#Viral

With the recent push for small arms ammunition with increased range, power and capability, are military customers in danger of being taken for a ride by industry marketeers working to sell rifles in new calibers? Is the primary driving force behind new infantry calibers not in fact a need to be addressed, but a desire to sell weapons in a stagnant small arms market?

We have just seen the cancellation of the Interim Combat Service Rifle, which gives me a good springboard to talk about marketing. Specifically, we will be discussing a kind of undercover word-of-mouth marketing that I’ve encountered a number of times over the years.

This video of a Saudi backed rebel fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen demonstrates a degree of unsafe machine gun operation, lack of fire control, and complete disregard of life that I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. What you see is a rebel picking up a Saudi supplied 7.62x51mm NATO MG3, and proceeding to dump almost an entire belt directly over the heads of his fellow comrades in a ditch, then moving over to the road and continually sending rounds God knows where.