#OrbitalATK

Orbital ATK and Heckler & Koch have reached a settlement in their lawsuit which saw ATK sue the German firearms giant for $27 million. The case was filed in early 2017, with ATK demanding compensation for the failure of Heckler & Koch to deliver 20 XM25 prototypes. The two companies had worked together on the US Army’s XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement (CDTE) System. ATK had developed the weapon’s ammunition, optics, and fire control system, while Heckler & Koch designed the weapon. The Army subsequently cancelled the contract with Orbital ATK in April 2017.

The Orbital ATK MK44 30mm BUSHMASTER II fired from Kongsberg MCT-30 turret on GDLS LAV

In the latest twist of events to do with the 25mm XM25 “Punisher”, it appears the program is coming to a grinding halt after Military.com recently reported that the U.S. Army has completely canceled the program with Orbital ATK after almost two decades of development work. On top of numerous bureaucratic delays and issues that we’ve covered in an earlier post, the program was suffering from the delay of H&K’s delivery of 20 XM25s to ATK, of which the company sued H&K earlier for over 27 million dollars. Because H&K didn’t or couldn’t deliver the product to ATK, the U.S. Government canceled the procurement program completely about a month ago, with the news just surfacing now. Negotiations ensued between the government and ATK but these apparently could not yield an acceptable replacement in time or to satisfy operational requirements.

When dealing with conventional automatic or semiautomatic man portable firearms, a failure to fire usually results in one having to manually clear the misfired round and chamber a new one.  What if there were a firearm that would automatically eject the misfired round and chamber a new round with another pull of the trigger (or in full auto by just keeping the trigger depressed), with enhanced reliability and higher mean rounds between failure than conventional firearms?  What if this same firearm also vented almost all gases forward for suppressed use in a semiautomatic or automatic format?  What if this same firearm also offered a programmable/variable rate of fire, a shorter receiver length than conventional arms, and is capable of forward ejection for ambidextrous use?  The technology exists.  Chain guns (the term “Chain Gun” is a registered trademark of Orbital ATK)  offer this capability.