03-21-2006, 11:35
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#1
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Moderator
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M-32 Multiple-Shot Grenade Launcher
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn20...9?opendocument
"Marines carry six-pack attack"
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CAMP MERCURY, Iraq (March 9, 2006) -- Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to want one.
Marines with Regimental Combat Team 5, based in Camp Fallujah, test-fired the latest in the Corps’ arsenal of weapons’ improvement, the M-32 Multiple shot Grenade Launcher. It’s a six-barreled, 40 mm beast of weapon that has just about enough attitude for Marines.
“I thought it was pretty bad the first time I saw it,” said Cpl. Jason H. Flanery, a 23-year-old mortarman from St. Louis, Mo., assigned to RCT-5’s Personnel Security Detachment.
The M-32 MGL looks like something straight out of an action movie or a weapon ginned up by designers of futuristic video combat games. It’s a bare-bones, shoulder-fired weapon with a bulging six-barreled cylinder. There’s no bones about it. This thing’s all business when the trade is knocking out bad-guys at a distance.
“You can put six rounds on target in under three seconds,” Flanery said. “I thought this thing was sick.”
Sick might be right for the insurgent on the other end of the sight. The M-32 MGL is step up from the M-203 grenade launcher Marines have used since post-Vietnam days. It fires similar 40 mm grenades and at similar distances. It just puts more rounds on the bad guys faster.
“The ‘203 has been around since the ‘60s,” explained CWO4 Gene A. Bridgman, the regiment’s gunner, or weapons expert. “It keeps improving. This is a progression in the weapons system.”
Flanery put the comparison of the two similar weapons in more simple terms.
“It makes it obsolete,” he said. “It’s that much better.”
The idea to bring M-32 was the brainchild of Marine gunners across the Corps, explained Bridgman, a 43-year-old from Garden City, Kan. During an annual symposium, they decided an improvement was needed over the M-203. One option was to bring back a rifle-grenade. The M-32, won out, however, and now each Marine battalion will field them as an experimental weapon.
Bridgman added the M-32 isn’t a new idea altogether, though. Brazilian, Italian and South African military have carried them in the field for years. Marines, though, took it one step further.
A fore-grip was added and a scope was mounted to the top, eliminating the old leaf sights like that of the M-203. The scope allows a Marine to follow the grenade to the target and immediately adjust and follow up with a lethal volley of indirect fire.
“The ‘203 was on shot at time,” Bridgman said. “The ‘203 became a signal weapon. This is more of an offensive weapon. With this, you shoot, adjust and fire for effect.”
The average Marine said it’s just about that easy to shoot. Lance Cpl. Alexandro R. Raymundo, a 20-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., isn’t an infantryman. He’s a network administrator by trade. He shot the M-203 before during initial training, but this was his first time picking up the M-32 MGL.
“I thought it might be like the ‘203,” Raymundo said. “But is shoots more rounds, faster. It’s really simple. I had ‘hands-on’ once. I picked it up really quickly.”
As far as how it felt shooting it, Raymundo said the weapon was about as beefy as it looks.
“I felt like there’s more recoil than the ‘203 and the trigger’s a lot heavier” he explained. “It’s heftier than the ‘203.”
His likes about the weapon included the small scope added to the rail-mount system on top of the weapon.
“The optic was nice,” he added. “It’s a lot easier to sight in.”
Of course, there’s the part about lots of things going “boom” downrange too.
“My favorite part was being able to fire out so many grenades and not have to reload between each shot.”
Sgt. David G. Redford, a 35-year-old from Kennebunkport, Me., has more practical experience when it comes to what grunts like in the field. He’s an infantryman by trade and has logged in his own hours carrying the M-203.
“I didn’t know what to think about it before we came out here, but it’s nice,” Redford said. “It’s easier to shoot. You don’t have to constantly load. If you run into something, you’re already loaded.”
Redford predicted that most infantry Marines will welcome the addition of the six-pack attack weapon.
