November 7, 2023 | International, Land
Rheinmetall Defence Australia seeks industry partners for Royal Australian Navy’s Multi Ammunition Softkill System (MASS)
Following extensive trials, MASS was selected on account of its unique capabilities.
January 14, 2019 | International, Land
Here’s when the Army will pick three companies to build the M16/M4 and SAW replacements for soldiers and Marines
By: Todd South
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.
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May 19, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Air Force’s Roper: 3D Printing ‘Going Like Gangbusters’
"I've been so passionate about bringing in additive manufacturing, and small batch digital manufacturing, to help on aircraft parts availability," Air Force acquisition head Will Roper says. By THERESA HITCHENSon May 15, 2020 at 12:54 PM WASHINGTON: The Air and Space Forces are speeding efforts to adopt 3D printing as a major pillar of force sustainment, now making critical spare parts for weapon systems such as engine components for fighters and rockets. “Additive and advanced manufacturing [has] been going like gangbusters across the Air Force and Space Force — printing thousands of parts for airplanes,” Air Force acquisition head Will Roper said yesterday. “We're starting to print parts for satellites, including propulsion.” And today, the Air Force Rapid Sustainability Office (RSO) announced that it had reached a first milestone in its collaboration with General Electric to 3D print metal engine parts for aircraft — printing a metal sump pump for F-110 engines used by both F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. According to the announcement, the next phase of the program — Phase 1B , now being planned — will involve a family of parts on the TF34 engine, which has been in service for more than 40 years. “The collaborative effort between the US Air Force and GE shows great promise toward the adoption of metal 3D printed parts as an option to solve the US Air Force's current and future sustainment challenges,” Col. Benjamin Boehm, director of propulsion at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) said in a press release. “This capability provides an alternate method to source parts for legacy propulsion systems throughout their life cycle, especially when faced with a diminishing supplier base or when infrequent demands or low volume orders are not attractive to traditional manufacturers.” GE originally approached the Air Force with the idea of a collaboration on 3D printed parts in 2019, and in April this year the service brought in the Defense Logistics Agency to help certify the GE-made parts for airworthiness. ALCMC, as we reported way back in September at the Air Force Association shindig, has also been pushing to get its depots around the country certified to print their own spare parts, beginning with those not critical to life and death. Air Force leaders see additive manufacturing as key to resolving the service's serious problems in maintaining aging aircraft and infrastructure and lowering costs. That said, the new 3D sump pump cover is an important piece of the engine. “Compared to other parts on the F110 engine, the sump cover might have lower functionality, but is incredibly important. It needs to be durable, form a seal and it needs to work for the entire engine to function – which is of course critical on a single engine aircraft like the F-16,” said James Bonar, engineering manager at GE Additive. The RSO-GE program is using a spiral development model, increasing the complexity and scale of parts printing with each phase. “In this program, complexity involves moving from simpler part identification, progressing to part and family of parts consolidation and eventually tackling complex components and systems, such as common core heat exchangers,” the press release said. Roper told reporters yesterday in a Zoom briefing that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, RSO has transformed its planned Advanced Manufacturing Olympics, originally planned to coincide with the now-postponed Tokyo Summer Olympics in late July, to a virtual event to be held November. It will allow 3D printing companies to show off their wares to potential service customers via a number of challenges, including a “printer shoot-off” and a “Box of Parts” challenge where manufacturers will compete to create a drone part without a blueprint. “We have been growing our network of small batch makers across the Air Force and Space Force,” Roper said. “I've been so passionate about bringing in additive manufacturing, and small batch digital manufacturing, to help on aircraft parts availability.” The COVID-19 crises has proven the “additive” value of tapping into a network of small manufacturers as the Air Force has scrambled to obtain personal protective equipment for airmen at far-flung bases, he explained. Because many large producers of items like face masks are overwhelmed, the service set up the “Air Force Rapid Advanced Manufacturing Portal,” or “AFRAMP,” as a method of finding and vetting small producers to meet service needs. “It's a portal where small batch manufacturers can make their capabilities known — show what they're able to produce — we vet them, and that then allows these small companies in aggregate to add up to large batch manufacturing,” Roper said. “We've already delivered over 11,000, different PPE devices to seven air bases that wouldn't have otherwise been able to get access for personal protective gear.” His hope is to expand that portal to other types of advanced manufacturing in the future. “I'm excited about scaling it up beyond just personal protective gear, and really having it be a one-stop-shop in the government for companies that can make things in small quantity — that can't mass produce, but can produce in mass if they're added up with a lot of their other sister companies.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/air-forces-roper-3d-printing-going-like-gangbusters/
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June 23, 2022 | International, Aerospace
Près de 5 G$ pour moderniser le NORAD : la part de la base de Bagotville connue plus tard
Ottawa va investir 4,9 milliards sur six ans pour moderniser et augmenter les capacités de défense du NORAD.