July 15, 2019 | International, Other Defence
By Matthew Cox
Heckler & Koch Defense Inc. will soon begin delivering thousands of 7.62mm squad-designated marksman rifles to the Army to give infantry and other close-combat units a better chance of penetrating enemy body armor.
H&K will deliver "between 5,000 and 6,000" variants of the G28 rifle, which the Army plans to issue as its new squad designated marksman rifle (SDMR), according to a July 12 H&K news release.
Under the agreement, the rifles will be manufactured by H&K in Oberndorf, Germany, and will begin to arrive in the H&K-USA facility in Columbus, Georgia, early next year, according to the release. Once there, H&K-USA workers will install scopes and mounts purchased by the Army under a separate agreement.
"This is a significant achievement for Heckler & Koch," H&K-USA's chief operating officer, Michael Holley, said in the release. "The HK SDMR system will add much-needed capabilities to virtually every squad in the Army. We are honored by this opportunity."
The new SDMRs are part of an interim effort to make squads more lethal ahead of the Army's fielding of the Next-Generation Squad Weapon system sometime in 2022, service officials have said.
In May 2017, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Senate Armed Services Committee members that the service's current M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round will not defeat enemy body armor plates similar to the U.S. military-issue rifle plates such as the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert, or ESAPI.
As a short-term fix, the Army selected the G28 as its M110A1 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System in 2016, to be used with the service's new 7.62mm enhanced performance round to give squads more penetrating power.
In the past, the Army relied on the Enhanced Battle Rifle, or EBR, 14 -- a modernized M14 equipped with an adjustable aluminum stock with pistol grip, scope and bipod legs -- to fill the growing need by infantry squads operating in Afghanistan to engage enemy fighters at longer ranges.
But the EBR is heavy, weighing just under 15 pounds unloaded. The M110A1 weighs about 11 pounds.
In the long term, the Army is working with gunmakers to develop the new Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) that is slated to fire a special, government-produced 6.8mm projectile that promises higher velocities at greater ranges, service officials say.
The program is being designed to produce an automatic rifle version to replace the M249 squad automatic weapon and a carbine version to replace the M4 carbine.
Army officials said recently that they expect to begin receiving prototypes of the NGSW in July and August and that the weapon could be fielded to units beginning in late fiscal 2020.
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By Gina Harkins Some of the Navy's ships could stay in service well beyond their scheduled lifespan as leaders look for ways to modernize existing vessels as part of a decades-long fleet buildup. Navy leaders want to have 355 ships by 2030, but that doesn't mean that all of them will come new. Officials are studying ways to salvage some of the service's aging vessels as part of that plus-up -- and that doesn't come without challenges. "[Operating] as an away-game Navy is very expensive, and this requires us to look at the lifespan of everything we own," Vice Adm. William Merz, deputy chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Systems, said Wednesday at conference hosted by Defense News. Navy leaders plan to detail the kinds of capabilities they'll need in a 355-ship fleet in an extensive report expected to be released next year. Part of that process, Merz said, will include taking a look at what ships will still be relevant in a future fight. That's an important factor in determining how much money to invest in refurbishing ships that have already been in service for decades. The Navy recently decided to extend the lives of some cruisers and destroyers, he said, because they're so effective. Full article: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/09/05/355-ship-navy-will-mean-extending-vessels-past-planned-lifespans-admiral.html