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US military procurement process sometimes comes up with conditions which are impossible to satisfy while maintaining the basic objectives.

The progress of the M1117 and other similar vehicles through the MRAP trials is a good example.

It was found impossible to build a vehicle within the weight limit which could pass the trials. The purpose of the trials was to develop light vehicles to replace the vehicles such as LAV and Bradley which were too heavy and suffered from operational problems like breaking culverts.

A replacement was needed because the HMMV was too lightly armoured. The compromise vehicles such as M1117 proved popular and effective in actual service.

The FN P90 shows a couple of alternative approaches to achieving a short weapon length.

Maybe it is one of those situations where an okay solution now is better than possible perfection in 10 years time.

The Sinister/Dexter locking mechanism appeared back in 3rd Ed, with the new tactical squad box as a multipart plastic kit. Many pieces were redesigned, including the Bolters. The designer (Jes Goodwin IIRC) put two mechanism to expell empty shells (I don't know the proper name, I'm sorry lol), one at left and other one at right. So the bolter was supposed to recognize if it's owner was right handed or left handed, and expell the shells for one of the holes or the other depending on that.

It would be possible to construct a bolt & carrier such that the bolt face could be rotated 180degrees while the bolt carrier was locked back so that the weapon would use the other ejection port.

However, you'd be adding quite a lot of mechanical complexity to a part of the weapon that needs to be utterly reliable. On the other hand, a bolter/gyrojet type weapon puts very little stress on the bolt - much less than a modern firearm - so maybe it wouldn't be so much of a problem.


Killkrazy - the US procurement process is ridiculous, I wrote a substantial paper on it's many shortcomings some years ago. And that's when there isn't bribery, under-the-table deals and requirements being mis-represented in order to get them through congress!

thanks Erasoketa thats what I wanted to know.

OP: Umm... maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by ammo counter, but the bolter does have a small panel above the grip on the left side that is meant to be a digital panel that tracks the amount of ammo in the magazine. It was described as such by Jes Goodwin himself when the tac squad plastic models were first released.

The whole reason I asked was because Lexicanum said the ammo counter was an add-on.