Army's Once 'Unachievable' Squad Weapon of the Future Is Revealed
The future of military weaponry is coming closer, as the U.S. Army recently unveiled designs for what it has dubbed its Next Generation Squad Weapons system.
The new weapons system to be chosen from three companies’ competing designs “combines the firepower and range of a machine gun with the precision and ergonomics of a rifle, yielding significant capability improvements in accuracy, range, signature management and lethality,” according to an Army statement.
The new rifle and automatic rifle is supposed to be phased in by 2022, the Army has said.
“This is a weapon that could defeat any body armor, any planned body armor that we know of in the future,” former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has said, according to Army Times.
“This is a weapon that can go out at ranges that are unknown today. There is a target acquisition system built into this thing that is unlike anything that exists today. This is a very sophisticated weapon,” he said.
The goal of the rifles is to be able to kill from 600 meters away, almost double the range of the current weapons system in use.
Prototypes for the automatic and traditional rifles were recently displayed at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting.
Sig Sauer, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, and Textron Systems are competing to replace the 5.56mm M4A1 carbine and the M249 squad automatic weapon with 6.8mm rifles, The Washington Times reported.
“A lot of progress has been achieved just in the last 12 months,” Brig. Gen. Dave Hodne, director of the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team and chief of infantry at the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia, told the Army conference,
“In fact, there were some aspects of last year’s AUSA where some would say what we are pursuing was unachievable, and I would tell you those impossibilities are on the floor here today,” he said.
Sig Sauer, which makes the M4, has produced a prototype that looks much like the gun it would replace.
“It’s what soldiers know; the innovation can be … inside. That’s what allows you to advance the weapon system, but soldiers … are used to training with an M4-style weapon system,” Paul Snyder, Sig Sauer’s product manager for belt-fed systems, said, according to Military.com.
Textron’s entry uses a plastic case for the round to reduce weight, Wayne Prender, the company’s senior vice president for applied technologies and advanced programs, said.
Kevin Sims, senior director of business development at General Dynamics, said his company went with an even more innovative approach known as a bullpup design, which puts the magazine behind the trigger and pistol grip.
“The reason we ended up with a bullpup is because, when they are talking about all the stuff we are not supposed to talk about — the velocities … the effects downrange that are going to be required to push the projectiles — we came back and said, ‘What do we need?’ We need barrel length,” he said.
Innovation also comes in how the guns are produced, Sims said.
“They 3D print these things, with multiple materials too, so there aren’t … welds,” Sims told Task & Purpose. “There aren’t open spaces and cavities for gas to leak — this is a highly efficient suppressor, and it’s very lightweight.”
The result is a gun that can be very deadly.
“We are going between 500 and 750 shots per minute on the AR and will make a determination on which one hits the sweet spot,” Sims said.
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