FN Minimi

The FN Minimi was a combination 'belt fed'/magazine fed' light machine gun, designed to serve in the role of "Squad Automatic Weapon". The SAW was a mobile suppressive fire platform that was light weight and single man transportable - much more so than the venerable M60 (which was always supposed to be a General Purpose Machine Gun, i.e. a crew served weapon). The U.S. Military adopted the first models of the FN Minimi in the 1980s directly as the XM249 or later as the M249 (with some slight design changes in the official U.S. Adopted version. Later versions of the gun, reflected upgrades and design changes that were requested by the U.S. Military.

On a historical note: in the first months of the First Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm 1990), there were not enough M249s to supply the massive troop buildup in the Middle East, so the U.S. Army bought outright a number of unaltered FN Minimis directly from FN, to supplement the weapons. So it is not inaccurate to see first pattern FN Minimis in the hands of U.S. Soldiers who are supposedly issued M249 SAWs since the ARMY mixed the two versions together until the Late 1990s.

The FN Minimi and variants are used by the following actors in the following movies, television series, video games, and anime:

FN Minimi / M249

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FN Minimi 5.56mm with 200-round ammo drum.

Film

Robert De Niro as Sam in Ronin ('paratrooper' version)

U.S. Army Rangers in Black Hawk Down (substituting for M249 SAW)

A member of the rescue team in Bad Boys II ('paratrooper' version)

John Travolta as Gabriel Shear in Swordfish

Final Fire-fight in 3000 Miles to Graceland

Attack on village in Proof of Life

Drive-By gangsters in Hollywood Homicide

Games

Project: I.G.I.

M249-E1 / M249-E2 / M249 Paratrooper SAW

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M249-E1 SAW with Bipod Folded - First Version of the SAW officially adopted by the U.S. Military (this is a real blank adapted movie gun) - 5.56mm

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M249-E2 SAW - upgraded M249 with heat shield and full synthetic Stock - 5.56mm with 200 round ammo drum.

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M249 SAW 5.56mm paratrooper version with 200 round ammo drum

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M249 Paratrooper - a real blank adapted movie gun with bipod folded and a picatinny rail on the top of the receiver - 5.56mm

Film

U.S. Army soldiers in War of the Worlds (2005)

U.S. Marines in Jarhead

Mounted on the 'Black Wasp' craft in The Island

U.S. Marines in Rules of Engagement

U.S. Army soldiers in Courage Under Fire

Soldiers in the Secret Lab in Hulk

Nick Chinlund as Michael "Slo" Slowenski in Tears of the Sun (paratrooper version)

Television

Kirk 'Sticky' Jones as Pvt. Maurice 'Smoke' Williams in Over There (starts out with the standard version, then changes to paratrooper version)

Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill (M249 SPW with vertical forward grip), Jay Acovone as Charles Kawalsky (M249 Para), and other U.S. military personnel in Stargate SG-1