Mission:
Deter, and if necessary, compel adversaries by enabling individuals and small units to engage targets with accurate, lethal, direct automatic fire.

Entered Army Service:
1997

Description:
A ground-mounted, gas-operated, crew-served machine gun. This reliable 7.62mm machine gun delivers more energy to the target than the smaller caliber M-249 SAW. It is being issued to infantry, armor, combat engineer, special force/rangers, and selected field artillery units that require medium support fires and will replace the ground-mounted M-60 series machine guns currently in use.

Specifications:
Caliber:                          7.62 mm
Weight:                          27.6 lbs 
Max effective range:  1800 m (area target) 800 m (point target)
Rate of fire:                   200-600 rounds per minute

Manufacturer
FN Manufacturing (Columbia, SC) 

(U.S. Army Photo)