The link has several stock photos.

https://www.armytimes.com/news...oldiers-and-marines/

Here’s when the Army will pick three companies to build the M16/M4 and SAW replacements for soldiers and Marines

By: Todd South   23 hours ago

By the end of this summer, the Army plans to pick three vendors to build prototypes of the weapons that will replace the M16/M4 and the Squad Automatic Weapon for both soldiers and Marines, both in a new, common cartridge.

In the coming weeks, officials will release the official “prototype opportunity notice” with detailed expectations of the new weapons family, including not only the new caliber but also what it wants from the weapons' fire control system.

Companies will then have between two and four months to submit their samples for Army officials at Program Executive Office Soldier, Crew Served Weapons to evaluate.

At the same time, submissions for a SAW replacement, which was part of an earlier effort that helped lead to this approach, will undergo test-firings in July. That will then close the previous prototyping.

Once officials select the three vendors in late summer, officials said, they are expected to have 27 months to mature and finalize the weapon.

That means the long-awaited replacement for the basic weapons at the core of Army and Marine squad firepower could be ready for troops by 2021.

That far outpaces what used to be the norm for acquiring new weapons, Lt. Col. Jason Bohannon, head of PEO Soldier, Crew Served Weapons, told Military Times in a recent interview. That was because the program was approved last year for rapid prototyping.

Bohannon said that allowed the program to “jumpstart” weapon and fire control development.

Otherwise, the simple requirements approval portion would have taken at least two years.

The testing on the first initiative from last year, the SAW replacement, allowed for what Bohannon called an “unprecedented dialogue with the small arms industrial base.”

For more than a decade, researchers and industry experts have advocated for an intermediate caliber replacement for the 5.56mm round. Some advocated for simply converting existing 5.56mm rifles to a 6mm caliber with upper receiver swaps.

The Army as a whole received a lot of criticism from experts in those areas for continuing on with the 5.56mm, even with enhanced round versions of the caliber.

But, Bohannon said that the Army had squeezed out advances not only in the round but also in the weapons platform of the M16/M4, which has seen hundreds of modifications since it first hit units more than half a century ago.

For true “leap-ahead” changes, Bohannon said, “You really had to take a systems approach.”

Less than a year ago, the search for a replacement caliber was being kept within the intermediate range, anything from 5.56mm to 7.62mm, the existing calibers used in small units.

Most saw something in the 6mm range as ideal, based on decades of ballistics research and advocacy.

The service narrowed in on the 6.8mm round, but it has kept how that round is delivered up to industry submissions — they’re looking for weight savings so polymer, cased telescope, and hybrid materials such as stainless steel, are all on the table.

But while it doesn’t get as much attention as the new round, the fire control system is likely as important to the new system.

For that, officials are expecting the submission to have three fire control capabilities built into one device — a laser range finder, ballistic computer and disturbed reticle.

Those are advancements that put basic infantry shooting on par with sniper equipment.

And they’re not the end of development.

The fire control will have to be compatible with the upcoming Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular, expected to field near the end of the year and with the Family Weapons Sights-Individual system, which includes thermal capabilities and Rapid Target Acquisition that allows troops to shoot around corners and fire quickly from the hip, if necessary.

Those capabilities are on a longer timeline, as tech evolves, mostly to avoid strapping too many accessories onto the weapon. To that end, they’ve built an open architecture system requirement into the fire control so that future features and hardware can work together, Bohannon said.

Originally, the Army was looking to start with a SAW replacement and work the rifle/carbine replacement afterward, but that changed with the most recent prototype notice.

Following that notice, Brig. Gen. Anthony Potts, who leads PEO Soldier, told Military Times that the new approach is to develop both along the same path, with the same round, so that designers can find the best fit for ammo in both weapons, much like existing M4s and Squad Automatic Weapons both fire the 5.56mm.

The first prototype, which will see test firings of weapons systems in July, resulted in five companies being selected.

