Just another day for wishful thinking for me, looking at some of the latest military equipment and envisioning them for airsoft players. Today, it will be about these ammo carriage systems that will fully top-up machine guns for longer periods rather than having smaller ammo boxes or magazines for machine gunners to use. Heavier and bulkier these are, they nevertheless are very important when, as a support gunner, you need to lay down a heavy and longer suppressing fire all by yourself whilst allowing the rest of your squad to flank the enemy.

There are are two similar systems that allow a SAW gunner to carry more ammo without having to reload for longer periods of time. Both were developed recently and subject to a minor controversy. The MICO Machine Gunners Assault Pack made by Tyr Tactical was developed upon needs of Special Forces people to give them the capacity to carry 500 rounds of 7.62 bullets. It is an off the shelf commercial product that is subject to custom orders. Made to carry 5.56 or 7.62 rounds then carried by the operator on a body pack with shoulder straps and adjustable waste belt and the pack comes in different colours from the pack to the geed shoot. Whilst the pack itself carries 500 rounds, there is an extra 75 rounds in the feed shoot iself.

The US Army also developed a similar system via Natick or the US Army Natick Soldier Systems Center with their Immediate-Action Prototyping (or Rapid Prototype) to support the needs in Operation Enduring Freedom. The US Army took 48 days to develop the High-Capacity Ammunition Carriage System (HCACS) and deployed to Afghanistan for testing. They recognise the need for having a sustained firing capability since existing magazines for support gunners will need to reload after 100 rounds. The HCACS will give continuous feed of 500 rounds to the gunner just like Tyr Tactical's MICO.

Photo by RDECOM

According to Soldier Systems, the HCACS uses a Down East Frame which is used in Alice Packs, while the MICO is a dedicated one. There's a slight controversy over the development of such ammo carriage systems since it has been rumoured that the US Army copied  Tyr Tactical's design and called it their own. Since the soldiers on the ground urgently need such ammo carrying system why did the US Army Natick develop its own when there's already an existing product made by a private company and ready to be deployed and tested before it gets issued for wider usee in the field? It seems to be a waste of R&D funds when they can just award a contract to Tyr Tactical to improve on their product and help the private industry too.

Anyway, I am imagining if such a system can also be developed for airsoft use. The only thing closest to such is the Piper's M134 airsoft Minigun which has a dummy box and dummy feed shoot. The box is unncessary as it only contains the gas tank and a hose that's covered by the dummy feed shoot. The bbs are actually loaded into the minigun itself and propelled by CO2 or Top Gas and the rotating barrels powered by battery. Feeding the bbs into the support weapon might be a big problem as the BBs will have to travel through a longer feeding tube that a spring system won't be able to provide. Thus, what I see here is a gas system that will feed the BBs. The gas tank and the bbs can then be carried by the box which means it can have around 5,000 or more rounds.

It's just my imagination, but if someone has the technical know-how to develop such then a lot of airsoft machine gunners would be happy to use it. They'll have the ammo pack that can last longer than their batteries and or even wear out their gearboxes in a short time.

Why would not just use the Piper/CAW/Echo1/Classic Army airsoft Miniguns  for such purpose and they provide more firepower in a small package than an airsoft M240 or M249? For me the Minigun won't allow me to get into prone position as the the rotating barrels will stop as they will hit the ground since the it doesn't have a bipod. The M240 and M249 would allow me that, stay prone and be able to put more accurate fire as compared to the M134 as it's more of a spray weapon and don't allow you to use sights. the M134s are usually mounted on vehicles or structures, and thus less portable than the M240 or M249.