That’s exactly the reaction Bridgman wants to see. Adding the M-32 MGL could realign the way Marines operate at the small-team level. Fire teams could become more lethal, more mobile and more independent. The idea of a dedicated grenadier might just be reborn.
“Now you have your own indirect fire support right in the fire team,” Bridgman explained. “You have someone who can lay down (high explosive rounds) against someone in a trench. It would be used against enemy in fighting holes or behind cars, because of the indirect nature of the weapon. It’s the only weapon aside from mortars,” at the small team’s disposal.
Still, Bridgman stressed the weapon is only experimental. Marines will be gathering data about its’ effectiveness and durability from experiences on the streets of Fallujah.
For Flanery, though, the M-32 is already welcome.
“I think it’s one of the most simple and effective weapons systems,” he said. “I just want buckshot rounds.”
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There are a number of photos included in the article. Follow the link above. Attached is a cropped picture of the M-32 from one.
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Airbornelawyer is offline
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03-21-2006, 11:59
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#2
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
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I fired it at Blackwater last year.
Nice piece, gunner still needs another weapon.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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The Reaper is offline
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03-21-2006, 19:12
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#3
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Can I have a hug, please?
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Sun Valley, Idaho
Posts: 192
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
I fired it at Blackwater last year.
Nice piece, gunner still needs another weapon.
TR
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Maybe an assigned AG for security & extra ammo.
Practical?
T.
P.S. Plus some type of PDW...
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Last edited by EX-Gold Falcon; 03-21-2006 at 19:14.
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EX-Gold Falcon is offline
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03-21-2006, 20:45
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#4
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by EX-Gold Falcon
Maybe an assigned AG for security & extra ammo.
Practical?
T.
P.S. Plus some type of PDW...
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If you want to lay down a quick barrage of 40mm, at 400m. or less, yes.
PDW or pistol, no AG likely. Not a crew served weapon.
TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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The Reaper is offline
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03-21-2006, 21:13
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#5
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Quiet Professional
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The Little People here use something similar - they call it the MGL. I believe it might be of Israeli design (our guys don't use them). They bring death and destruction when they work. If I'm not mistaken, the gunner carries a pistol with it.
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
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NousDefionsDoc is offline
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03-21-2006, 21:52
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#6
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
PDW or pistol, no AG likely. Not a crew served weapon.
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M79 gunners used to have a 1911 as the second weapon...i loved my M79, but truth be known, i felt a little better with a 203, M16 attached...
not sure i would want to carry a basic load for the M32...of course, it has the potential to be a great crowd pleaser and group-therapy enabler...
__________________
""A man must know his destiny. if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder. if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.""- GEN George S. Patton
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lksteve is offline
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03-22-2006, 03:24
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#7
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Guerrilla
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Finland
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc
The Little People here use something similar - they call it the MGL. I believe it might be of Israeli design (our guys don't use them). They bring death and destruction when they work. If I'm not mistaken, the gunner carries a pistol with it.
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NDD, the MGL is made by Armscor in South Africa.
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RECON - Always a step ahead
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Tuukka is offline
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03-28-2006, 15:45
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#8
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Guest
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Should of stuck with the Rifle Grenade. 
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03-29-2006, 16:42
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#9
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: LA
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Right, South African. Thanks for the correction.
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
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NousDefionsDoc is offline
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03-29-2006, 21:43
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#10
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Quiet Professional
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MGL or M-32
Nice weapon, I just would like to still have my M-4 and M-9. Nice to have in your Tool Box.
Lots of fun to play with.
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"Berg Heil"
History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over."
COLONEL BULL SIMONS
Intelligence failures are failures of command [just] as operations failures are command failures.”
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MtnGoat is offline
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04-28-2006, 18:09
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#11
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Asset
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: NJ
Posts: 51
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The guys in our adjacent Bn have one of these. From what I hear it has come in handy silencing the palm groves that are right outside thier COP.
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Crue is offline
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