When the "seals" meet the enemy in the dense forest, the machine gunner who is at the forefront and acts as the vanguard can immediately fire and suppress the enemy with firepower, and then the commander will make tactical command according to the situation: when the enemy is few, immediately let other players directly attack under the cover of machine guns, or outflank or directly attack the enemy's hiding place with Grenade launchers; When there are many enemies, retreat immediately. If you encounter an ambush enemy, 500 rounds of ammunition can also constitute a powerful support firepower, and usually there is no need to reload a new chain. Although the barrel life will be greatly shortened and the accuracy will be reduced, it does not need high shooting accuracy for a close ambush/anti-ambush machine gun.
After the Vietnam War, the large caliber M60 "light" machine gun of Seals disappeared. Because this weapon is specially adapted to jungle operations, soldiers need to pay considerable physical strength to carry 500 rounds of 7.62mm NATO bullet chain boxes for a long journey, especially when crossing mountains and mountains, otherwise it is easy to roll down the mountain.
20 1 1 At the end of the year, an American soldier invented a large-capacity backpack magazine with Mk48 machine gun and named it "Iron Man", which was later mass-produced and sold by commercial companies.
Unkovski named his backpack chain box "Iron Man". Later, according to the soldiers' feedback, the "Iron Man" bullet chain box was improved and mass-produced by the equipment manufacturer TYR. There are 5.56mm and 7.62mm caliber models, which can be used for M249, Mk46, Mk48, M240 and other machine guns. The ammunition container consists of a backpack, an ammunition box and a flexible ammunition conveyor belt. Among them, the empty weight of backpack/ammunition box is 7.34kg, the capacity of ammunition box itself is 500 rounds, and 75 rounds can be added to the flexible ammunition belt, with a total ammunition capacity of 575 rounds and a full ammunition weight of more than 20kg.
After seeing the design of "Iron Man" system, a Russian company named "Survive”(SRVV) cooperated with the Federal Security Service to develop a 500-shot backpack magazine with similar design, which can directly supply bullets for PKM and PKP general machine guns.
PKM and PKP machine guns have 100 rounds, 200 rounds and 250 rounds magazine chains respectively, of which 100 rounds magazine chain is used for light machine guns, and the latter two are used for heavy machine guns. As early as the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 65438 and the early 1980s, Russian soldiers had already thought of using backpacks to provide a longer bulletproof chain for machine guns, but their practice was simpler than that of "seals".
They put a 250-round magazine chain box, or even a larger magazine chain with a longer magazine, directly in the backpack. Soldiers also carry it on their backs to provide ammunition. But the elastic chain from the backpack to the machine gun is exposed, and the flexible elastic belt is not used like the Americans. Therefore, although this DIY method can improve the continuity of firepower, the exposed elastic chain is easy to catch debris or distort, so be very careful when using it.
The design of this backpack-type large-capacity ammunition supply has no high-tech content, and this concept has existed for a long time, so Russian businessmen later designed a similar ammunition storage system by imitating the American "Iron Man" system.
Other related designs include, for example, in an exercise of the Dutch army in 20 13, the FN MAG gunner used another backpack magazine, which may have been made by Dutch ordnance personnel after imitating the "Iron Man" system; Another Russian gun enthusiast also made a backpack chain box with a capacity of 450 rounds.