As you know, the OICW is currently under development by a company here in Minnesota called Alliant Tech Systems, AKA: [url]http://www.atk.com[/url]
This company has a couple prototypes being refined here. They are REALLY nice weapons (IMHO). I don't care how much you bad-mouth it. I can't remember exactly where, but a Russian newspaper reported that a Delta Force squad had two experimental weapons with grenade launchers (with a destruct mechanism?) to [i]Test[/i] in Afghanistan, and these were seen on a base before their insertion to Afghanistan.
I don't know if this purported information is true, but I don't doubt it as a possibility!!! Our government wouldn't lie to us, would they? [rolleyes] This kind of reminds me of the Spanish Civil War, the testing of new weapons technology in foreign wars...
It's just like the Comanche stealth helicopters... They're not to be in military service for a couple more years, right? Then why does my friend in the navy tell me their aircraft carrier had some of them onboard for "Testing", and security was airtight around those suckers. This I believe, as we have been close friends since we were children, why would he lie? Yeah, our government tells us the truth, they said so, why would they lie?
This weapon is quite a nice toy IMHO, and I'd be happy to use one (if it weren't so f*cking heavy) in service. I'd much rather have a 300 Win Mag bolt action sniper rifle, or a .50 BMG bolt action (if I had to lug that kind of heft), but hey, the military isn't perfect. I'd also feel a bit more comfortable if there weren't rumors floating around about a "Test" soldier blowing his arm off with one.
According to "Rumor", he pointed the rifle at the ground, and bumped the "Lase" button (on the trigger guard), and sent a distance of 1 meter to the computer, then into the HE grenade. Upon rotating the gun too much it detonated... Bye Bye Arm. Obviously this is RUMOR, and I highly doubt this would happen, and if it did, I'm certain there are TONS of safeguards already implemented by now...
A 10" barrel isn't that bad. Also, as a default, I would hope that the separable .223 part would have some form of fixed or adjustable iron sights on it. Then soldiers could ditch the HE brick & fight with a Subgun style .223 rifle if necessary...
Just my .02 useless thoughts.