I was issued with the Ultimax 100 when it first came out in 1982. It was actually quite reliable as compared to the M16 due to its long stroke gas piston design as compared to the direct impingement gas system of the M16. Yes it would jam when used with blanks but with live rounds, there was no problem, as long as the magazine held up. With the constant recoil system used by our Ultimax, our Singapore designed gun is the most accurate (in full auto) and lightest SAW in the world, and I believe it still is. However, the problem with the Ultimax are the drums and the modified STANAG (ie M16 magazines) used. Drums are bulky (ie not space efficient to store ammo) vs belt fed ammo and more importantly the drums we used had to be reloaded using a special mechanism. It cannot be reloaded by hand in the field. Hence, to address this issue, most of our SAW gunners are thus issued 30 round M16 "magazines', however these are modified by drilling 2 holes near the feed lips of the magazine. One cannot just use standard m16 magazines for the Ultimax. The holes affected the structural integrity of these modified magazine and made it flimsy, thus culminating to a host of problems, for example not sitting well into the gun (ie thus causing jams) or dropping off from the gun. Now if you mostly used your SAW with 30 round magazines and you face the problems above, it just made more sense to then replace it with the M27.
The M27 is based of the HK416. It is not an M16 which uses the direct impingement system (ie hot gasses are injected directly into the bolt system to cycle the gun). The M27 and HK416 use the short stroke gas piston which makes the weapon much more reliable. With the m16 you have to clean the gun regularly especially the bolt carrier group and lubricate it or else it will jam frequently. The long stroke (used in our Ultimax and AK47) and short stroke piston system prevents hot gasses (and thus soot) from getting in the bolt carrier group thus eliminating this problem. The M27 also does not have the magazine problem that our Ultimax have. It uses standard m16 STANAG magazines. On top of that the M27 is a closed bolt system designed to be extremely accurate. It is not exactly a full SAW like our Ultimax, but then again the SAW capabilities of our Uktimax is not fully utilized if we only use 30 round mags and not the drums. So why not just used the SAR 21? Well the answer is simple. The M27 was designed as an automatic rifle in that it has the ability to maintain sustained continuous fire without: stoppages; overheating the barrel or receiver; or losing accuracy. The SAR 21 or any other assault rifle not designed as an automatic rifle will face stoppages with sustained continuous full auto fire, overheat and lose accuracy. The concept of an IAR (infantry automatic rifle) is a new doctrine developed by the US Marines.
Last but not least, the M27 can also be used as a designated marksman rifle. Thus an added advantage of issuing both our SAW gunners and marksman at the squad level with the same weapon.
still 2 LAW.. 2 SAW.. 2 M203 ..1sec comd? now SAR21 has build in optics, sec comd now carry what?
