lighter

Sig Sauer says it has been able to trim the weight of the Army’s new 6.8x51mm M7 service rifle by nearly a pound, or just over 10 percent, in response to feedback from servicemembers. The M7’s weight compared to the gun it is set to replace, the 5.56x45mm M4A1, was among the criticisms that an Army captain very publicly leveled against the gun earlier this year. Sig had subsequently issued a vehement rebuttal, but acknowledged that the design was still evolving.

Jason St. John, senior director of strategic products for the Defense Strategies Group at Sig Sauer, gave an update on the M7 rifle, as well as the companion 6.8x51mm M250 machine gun, to TWZ‘s Howard Altman on the show floor at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual symposium today. Sig Sauer has also been working on a shorter and lighter carbine variation of the M7 for the Army. Sig Sauer did show the lightened “product-improved” M7, also known as the PIE M7, at the biennial Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition in London earlier this year, but does not appear to have had the carbine on display at that event.

The M7 and M250 (previously designated the XM7 and XM250), together with the associated family of 6.8x51mm rounds and the computerized XM157 optic, form the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) ‘system.’ The service selected Sig Sauer as the winner of its NGSW competition in 2022 and now plans to replace a substantial portion of its M4A1s and M249 Squad Automatic Weapons (SAW) with M7s and M250s, respectively. Sig is also supplying the ammunition, but the XM157s are being procured separately from Vortex Optics.

“So, we’re talking about the Army’s and our continued teaming effort to improve the M7 and the M250, based on our recommendations, and their suggestions, and feedback from the field,” Sig Sauer’s St. John said.

“There’s basically two combined efforts going on within the M7,” he continued. “We have a carbine version, and then we have a lighten, improved version of the M7. And so when you look at the standard M7 that’s been issued to the troops, the overall weight of the firearm was 8.3 pounds. Now, the improved M7 is 7.6 pounds, and the carbine version weighs 7.3 pounds. So we’re getting closer and closer to [a] rifle weight system similar to the M4.”

The PIE M7 also has a 13.5-inch barrel, while the one on the carbine version is 10 inches long. A standard M4A1 with its 14.5-inch barrel, as well as just a sling and a loaded magazine, weighs in at 7.62 pounds, according to the Army. It is important to note that optics and other accessories add appreciable weight to both the M7 and M4A1. The XM157 optic is notably larger and heavier than the ones the Army typically issues for use on M4A1s.

In terms of how the PIE M7 was lightened, “there’s the upper receiver, we’ve redesigned and taken some weight out of it. We’ve lessened the barrel profile slightly to get some weight out of it,” according to Sig’s St. John. “We’ve done some lightening efforts within the operating system, as well as remove the folding stock hinge. By removing that hinge, we save some weight.”

The original M7 featured a stock that was both adjustable in length and could be folded to one side. The M4A1’s stock is only adjustable in length.

“What we just found is really that the Army and the soldiers have fed back … [that] they’d rather have the weight savings than the folding stock,” St. John added. “They aren’t using the folding stock enough to justify that additional weight.”

The video in the Tweet below shows a placard with additional details about the PIE M7 and the carbine version at around 0:41 in the runtime.

Sig Sauer has also made important changes to the M250’s design based on discussions with the Army and feedback from soldiers.

“You’re going to see, instead of having a removable front handguard, now you have a hinged captured handguard, so it stays on the weapon system – rotates forward and away,” St. John explained. “The feed tray cover is extended with the big rail, so that now I have more adjustability for the optics that I put on there, and eye relief to the individual soldiers, and now I can move my optic further back or forward depending on what’s wanted.”

“I’ve got improved bipods. I’ve got [an] improved gas valve,” he continued, also highlighting improvements to how the M250 can be fitted to a tripod and how ammunition is carried on the gun. “Basically the feedback from everyone is, what can we do to improve this weapon system, make it more easy [sic] to use, and more robust and reliable.”

Work has also been done to improve the common sound suppressor for the M7 and M250.

“We’ve also redesigned our suppressor to make it shorter,” per St. John. “We’ve added a titanium heat shield on it that does two-fold [things].”

The heat shield helps reduce the chance of contact burns as the suppressor heats up during use. It also reduces thermal bloom, which could make it easier for enemies to spot friendly forces from their heat signature. St. John cautioned that no one should be rushing to grab the suppressor, especially with bare hands, after sustained use, even with the new heat shield.

