The full version with shooting footage is available on Pepperbox and to Forgotten Weapons Patrons:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/160428945/
https://www.pepperbox.tv/video/13546
The FN MAG is one of those guns that is so durable and well designed that it continues to be one of the best options in its field despite being nearly 70 years old. To meet the demand for mounting larger and heavier optics, particularly night-time clip on sorts, FN developed a long rail kit. This sounds like a pretty straight-forward thing, but adding lots of extra optics to the top cover has a number of second-order issues. To solve them all, the kit includes a strengthened hinge mechanism, overtravel stop, articulated barrel handle, and adjustable-length buttstock. The stock by itself is called the FN MAG Tactical, with the rest of the kit coming as a package. It is able to mount to any existing MAG, including all models of US M240 and British L7/GPMG.
I will mostly defer to Kirk on this one.
Although the one time I got up close and personal with an M240 with an AN/PVS-3 mounted on its top cover many years ago, I noticed that the cover was actually starting to deform and the hinges were in the first stages of cracking.
So, I’m sort of suspecting that, regardless of FN’s opinion on the subject, the absolute first thing needed here is a new and sturdier top cover and hinge setup. Before you even think about bolting serious enhanced optics or image intensifiers on top of everything else. Even today, they are not light.
I do approve of the two-piece folding carry/barrel removal handle, for reasons having nothing to do with not banging it into the optics.
As with the similar handle on the M60, FN Model D, and etc., the “short’ handle has the drawback that after about two 250-round belts through the ’60 or MAG, or three or four 20-round boxes through the D, trying to change the barrel without wearing a heavy glove tends to leave you with a set of lightly grilled knuckles.
Keeping your hand an extra few inches away from the breech end of a hot barrel during a change is an idea that’s long overdue on pretty much every GPMG and HMG. (I’m looking at you, Maremont Corporation.)
clear ether
eon
I’d have to handle one to be certain of it, but that amount of distance between barrel and handle…?
Yeah. There’s this thing called “leverage”, and trying to control that barrel with that handle fully-extended? It just screams “WRONG” to my eye.
I’d have to try doing the ol’ hot-barrel swap drill to see what this is actually like, but… To my eye? It’s at best awkward, and at worst, disastrous. They’d have been better to put the damn handle off to the side and left it there, rather than this.
I’ll give FN points for trying, but… Sweet babblin’ baby Jesus does that whole setup scream out “bad idea”.
Let’s be brutally honest: You really need to design away the entire top cover in order to make all these sights they’re so enamored of these days really work. The top of the weapon ought to be one continuous surface that doesn’t get disturbed while simultaneously maintaining as close to perfect bore alignment as possible.
This, I fear, means that most modern MG designs are really not all that compatible with modern sight trends.
Second issue? What ass-f*ckery is this, when there’s no provision for periscopic sight arrangements to get the gunners head under the bore axis? Where do you suppose the enemy is gonna be shooting, again…?
The place where the bullets are coming from.
This means, if you’re not entirely stupid, that you do not put all those sights above the damn weapon the way FN has, here.
You want real genius? Here’s what you do: Separate the sensor heads from the weapon, entirely. Put those out in the hands of others, maybe even the entire squad. Give the gun team leader priority and the ability to delegate, then have the weapon fire autonomously at things everyone else is spotting for.
That’s the future; having the gunner cheek-welded to what’s going to become the primary enemy aiming point is just idiocy on stilts.
The US Army is never going to do something simple like adopt the Danish/German Lafette tripod and a plain periscopic sight. That being the case, something like a Boston Dynamics Big Dog with integrated fire control and all the rest is likely the closest we’ll ever come to common sense in this field…
Which is a sad commentary on it all.
This thing here? It’s an abomination, about like the Madsen was. They need to clean-sheet a design that allows for all of this from the beginning, or get the sights off the gun entirely.
I was impressed by those remote “sentry” guns” in Aliens (1986). As in, sitting there in the theater wondering “Why in the Hell don’t we have something like that already at IOC for real?”
Then I remembered that The Doctrine, codified around the time of the Pusan perimeter, was that the enemy (who are of course all stupid, witless drones under the command of Communists, ICYDK) would mindlessly dress ranks and try to Zerg Rush the firebase – so they could be mowed down by bunkered-in quad .50 halftracks or the equivalent.
Never mind that a decade later, NVA sappers weren’t that effing stupid, as they proved everywhere from Hue to Khe Sanh to Cu Chi province- not to mention actually under effing Saigon.
