The only reason that I could seen adoption of a .338 MG is for assured body armor penetration.  One potential alternative the to current NGSW program would be to arm the majority of infantry with 5.56x45 or an improved lightweight weapon to handle close-in fighting, and use the .338 with AP ammo to deal with opponents farther out.  I am not sure that this is the best option, however.  Any weight savings gained by the smaller weapons would likely be offset by the weight of the .338 ammo.  I suspect that the .338" diameter projectile would not be the best choice for assured armor penetration unless it is essentially a delivery system for a smaller-diameter penetrator.

I suspect that the more reasonable variant of a two-cartridge system would have general-issue lightweight carbines supported by something like the new 6.8 Loudenboomer in the automatic rifle/light machinegun and DM weapons.  Although if the goal is to be CERTAIN to penetrate near-future body armor at 600m, the current crop of 6.8 cartridges developed for NGSW are likely not powerful enough.

And SIG case is going to be quite more expensive than a conventional one

Yes, actually read the article. They haven't won the competition and it doesn't say they did.

They were selected to be one of the TWO COMPETITORS and secured safety cert/delivered the competition guns and ammo.

Sig has a habit of having their shills write articles as if they've won comps they haven't.

Actually reading the articles helps though

Socom has not ordered 3000 338 mg's yet, the competition and down select hasn't even happened yet!!

That article doesn't say what you think it says.

Sig and GD have both delivered test guns ammo and accessories for the competition and that's as far as it is has gotten.

roguetechie said:

Sig and GD have both delivered test guns ammo and accessories for the competition and that's as far as it is has gotten.

Given that GD seems to have scrubbed the .338 LWMMG from their website, my money is on SIG having won the .338 contract. 

Now that there are a lot of rumors that the Textron lads are out here's my divine predictions for the NGSW :

1) the new, glorious NGSW rifle selected is...drum roll pls...M4 carbine and M249 courtesy of the big bois, FN and Colt (with "further testing" of those "snuzzles" and maybe partial adoption of TV ammo because I'm feeling optimistic). the army then conveniently says that the ngsw rifles were "too expensive" or "didn't justify its cost" or some bs.

2) SIG "improves certain aspects" of their mcx spear and milks some money. radio silence on the mg338 for at least 1-2 months (maximum being they say nothing about it).

3) General Dynamics and Textron give dry, corporate responses. 

4) TV becomes the new hotshot in the ammo market. 

5) Karl and Ian then have like a QnA about it. Karl tests 6.8mm. Ian makes a NGSW documentary on the guns after some time.
other youtubers will go like "ZAMN 6.8 OPPEEEE" as they blast some watermelons for the billionth fucking time. this trend lasts for a max of 9 months.

alternate ending (slim chance) :

they give a fuck about the NGSW and choose a type of ammo (probably TV) and redoes the show but this time the companies only make guns. (as per the wise words of some guy here who I forgot the name of). KAC LAMG participates maybe?


I strongly feel this will end up like the xm8, oicw etc etc because of politics (how predictable).

Bruh...

GD has scrubbed it because Lonestar also got the lwmmg IP and is now sig's competitor. 

Tfb covered this the other day and Lonestar themselves said that this is what's happening.

Lonestar which is now owned by true velocity btw.

In addition to this, the patents GD novated to Lonestar for ngsw also cover the LWMMG 

Edit: also there's still quite a bit of doubt as to whether a 338 MG will even get bought at this point considering that 338 would need all new ammo to even reliably pop body armor at extended ranges.

The LAMG and AMG are unfortunately fatally flawed and entirely unsuitable in their current forms for mass issue because they'll have some pretty severe service life problems (in addition to making FN belt feds look affordable lol)

Though, I think fixing them would probably be easier and if opened up to other contractors for production could definitely be substantially cheaper than the FN evolys.

What's extremely unfortunate is that 40+ years of extremely poor army decision making wrt belt feds has left us in a position where we now have very few choices.

I'll be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing the super sized ares mcr the Turks are now making in 308 get tested along with the few poor choices we have.

Being even more honest I'd love to see a Lonestar and Barrett Collab using Barrett's LWS version of their 240L entry as a potential temporary placeholder gun until we can spin up better belt feds for high pressure neckless TV.

fellas, do you guys think 6.8 can penetrate the new spetsnaz body armour?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pYKMIUoWlk

have you heard of the 17 incinerator......a 30grain bullet at 6000fps from, a 50BMG case