Denel Land Systems (DLS) unveiled the lightest 7.62 mm calibre general purpose machine gun (GPMG) in the world at the Africa Aerospace and Defence 2016 exhibition on Thursday. It also revealed improved versions of other infantry support weapons.

"You get belt-fed assault rifles that are lighter, but they lack the sustained fire capability of a real machine gun," explained DLS CEO Stephan Burger to Engineering News Online. "We did not want to compromise on that. It's a machine gun."

The new weapon, designated the Denel DMG-5, currently weighs 8.4 kg, although the company hopes to reduce this by a few more grammes. The company's current production GPMG, the SS77, weighs 10.3 kg, so the new design is 20% lighter. The SS77 was also designed by Denel and is also a unique South African design.

The weight reduction has been achieved "without any compromising on stability, reliability and accuracy", he told the assembled journalists at the launch. Unlike the SS77, the DMG-5 can take all modern sighting systems. The new weapon is already attracting strong international interest.

The lower weight has been achieved through the use of different materials and design refinements. "But we tried to keep the working parts exactly as they were [on the SS77]."

DLS engineers were challenged to produce the lightest machine gun in the world. The task was given to three young engineers "who didn't know it was impossible", quipped Burger. "I want to congratulate our young engineers. We're extraordinarily proud of them."

In addition, a heavy-barrelled version of the weapon,  the DMG-5 CX, has been developed. This is for use in remotely-controlled weapon stations, as co-axial weapons on armoured vehicles and for use on flexible mounts on vehicles.

The company also unveiled longer ranged versions of its 60 mm Commando and 60 mm conventional mortars. While the previous Commando mortar had a range of 1 km, the new version, designated the DM42, has a range of 1.8 km. The previous version of the conventional mortar has a range of 2 km, while the new model, the DM43, has a range of 4 km.

In addition, DLS launched an asset tracking system that allows the remote tracking of vehicles, weapons and even individual soldiers. This can be configured in different ways for different applications.