Today we have ROWPs (Remote Operated Weapon Platforms) on top of MBTs- mainly to discourage locals with RPGs and ATGW teams.
But there’s a lot to be said for a self-contained, autonomous equivalent of a WW1 “trench mousetrap”- when the mice have IEDs and nasty intentions.
cheers
eon
I’m with you, all the way.
I really think they’re missing a bet.
Husqvarna makes some really cool demolition robots; I think we should be buying some, equipping at least our Engineer units with them, and then leveraging those for weapons such that we gradually work into semi-autonomous fire support platforms.
Why this hasn’t been done already? Y’all tell me; I made the suggestion to the Army Engineer School nigh on twenty years ago, and I think that at the very least, the urban rescue company they have assigned to the National Capitol Region ought to have some assigned to each platoon.
Just like with the drone issue across the board, which anyone with a lick of imagination could’ve seen coming back around ’95 or so, the biggest problem we have is that the people who’re supposed to be all forward-thinking and on top of this stuff? They’re really not all that smart or imaginative; most of them are drones themselves, and unable to look at things and go “Yeah, that’ll change things…” or try to imagine the more important “How will things be changed?”
You go back and look at it? The parallels with WWI aviation are disgustingly clear. “Oh, we’ll just use those for reconnaissance…” followed by the users going “Yeah, I wonder how I can get a gun or a grenade onto this thing…?”, segueing shortly into “Yeah, we got us machineguns, built-in…”
You need semi-autonomous ground drones, things like those Husqvarna demolition robots, with fiber-optic control cables and all the rest. The bright lights at Husqvarna really ought to be sending a bunch of their gear to Ukraine, along with engineers, and see what manifests. I imagine a demolition robot with the right equipment would be just the ticket for dealing with infiltrating Russians coming in through pipelines, for example…
Take note that Alienz remote sentry guns scene appeared first on DVD, post 2000. sorta like directors cut version.
There is also, in very beginning, a scene with ripleys daughter, that was actually bizzarely pixelish “photoshopped” aged ripley/sigourney and who died of old age; whole scene was completely unnecessary and weird, held no emotional significance.
My DVD of the movie does not have the “aged Ripley” thing, but the guns are shown. They were seen in the 1986 theatrical release and were a plot point in the novelization released at the same time, which I have.
Like the 1982 Ridley Scott Blade Runner, there are apparently so many “versions” of Aliens that you end up with two or even three substantially different stories.
cheers
eon
How many different endings are there to Apocalypse Now. The version I saw when it came out was Maryin Sheen kills Kurtz and sails off down the river. I bought a DVD in 2005 or so that had him leave and bombers strike Kurtz’s kingdom. An old g.f. in 1985 said she saw a version where Sheen kills Kurtz, the natives drop to their knees and the tale ends there. Did he stay and become the New Kurtz? I liked that idea best but never saw that version
“(…) top of the weapon ought to be one continuous surface that doesn’t get disturbed while simultaneously maintaining as close to perfect bore alignment as possible.(…)”
If you dislike attaching sights to cover, then use KOLARMS KAM M-20 https://modernfirearms.net/en/machineguns/slovakia-en/kolarms-kam-m-20-2/
(note that whilst there is mounting rail at cover, there are more at receiver, see images)
“(…)something like a Boston Dynamics Big Dog with integrated fire control and all the rest is likely the closest we’ll ever come to common sense in this field…(…)”
https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2026/u-s-military-eyes-armed-ugv-with-30mm-cannon-and-coyote-stinger-missiles-for-counter-drone-warfare (dated April 2026) claims
AM General has unveiled a next-generation unmanned ground vehicle armed with a remote turret, transforming an autonomous logistics truck into a combat-capable system. This shift matters because it enables Marines to move supplies, scout, and defend against aerial threats without exposing personnel in contested environments. The vehicle integrates a Moog RIwP turret onto a high-performance robotic truck, adding firepower and short-range air defense to autonomous mobility. It reflects a broader push toward combining logistics, protection, and autonomy to support dispersed Marine operations and counter drone threats on future battlefields.
Something more along these lines:
https://www.husqvarnaconstruction.com/us/demolition-equipment/dxr315/
Give it the ability to change out heads holding various weapons like machineguns and rocket launchers, limited autonomy for mobility trailing behind a squad, and… Yeah. There’s your US Army version of the Lafette.
Build in networking such that any squad member can control it, direct its fires, and manage it? There ya go… Combat robotics. The arm there is a critical feature, because you can use it to stick the weapon/sensor package up where it can actually see things, and the main body of the combat robot remains under cover with the troops running it.
