#NextGenerationSquadWeapons

On 19 April the US Army announced the selection of SIG Sauer’s entries into the Next Generation Squad Weapons program. Despite an official announcement and a media event to unveil the weapons to the press, details on weight, loadout and capabilities have been scarce.

The US Army’s ongoing Next Generation Squad Weapon program has spawned capable designs from three companies. While the NGSW program has not yet selected a winner it was inevitable that the companies would begin to offer their weapons to other nations seeking to upgrade their infantry small arms. It appears that the first may be the NGSW prototypes from SIG Sauer.

True Velocity have made a very interesting announcement about their 6.8 TVCM ammunition which was originally developed for the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program. True Velocity have successfully chambered several 7.62x51mm chambered weapon systems in the new 6.8mm TVCM round.

Much digital ink has been spilled over the last several years regarding the US Army’s NGSW ( Next Generation Squad Weapons) Program. Most of the rifles/carbines and machine guns currently employed by America’s soldiers are not particularly modern, by any stretch. Today’s M4A1 has seen some notable updates and improvements, to be sure, but at its core it’s still based on the same M16 that first entered service in the Vietnam era, more than half a century ago. The 5.56×45mm NATO round it uses has come under fire from time to time, for being perhaps a bit too anemic for its purpose. This same cartridge is used by the belt-fed M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), which was designed in the ’70s and has been in service since 1984. Though some update attempts have been explored since then, none came to fruition.

A visit by Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, to Textron Systems’ Hunt Valley facility near Baltimore, MD gave us some fresh photographs of Textron’s new Next Generation Squad Weapon program prototypes. We have two photos, one of a Textron employee discussing the program while holding Textron’s NGSW-Rifle prototype and another showing both the NGSW-R and NGSW-Automatic Rifle prototypes.

Last week the US Army announced it had down selected three companies to supply prototypes for their Next Generation Squad Weapon program – to provide the Army’s next rifle (NGSW-R) and squad automatic weapon or automatic rifle (NGSW-AR). They have released the first photographs of the SIG NGSW prototype, with a box magazine fed rifle, with a side-folding stock and a belt-fed automatic rifle with an interesting quick detatchment feed attachment system. The SIG Sauer will now compete against weapons submitted by General Dynamics and AAI/Textron Systems.

NATO’s “Powered Rail Team”, consisting of 11 nations working on the common goal of bringing forward a STANAG (NATO standardization document) for a Powered Accessory Rail for small firearms, is starting to pay off.

With the launch of a new draft Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) PON a couple of weeks ago, I suggested this might be a reboot of the Army’s flagship small arms programme. The Army has now responded to that suggestion.