When it comes to the M7, St. John said that the Army is now in the process of deciding how to proceed in fielding the PIE and/or carbine versions.

“You could see there’s probably a couple of decision points. Do they stick with the standard length M7 that’s been lightened by 0.7 pounds? Or do they and or do they move to the carbine completely?” he said. “Do they keep the carbine for specialty troops and still issue the M7, or do they take the carbine and utilize that as the new rifle across the board? So they’re trying to make those decisions.”

St. John pointed out that the Army had gone through a similar evolution in thinking in the decades that followed the fielding of the A1 variant of the M16 in the 1960s. The service adopted a succession of full-size rifle versions before transitioning to the shorter and lighter M4A1 as its standard service weapon.

That the Army is looking at lighter variations of the M7 at all is significant. The weight of the rifle was among the criticisms that Army Capt. Braden Trent had highlighted in an unclassified report he wrote while he was a student at the Expeditionary Warfare School, which is part of the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. Trent also called attention to the comparative size and weight of the 5.56x45mm and 6.8x51mm rounds, as well as the shorter barrel on the M7 compared to the M4A1. Trent’s findings, which raised safety concerns about the rifle and cited other issues that called its operational utility into question, came to more widespread attention after he presented them at the annual Modern Day Marine conference earlier this year.

There is one particular “major fault in the XM7, and that’s the UBL … or universal basic load. It’s a metric that can be applied to almost any weapon system, and it essentially means the amount of magazines and associated ammunition that a system uses and is expected to be carried into battle,” Trent said at Modern Day Marine. “So the XM7 [and] the M4A1 actually have the same number of magazines in their UBL seven, but remember, we’re talking about that capacity difference. The total round count a soldier carries into battle with the XM7 is 140 rounds compared to the 210 rounds of the M4A1. Now again, a 70-round difference may not seem significant, but to the soldier in the fight, it absolutely is a difference. Not to mention that every magazine added to the XM7, each 20-round loaded magazine adds another 1.25 pounds to the soldier’s load, meaning that if troops equipped with the XM7 tried to match their old UBLs [in terms of round count], they’re going to have even more weight being carried.”

“The final thing I’d like to mention is the Chief of Army Infantry’s stated goal of a 55-pound total soldier load,” he added. “If we just take the XM7 and its seven UBL magazine load, we’re almost at half that weight, and that’s before the soldier is put on body armor, water, a rucksack, or anything else that they’ll need in the fight.”

The Army’s position has been that the M7 and its new cartridge offer improved accuracy, range, and terminal effectiveness that are worth the added bulk. Concerns about soldiers being outranged, as well as improvements in adversary body armor, were key drivers behind the NGSW program. Trent’s report also calls this into question based on data he collected regarding expected infantry combat engagement distances.

Sig Sauer had also provided a lengthy rebuttal to the technical issues that Trent raised. You can read more about all of this in TWZ‘s in-depth report on the ensuing controversy following his presentation.

“I think that soldiers and citizens should want Sig Sauer, the U.S. [Army] program office to continue that practice of continually evolving and developing and improving their soldiers’ weapons systems. And I think we anticipate that we’re going to undergo those improvement processes for the next 25 to 30 years,” the company’s St. John had told TWZ at the time. “There’s going to be improvements in manufacturing [and] materials processes. The soldiers on the ground and the U.S. Army are going to dictate different operational requirements and standards for the weapons systems, and we’re going to have to react to those modifications that are going to optimize that weapon system as that evolves through time and history.”

“It should be no surprise, in my opinion, that specifically in the infancy of a weapons program that there’s a very aggressive improvement effort to ensure that the Army and the soldiers get the weapon system that they deserve,” he added.

From what we know now, the Army’s plans for the M7 are already evolving significantly, with criticisms about the rifle’s weight, in particular, having been taken to heart.

Howard Altman contributed to this story.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Union Berlin appeal decision to award match to Bochum after their keeper was struck by a cigarette lighter in December.

Union Berlin is appealing a decision by the German football federation’s sports court to award Bochum a 2-0 victory after Bochum’s goalkeeper was struck with a cigarette lighter during their Bundesliga match in December.

“It’s bad enough that people repeatedly throw objects onto stages, into indoor areas or onto the pitch at concerts or sporting events. Unfortunately, there’s nothing that any event organiser can do to prevent it,” Union president Dirk Zingler said late on Thursday.

