and an optic (I prefer the Eotech grenade optic) and so you get a heavier bulky arrangement without the optionality of a PIP’d m203 on your primary.
For a true grenadier function, I much prefer the weigh penalty of the Milkor 6 shot as a correction can be made with an immediate second shot.
That’s a steep weight penalty for the Milkor. We toyed with the idea of having the M32 gunners dump their rifles for a pistol as a secondary since there’s not really a good way to carry those things.
My personal opinion on standalone 320 vs mounted 203 is adding 3+lbs to the end of my rifle plus a PSQ-18 if I’m so inclined all so I can have a capability that I *might* use vs lightening my rifle that I’ll probably definitely use and being able to retain the standalone 320 somewhere easier to carry, whether in a holster or slung like a breaching shotgun.
I do think that the 320 is inferior to the 203 as a mounted solution. A mounted 320 changes balance points too much compared to mounting a 203.
The important thing is no one likes the FN EGLM. I kid gentlemen. I appreciate this conversation.
The FN grenade launcher was the best thing to come from the SCAR program. The only single shot I found better to shoot was the M79 and there are less and less every year. And the FN actually could fire the newer medium velocity grenades.
It’s called a compromise, gentlemen. If you want to be able to clamp it to a rifle, then there will always be someone complaining about how that happens. You could make it a lot more ergonomic if you ditched the weapons-mount capability, but then (surprise, really?) there would be complaints from those who want to mount it on a rifle.
If you want both on and off-rifle use, then you have even more hardware and compromise.