Those companies are:

AAI Corporation Textron Systems
FN America LLC (two prototypes)
General Dynamics-OTS Inc.
PCP Tactical, LLC
Sig Sauer, Inc.

Though they won the right to participate in that first set of submissions and testing, it doesn’t mean any of them has a free pass into this next effort.

According to the draft prototype notice from October, once production begins, companies will be expected to build at least 200 weapons per month. Within six months of the award, they need to pump out 2,000 weapons a month within three years for a potential total order of 250,000 weapons systems, both NGSW-R and NGSAR, over a 10-year period.

That cashes out to $10 million the first year and an estimated $150 million a year for the higher production rate years.

quote:

... and disturbed reticle.

Cripes! Now we must have snowflake or Democrat reticles‽

I hope this eventually means metric shit-tons of cheap blasting ammo on the surplus market.

What the writer forgot to mention was at least a year of contractual protests at each down-select, with the GAO having to get involved...

Otherwise, it should be interesting to watch.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
What the writer forgot to mention was at least a year of contractual protests at each down-select, with the GAO having to get involved...

Hence my use of the word “eventually”.

quote:

...disturbed reticle...

A gyro-interfaced sighting system? And it'll be priced just like the rest of a F-22 Raptor as well?

Uh...great. My wallet's feeling the burn already.

They aren’t going to adopt shit. This comes up all the time and always ends the same. “Nothing that much better than the M4, so not worth spending the money”
Then we’ll get some overly priced space gun on the civilian market that I’ll want but can’t afford. Just so they can get back some of the money they spent developing the rifle for that big juicy government contract.

quote:

Originally posted by limblessbiff:
They aren’t going to adopt shit. This comes up all the time and always ends the same. “Nothing that much better than the M4, so not worth spending the money”

Wouldn't be so sure since their goal is to develop a cartridge that can penetrate the body armor encountered on the modern battlefield. This project has been progressing for several years now. What could kill this project beside cost is the inability to develop a case that's lighter weight compared to brass cased.

Sig will offer the new weapons (with most partsmade in China, India, and Mexico) in rainbow, diamond plate, Legionnaire, Legion, Trebuchet, and will fire only if the operator is wearing their super secret Sig squirrel little orphan Annie safety ring. Holsters made in Israel, optics made in China, and a more efficient California democratic skeleton crew will be inspecting for quality and safety between California mandates breaks. Sorry for the thick slimy layer of sarcasm with regard to Sig.

quote:

For more than a decade, researchers and industry experts have advocated for an intermediate caliber replacement for the 5.56mm round.

"Researchers" and industry experts? I wonder if anybody thought to ask the troops in the field what they think they need?

The cynic in me might think that the reason for the short development time frame is because they've already decided who the winner is going to be and don't want to give the other vendors time to muddy the waters.

I am no firearms historian, but if memory serves, I read an article a loooong time ago that said back when the US was looking for a common round for NATO, in the mid- to late-50s, the Brits said "Hey, this .270 seems to work really well." and the US said "NO WAY!!! Manly rifle calibers start with '30'!!".

Then of course, they changed their minds in the 60s.

There is nothing new under the sun.

The caseless or polymer cased ammo as a weight saving measure strikes me as stupid. Hot cases are an important heat sink to get a lot of excess heat from firing out of the rifle.



There are some existing platforms that could be fielded and accomplish a lot of what they are seeking without spending a shit ton of money.

6mm and 6.5 Grendel already exist.

There are uppers on the market that are not backwards compatible with mil spec forged uppers but that offer a lot more capability with sighting systems, NV and lasers being integrated with a day optic.

The Grendel cases have some issues with bolts being weaker than standard 5.56 bolts due to the size of that case head. Not sure if 6.8 SPC does as well.

It would be a simple matter to use either a 6.8 or 6.5 case, in either 6mm or 6.5mm, and save some weight with something like a Proof Research carbon fiber wrapped barrel. Add a lightweight semi-disposable silencer (because the .mil doesn't give a shit about tax stamps so it doesn't need to be built for a lifetime of service).