Earlier, the sports court had awarded Bochum a victory over Union instead of the 1-1 draw that the teams played out on December 14.

That game was nearly over when Bochum goalkeeper Patrick Drewes was struck by the object thrown from the crowd in added time. Referee Martin Petersen suspended the game and led both teams off the field after Drewes sat down and received medical treatment.

Bochum did not want to restart the game, but it resumed nearly half an hour later, with striker Philipp Hofmann replacing Drewes for the remaining three minutes. Both teams agreed not to try and score – which was also an issue for the court.

“Such agreements contradict the basic principles of sporting competition,” court chairman Stephan Oberholz said. Oberholz added that Union were responsible for “a weakening of the Bochum team” as the item had been thrown by a Union supporter.

Zingler feels otherwise. “The actual unsportsmanlike scandal took place on the pitch and in court today,” Zingler said, suggesting Bochum had made more of the incident than warranted.

“Whether there is an impairment or weakening for one side, whether the game is abandoned or continued, must always be the sole decision of the referee,” Zingler said.

“If the beneficiary party can declare themselves as weakened, we no longer need impartial referees and the door is open to fraud or even dirty tricks. The disadvantaged parties will never be able to prove the opposite.”

I imagine that when you imagine a TV critic, you picture some hard-boiled, crusty, even heartless type. But I have always been a sensitive, delicate, please-leave-the-light-on sort of fellow.

So Halloween is a holiday I greet with mixed emotions. I am fine with its brighter expressions — candy, pumpkins, cute costumes on little children, “It’s Halloween” by the Shaggs, all that. But you can keep your haunted houses, the latest “It,” your “Scream” masks, your trouble-making teens using the cover of the holiday to terrorize a neighborhood. Even “The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror” I can find genuinely disquieting.

You will therefore find the following personal guide to Halloween viewing — some things specific to the day, some germane to the season, some featuring paranormal characters, some parodying monster movies — to be short on blood and guts (the kind worn outside the body) and long on comedy and cartoons. There is more than enough actual horror about.

More than anything, Halloween is an opportunity for me to once again steer you to the 2014 web comedy “Ghost Ghirls,” currently living its best afterlife on Vimeo. Created by stars Amanda Lund and Maria Blasucci, it comprises a dozen 10-minute episodes, which by some magic have the substance of full-blown sitcom episodes. As self-involved, childish, competitive ghost hunters-whisperers-busters, Lund and Blasucci visit various locations (a baseball field, a tax office, a middle school, a brothel, a recording studio) to help conflicted spirits move on into the light; the impeccable guest cast includes Jason Ritter, Jake Johnson, Natasha Leggero, Kumail Nanjiani, Colin Hanks, Larisa Oleynik, Paul F. Tompkins, Jason Schwartzman, Brett Gelman, Kate Micucci, Molly Shannon and, as a dead ’70s Southern-rock band fighting too much to finish their final song, Jack Black, Val Kilmer and Dave Grohl.

Helping spirits move on into the light also was the theme of the 2014 Tyler Labine comedy “Deadbeat” (Tubi), with a similarly impressive roster of guest stars. Labine was previously a regular on “Reaper” (stream on CWTV.com), in which Brett Harrison plays a slacker who, after his parents sold his soul to the devil (Ray Wise), sets to work as a kind of bounty hunter, returning the escaped damned to hell. Both these series are funny and charming and worth your attention.

Filmed in suburban New Jersey, “The Adventures of Pete and Pete,” originally on Nickelodeon, was not only the most beautifully fashioned kids show of the 1990s but a series that argues well for the very existence of television. And yet you will have to go to the wilds of YouTube to find it. In the holiday episode “Halloweenie,” little Pete (Danny Tamberelli) is out to beat a 31-year-old record for trick-or-treating 374 houses in one Halloween night, dragging along Halloween-hating older brother Big Pete (Michael C. Maronna), while avoiding the vandalizing Pumpkin Eaters. Helpful neighbor Nona (Michelle Trachtenberg, who would go on to play little sister Dawn Summers on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) pitches in. (Iggy Pop, who plays her father in a cardigan and khakis, would go on to re-form the Stooges.)

“School Spirits” stars Peyton List, center, as Maddie, a murdered teen stuck in the afterlife who attempts to find her killer.