Y’all have no idea how much I resent the arseholes that forced me to have my gunner’s heads up above the bore line. To my way of thinking, that’s an act of criminal complacency and ignorance, when the solution has been around for literal decades.
I also like the idea of being able to peer over walls during a patrol operation. Imagine how it would feel, being a guy in ambush position, suddenly realizing that there’s this… Thing, with machinegun, pointing at you where you thought you were perfectly safe.
My suspicion is that you’d see a major difference in enthusiasm.
Plus, think of all the cool things you could do with the digging implements and demo tools on those things… Breaching a compound wall? Going after insurgents in caves? What fun, suddenly…
“Achmed! Achmed!! The robots have found us… They’re placing satchel charges!!!
To be quite honest, I don’t know why the hell they haven’t already done this. Hell, just an uparmored Bobcat would do a lot for us.
“(…)change out heads holding various weapons like machineguns and rocket launchers(…)”
Machine which from article I linked to can do that (and some more) as
RIwP is designed to accept different guns, missiles, sights, and sensors. Moog lists 30 mm gun options with 115 ready rounds, 7.62 mm or .50 caliber machine guns, IFF integration, and missile effectors, including Stinger, Coyote, APKWS, Hellfire, and Javelin, allowing commanders to tailor the turret for counter-UAS, air defense, anti-armor, or escort missions.
For Marines, that flexibility has tactical weight. A 30 mm cannon with programmable or proximity-fuzed ammunition can engage small unmanned aerial systems at lower cost per shot than missile-only defense, while Stinger-class missiles give the vehicle reach against helicopters and low-flying aircraft. The same turret can also support convoy overwatch, base security, or route reconnaissance with stabilized optics and remote fire control.
Moog’s published data also point to a more survivable weapon architecture. The turret family supports direct radar and command-and-control integration, fiber-optic and Ethernet links, remote control, hunter-killer engagement logic, slew-to-cue functions, programmable airburst or proximity rounds, and non-line-of-sight tracking.
No boom arm, though… Which is a capability that I think should be seen as crucial and critical.
Stand off and height; you need them.
I don’t think this is the best way to go about it; personally, I mean they could have gone a telescopic rail mount with a hinge, so you throw the optics over the barrel past the normal carry handle “Which I think is more to do with barrel changes than carrying.” Thus the sights sit over the barrel and on the rail, which hinges to allow you to normally pinch open the top cover, and mess around with the feed tray and other red hot bits. Say if someone burnt themselves thats getting thrown, better if the top cover shuts… Than it bouncing open with kgs of sights on it, probably.
I mean you need the top cover, for it to work don’t you… Forget, some sort of feed mech under it I think. It has iron sights. Sooo.. This to me, is a risk to the top cover I.e. The gun. Drop it, throw it, ow! Thus bend it – No gun.
You’d have to be built fair Rambo like to carry that by said handle over any distance. Has a big… Sling thing, for normal builds. Rember 1st firing one, shock the ground went white hot – Straight through 1/2″ steel plates, mild steel maybe “Harder than skin/bone” thought, oh dear… Might have picked a bad job here, folks firing these at you.
Now I fully anticipate us all paying FN millions for this, to get broken top covers. Modern world for you.
Unless you can’t do what I said, because of the GOD DAMM HOTNESS OF THE THING which I get. But I mean, materials, lots of bb’s have we tried? Don’t in principle like this design in the video.
Do these ever get carried across the body or bump anything, like thighs and shins, along the way? It seems that top cover would be unlatched after every troop movement.
Yeah, I thought the same thing.
Key point of any testing: Hand the thing off to the people who’re going to be carrying it, and then make them do things they’d have to do in combat. Wherever the problems are, they’ll show up.
There’s a distinct erosion of “reality as envisioned by designer” and the actual reality experienced by the user. Anyone forced to deal with the abysmal kit provided along with the M60? LOL… You learned the hard way that the idjits who designed and fielded that weapon should have all been taken out and shot.
I mean, for the love of God, there was literally no good way to carry the thoughtfully provided asbestos/fiberglass mitt they gave you for changing the barrels… You either carried it loose in the spare barrel case (whose zipper invariably failed after a few exercises) where it would wind up getting lost from, or you tried stuffing it into one of the two zippered pouches for cleaning kit tools (zippers would fail, there, losing you all the necessaries when you most needed them…) that were too small for the mitt…
The entire package was frozen sometime in the 1960s, and should have resulted in the designers being taken out and put down as unfit for purpose, but somehow never, ever got fixed. They just kept on keeping on with the failure.