The Dutch Army is looking to supplement its current shotgun inventory with a fresh tender for nearly 300 weapons. On the 18th August, the Netherlands Ministry of Defence (Ministerie van Defensie) announced a tender for the supply of 12 gauge combat shotguns.

The requirement is seeking 284 pump action, 12 gauge shotguns along with ‘spare parts, training and documentation’. Interested vendors and manufacturers have until the 20th September to respond to the tender. The Dutch Army will then select candidates by the 25th October. The official tender notes that the primary award criteria for the 284 new shotguns will be price.

Elements of the Dutch Army, along with the specialist Korps Commando troepen (KCT) special forces unit, the 11th Airborne Brigade (11 Luchtmobiele Brigade) and the Marine Corps (Korps Mariniers) are currently equipped with the Mossberg M590A1 pump action shotgun. The Dutch Ministry of Defence’s website notes that two variants of the M590 are currently in service, a short breaching variant and the longer stocked shotgun.

A Dutch soldier reloads his M590A1 (Netherlands Ministry of Defence)

As can be seen in the photograph above the Dutch military’s M590s, which are also used by elements of the US military, are characteristically painted in a light tan or flat dark earth colour (rather than standard parkerized black) with a black picatinny railed pump handle and a black telescoping six position adjustable butt stock, sights and safety.

The Mossberg M590A1s currently in service have a 20 inch (50.8 cm) barrel, a ghost ring rear aperture sight, a 7 or 8 shell magazine capacity, a thick profile heavy walled barrel and weigh just over 7.5 lbs (or 3.4 kg). The Dutch deploy the shotguns with standard shot, tear gas and breaching rounds. The Netherlands military have been using the Mossberg M590A1 since at least 2010, for using in breaching operations and in close quarter combat situations.

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