(Ed Araquel / Paramount+)

As to “Buffy” itself, vamps and demons and the occasional tragic death of a beloved character aside, the series, which debuted in 1997 and changed the nature of television teenage storytelling, is at heart a comedy, an extended metaphor for the ordinary horrors of high school. It produced several Halloween episodes, beginning with the much-loved Season 2 “Halloween” (Hulu, Disney+, Tubi), which finds enchanted Sunnydale residents becoming the characters they’re costumed as. (An idea used by “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide,” now streaming on Paramount+, the greatest Nickelodeon kids show of the ’00s, for its own third-season Halloween episode.) The show’s legacy can be directly seen in such series as the recent, excellent “School Spirits” (Paramount+), in which a murdered teen, trapped in her high school among several generations of ghost students, attempts to find her killer, and Netflix’s “Dead Boy Detectives,” about a pair of teenage ghosts helping other specters to settle their unfinished business. (See “Ghost Ghirls,” above.)

Most network sitcoms have fielded a Halloween episode, but none more appropriately than “The Addams Family.” Creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky, altogether ooky, they’re a peerlessly happy, hospitable family, ever welcoming to the straight-world figures who stumble into their eccentric manse. In the redundantly titled “Halloween With the Addams Family” (Freevee, YouTube) from 1964, escaping bank robbers, played by Don Rickles and Skip Homeier, are invited in as adult trick-or-treaters and made to celebrate in ways they don’t understand.

The sitcom, more than the Charles Addams cartoons that inspired it, provides the architecture upon which are built all subsequent Addams revivals and reimaginings, including, of course, “Wednesday,” the ongoing Netflix series that made an instant star of Jenna Ortega. While I absolutely recommend it, my heart lies with “Adult Wednesday Addams,” Melissa Hunter’s witty 2015 web series about the Addams daughter as a young woman making her way in the world — finding roommates, learning to drive, internet dating. You can find it on YouTube and at Hunter’s own website.

Oddly, the sitcom episode that most frightened me as a child — and still does, for all that it’s very funny — comes from “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Not actually a Halloween episode, the 1963 “It May Look Like a Walnut” (streaming on Peacock, Prime, Filmrise and several other platforms) is a riff on “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” that finds Van Dyke’s Rob Petrie trapped in a science-fiction scenario in which walnut-loving aliens, led by a Danny Thomas look-alike, convert humans to their race, stealing their thumbs and sense of humor. Mary Tyler Moore emerging from the living room closet on an avalanche of nuts is the stuff of nightmares — and one of that series’ most replayed moments.

Given my predilections, it’s not surprising that there are a lot of cartoons on this list.

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” (Apple TV+) is the second-greatest Peanuts special, and the only other one I’d call required viewing. In its gorgeous, glorious evocation of autumn days and, especially, nights, its Vince Guaraldi score and Bill Melendez animation, it takes Schulz’s art somewhere new without betraying it; perhaps most important, Cathy Steinberg is back from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as the voice of Sally Brown, the series’ secret star. (And you thought it was Snoopy.) Linus’ unique belief in the Great Pumpkin takes some heat off Charlie Brown, who nevertheless remains the victim of his friends, random neighbors and the universe. But that’s the “Peanuts” spirit, deep and troubling but endlessly relatable.

“Toy Story of Terror” from 2013, originally produced at the corporate nexus of Disney, Pixar and ABC, offers a delightful meta take on horror tropes — rainy night, roadside motel, characters imprudently wandering off. With the hedgehog Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton) offering commentary the whole time, it’s “Scream” without the murders, but not without its own brand of tension. The supergroup big-screen cast (Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Rickles, Wallace Shawn, Kristen Schaal) are abetted by Kate McKinnon, Ken Marino and Carl Weathers, with Stephen Tobolowsky as the villain (a desk clerk, like Norman Bates). As a bonus, and in the spirit of Jamie Lee Curtis, it’s cowgirl Jessie (Cusack) who takes the lead here.

New this year is the special “SpongeBob SquarePants: Kreepaway Kamp” (Paramount+), in which practically the whole of Bikini Bottom is invited to a reunion at Kamp Koral, where a dark figure lurks and one by one the campers disappear — a moth-eaten premise immeasurably improved by its cast of cartoon sea creatures (and a squirrel). From 2019 comes “The Spooky Tale of Captain Underpants: Hack-a-ween” (Netflix), a delicious mix of animation, puppetry and photograph, in which elementary-school pranksters George and Harold fight a movement to cancel the holiday, with the help of their personal superhero, a hypnotized version of their principal and nemesis.

