Marines Arm Drone Vehicle with .50-cal Machine Gun for Urban Fight

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9 Sep 2019

Military.com | By Matthew Cox

QUANTICO, Virginia -- The Marine Corps is experimenting with new options for its unmanned, squad prototype vehicle, including rocket launchers and a remote weapon station armed with a .50-caliber machine gun.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab recently sent its Expeditionary Modular Autonomous Vehicle, or EMAV, to the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Indiana for a company of Marines to test in the dense urban terrain environment.

 

Marines tested one of the vehicles, equipped with a .50 cal. mounted on a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station, or CROWS, to see how squads can benefit from having a heavy machine gun in their arsenal, Dave Stone, ground combat element robotics engineer for the Lab, told Military.com at the Modern Day Marine 2019 expo.

"The key idea is we are exploring how can we enhance the Marine's ability to execute his mission and give him some standoff ... and bring tools to the battle that he normally wouldn't be able to bring," he said. "This is bringing it down to the small-unit level, down to the squad level."

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/09/19/marines-arm-drone-vehicle-50-cal-machine-gun-urban-fight.html