• Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      3 months ago

      Just a handguard, it doesn’t really serve any mechanical purpose, just covers the barrel & gas tube. I’m not sure why they went with this design as opposed to a more typical M16 handguard (as was actually the case in earlier attempts to make an M16-based LMG)

      On the Colt IAR, which is a further evolution of this concept, there’s also a big chunky handguard, but there it actually goes over a heat-sink around to barrel (you can see a bit of it poking out after the end of the handguard in this picture)

      The LMG doesn’t have anything like that, so yeah, I don’t know why they went with that design.