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March 09, 2005
Army seeks to replace its lightest machine gun
XM-8 testing suspended pending contractor competition
By Matthew Cox
Times staff writer
The Army wants arms makers to come up with replacements for virtually all of its infantry weapons.
The Army will hold an open competition among arms makers to select a replacement for its M-16 rifles, M-4 carbines and M-249 squad automatic weapons.
The March 4 pre-solicitation notice, posted on the Internet, means the Army’s XM-8 program will have to prove it can outperform the rest of the small-arms industry before soldiers carry it into battle.
“We have halted testing to let the competition be completed,” said Col. Michael Smith, who runs Project Manager Soldier Weapons, the Army office that has been developing the XM-8.
Smith said the decision was made to hold off on operational tests slated for October because it’s unclear if XM-8’s maker, Heckler & Koch, will emerge the winner.
“It may not be XM-8 … our bottom line is we want the best weapon for the soldier. If someone has a better weapon than the XM-8, I’m ready to support them 100 percent.”
Smith’s office has been working on the XM-8 prototype as an unopposed replacement for the M-16 since late 2003. It was part of a longer-range effort to perfect an over-and-under style weapon, known as the Objective Individual Combat Weapon or XM-29, developed by Alliant Techsystems and Heckler & Koch.
The XM-29 fires special air-bursting projectiles and standard 5.56mm ammunition. But at 18 pounds, it’s still too heavy to meet requirements, so Army planners decided to perfect each of XM-29’s components separately, allowing soldiers to take advantage of new technology sooner.
The XM-8 is one of those components. It features a compact model for close quarters, a standard carbine and a designated marksman/squad automatic rifle model with a longer, heavier barrel and bipod legs for stability.
The March 4 “Pre-solicitation Notice for the Objective Individual Combat Weapon Increment I family of weapons,” invites small-arms makers to try and meet an Army requirement for a “non-developmental family of weapons that are capable of firing U.S. standard M855 and M856” 5.56mm ammunition.
The OICW Increment I is intended to replace current weapon systems, including the M-4, M-16 and selected M-9 pistols for the active Army, the notice states.
In addition, to the carbine, compact, designated marksman models, the Army wants the family of weapons to include a light machine-gun model that would replace the M-249 SAW.
Currently, each infantry squad contains two SAWs that serve as light support weapons because of its 5.56mm ammunition and high-rate of fire.
The Infantry Center, which is the proponent for small arms for the Army, maintains that the SAW, while very popular with soldiers, has been in service since the early 1980s and is beginning to wear out.
“A lot of our SAWs are 20 years old,” said Maj. Glen Dean, the chief of small arms at the Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga. SAWs are rebuilt, he said, but often not fast enough to keep up with everyday wear and tear under combat conditions.
“You see soldiers carrying SAWs held together with the zip ties.”
A formal Request for Proposal is slated to be issued “on or about” March 23, the notice states.
Interested companies will be required to submit four of each type of the four different variants by late spring.
Submissions will be put through a series of tests, including live-fire exercises, to see if they meet the requirement.
The winning company will be awarded a low-rate initial production contract to produce up to 4,900 weapons systems and could receive a full-rate production contract to make more than 134,000 weapons systems, the notice states. Read more about the XM-8, and see videos of it in action.
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ראשי
צ'אט
11-03-2005, 22:40
OICW בעד או נגד - מה דעתכם ?
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