Comments by "geodkyt" (@geodkyt) on "Q&A 52: Sam Colt was a Jerk, the NGSW will not be Adopted, and German WW1 Wunderwaffe" video.

Another very critical point about the US adoption of the M60 versus the FN MAG is that the M60 was an "in-house" design developed by the same people who were doing most of the reports on small arms development for the US military. "Not Invented Here" has been a recurring problem with arms adopted by the US military. The home team advantage is real.
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@neutronalchemist3241 Yes, and the reason no other guns were seriously considered was 100% due to, "But we have GPMG at home." It wasn't until the 1970s, and the failures of the tank MG programs, that there was any real attempt to look at guns that weren't developed by DOD. Which resulted in selecting the FN MAG for tank use. The introduction of the M240 to ground service was via a back door, as Vietnam era M60s were worn out (hey, that lightness comes with service life implications), and the fastest, cheapest way for the Marines to get a bunch of new GPMGs for infantry use was by grabbing a bunch of "free" M240s from mothballed Abrams and adding the ground gun conversion kits. At which point, people in the Army started to take notice that the M240 is a really good GPMG, even if it is on the "husky" end of the clothing rack.
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@oldbenkenobi9212 Very true - FN basically flipped a BAR upside down, gave it a belt feed, and incorporated a quick change barrel. And utterly irrelevant, as the US Ordnance bubbas didn't develop it, and FN in Belgium *did*. Therefore it was a foreign weapon. Hell, they didn't even want any US guns that weren't developed by them.
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