The Halloween special “SpongeBob Squarepants: Kreepaway Kamp” streams on Paramount+.

(Nickelodeon)

Some classic Halloween shorts can be found on Disney+ at most any season, and are worth your attention by virtue of being drawn and animated by hand — still the best way to make cartoons. In “Lonesome Ghosts” (first released on Christmas Eve 1937, of all days), Mickey, Goofy and Donald are unemployed ghostbusters called to a creaky old house by the bored specters themselves — derby-wearing, cigar-smoking — for their own slapstick entertainment. In “Trick or Treat,” from 1952, Donald pranks his nephews with firecrackers in their candy bags and dumps water on their heads; friendly Witch Hazel, passing by, helps them get revenge. Not on Disney+ but easy to find online is the 1933 Mickey Mouse short “The Mad Doctor,” in which Pluto is abducted by a scientist planning on putting the pup’s head on a chicken’s body. The black-and-white light and shadow effects are quite beautiful. Although Disney has become synonymous with a certain gentleness, these cartoons are sort of violent. (Though, as I like to say, it’s cartoon violence.)

Through its corporate owner Warner Bros., Max has a trove of golden-age Looney Tunes cartoons gathered into nonchronological “seasons,” where you can find at least a couple of monster-themed classics. Directed by Friz Freleng, “Hyde and Hare” (Season 20, Episode 2), from 1955, drops Bugs Bunny into a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation that includes an addiction metaphor and a Liberace joke. In “Hair-Raising Hare” (Season 11, Episode 6), Bugs is lured to the castle of an evil scientist — a neon sign flashes “Evil Scientist,” so you know — as lunch for his pet monster, the giant orange hairball in tennis shoes later known as Gossamer. You get some excellent fourth-wall-breaking and a finish that prefigures “Some Like It Hot.” And in “Scaredy Cat,” (Season 13, Episode 16), from 1948, also directed by Jones, Porky and Sylvester move into a house populated by murderous mice. Sylvester is panicked, Porky oblivious.

Of all classic cartoon characters, the most involved with the supernatural and the surreal was Fleischer Studios’ Betty Boop, whose jazzy adventures with spooks and demons can be easily found on YouTube. “Snow White,” from 1933 (voted the 19th greatest cartoon of all time in a 1994 survey of a thousand animators), features skeletons, a wicked witch who becomes a dragon and Betty’s pup pal, Bimbo, transformed into a ghost, rotoscoped over Cab Calloway singing “St. James Infirmary Blues.” In “Betty Boop’s Halloween Party,” also from 1933, a nasty gorilla interrupts Betty’s happy soiree, attended by a variety of woodland and jungle animals, and in “Red Hot Mama,” from 1934, Betty dreams herself in hell, where she dances with devils and anthropomorphic flames. When Satan tries to get fresh, she gives him the cold shoulder (literally, metaphorically).

And finally, neither TV series nor cartoon, is humorist Jean Shepherd‘s Oct. 31, 1972, broadcast of his nightly New York City radio show, preserved on YouTube. Shepherd, of course, is best known for a different holiday, as the author and voice of “A Christmas Story,” but he sinks his fangs deep into Halloween, with reminiscences, readings and meditations on the dark. Of everything listed here, this may be the most existentially disturbing, so listen with the lights on. Or don’t — but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

AN assistant referee was hit by a missile thrown from the stands at the end of a match.

A third-tier game between CF Montanesa and CE L’Hospitalet turned ugly as fans made their feelings clear.

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They shouted at the officials as they walked off the pitch and a lighter was thrown at the assistant referee.

He raised his hand to block the object before clutching his face, appearing to be hurt.

Two people came to his aid but he seemed fine and began shouting towards the stand.

A Montanesa player then jumped to his defence and called for calm from the fans.

Spain has been hit by fan unrest in recent weeks with the Madrid derby halted by objects thrown from the stands last month.

Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was the target of many of the missiles thrown due to his former ties with Atletico.

Atletico boss Diego Simeone criticised the behaviour of his fans after the match.

He said: “The message was to think about the club, think about your team.

“You aren’t helping the team. They said it wasn’t their fault, they said they’d been provoked by the opposition goalkeeper.”

CF Montanesa beat CE L’Hospitalet 1-0.