Oh Yeah Baby…Meet The M230LF Bushmaster 30mm Chain Gun

When I joined the U. S. Army over 48 years ago, I never fired anything bigger that an M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun, so please excuse me if I get a little excited. But I sure do love me some large caliber weapons, especially weapons like the M230LF 30mm! This is really one sweet piece and the punishment it can rain down on our enemies is just…”WOW”!

As far as I’m concerned, the bigger the bang, the better for all involved and anything that gives our troops an advantage, makes it all okay in my book! It can be fixed onto a myriad of different platforms and that increases it’s presence on the battlefield, making it much more lethal.

According to an article at EDR On-line:

While the number of M230LF cannons is increasing among the US military, a number of international customers are showing a strong interest in the 30×113 mm light weapon originally developed to become the automatic gun installed on the AH-64 Apache helicopter and then declined in the link-fed version for land and naval role, John McCollum, Director Business Development of the Guns Operating Unit at Northrop Grumman stated during an online update briefing.

Following the M230LF fielding in theatre in different roles the US military, which call it XM914, issued a Request for Information for additional M-LIDS (Mobile-Low, slow, small unmanned aircraft Integrated Defeat System) in which the Northrop Grumman chain gun finding is the hard-kill Counter-UAS effector.

With a weight less than 73 kg without ammunition and a recoil force of less than 7,400 N, it can be fitted to many RCWS designed for hosting 12.7 mm heavy machine guns. The M230LF chain gun can shoot single shot, controlled burst, and full automatic, in the latter mote the firing rate reaching 200 rounds per minute, and provides a lethality range of over 2,000 meters.

If you wish to read the entire article, you can do so by clicking HERE.

H/T –edrmagazine.eu