13.5 inch 6mm Grendel/SPC with a K can in an upper with some modern design like the Aero M4E1.


There are only so many places you can shave weight before it impacts functionality. Caseless ammunition strikes me as an unnecessarily complicated step that might work fine, eventually, someday in a lab but would really suck in the field.

How durable is the ammo? What if it cracks? What if it doesn't go off, how do you extract it?

When you start adding capability to a rifle like night time use you are necessarily going to add weight and you need some rail space to put that stuff on. NV goggles need IR lights and IR lasers. Both of those things need batteries.

Light weight can be the enemy of capability.

quote:

Originally posted by IndianaBoy:
The caseless or polymer cased ammo as a weight saving measure strikes me as stupid. Hot cases are an important heat sink to get a lot of excess heat from firing out of the rifle.

There are some existing platforms that could be fielded and accomplish a lot of what they are seeking without spending a shit ton of money.

6mm and 6.5 Grendel already exist.

There are uppers on the market that are not backwards compatible with mil spec forged uppers but that offer a lot more capability with sighting systems, NV and lasers being integrated with a day optic.

The Grendel cases have some issues with bolts being weaker than standard 5.56 bolts due to the size of that case head. Not sure if 6.8 SPC does as well.

It would be a simple matter to use either a 6.8 or 6.5 case, in either 6mm or 6.5mm, and save some weight with something like a Proof Research carbon fiber wrapped barrel. Add a lightweight semi-disposable silencer (because the .mil doesn't give a shit about tax stamps so it doesn't need to be built for a lifetime of service).

13.5 inch 6mm Grendel/SPC with a K can in an upper with some modern design like the Aero M4E1.

There are only so many places you can shave weight before it impacts functionality. Caseless ammunition strikes me as an unnecessarily complicated step that might work fine, eventually, someday in a lab but would really suck in the field.

How durable is the ammo? What if it cracks? What if it doesn't go off, how do you extract it?

When you start adding capability to a rifle like night time use you are necessarily going to add weight and you need some rail space to put that stuff on. NV goggles need IR lights and IR lasers. Both of those things need batteries.

Light weight can be the enemy of capability.

They tested the Grendel and 6.8 SPCII last year and ruled both out for whatever reason. Many have speculated this new cartridge will likely be close to a .308 in size. Whether they can get the polymer case to work is the big IF in mind.

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
The cynic in me might think that the reason for the short development time frame is because they've already decided who the winner is going to be and don't want to give the other vendors time to muddy the waters.

No, our senior Army leaders have lost patience with the long lead times required to develop and field new weapon systems. At the pace that technology is advancing in all areas, we can’t afford to spend 8-10 years developing a weapon before the first one is put in Soldiers’ hands.

When I was in Iraq ( was that already 14-15 years ago!?) Army times was hailing the HK xm-8 as our next service rifle. Believe it when I see it. After millions of dollars spent.

quote:

Originally posted by ed308:

quote:

Originally posted by limblessbiff:
They aren’t going to adopt shit. This comes up all the time and always ends the same. “Nothing that much better than the M4, so not worth spending the money”

Wouldn't be so sure since their goal is to develop a cartridge that can penetrate the body armor encountered on the modern battlefield. This project has been progressing for several years now. What could kill this project beside cost is the inability to develop a case that's lighter weight compared to brass cased.

Nah, still bullshit. Remember when 6.8 was all the rage? They were looking at that. This is absolutely nothing new. The sheer cost and logistics to replace is monumental and unless they come up with something that is truly revolutionary and more importantly cheap it isn’t gonna happen.

quote:

Originally posted by limblessbiff:The sheer cost and logistics to replace is monumental and unless they come up with something that is truly revolutionary and more importantly cheap it isn’t gonna happen.

Agreed.

Truth is, we are about at an evolutionary dead end vis a vis small arms.

Something truly revolutionary seems unlikely.

Having said that, whatever comes from this new round of play...I mean, competition might wind up being fielded by various special forces units I suppose. Does seem like they get the neatest toys.