#Replacement

In the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, top Army officers talked about their plans to modernize the force, and, as part of that, replace both the M249 SAW and the M4 Carbine, the latter of which has been in service since the early 1990s. The replacement effort is called the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW), formerly referred to as the Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR), and will involve an industry competition to select the weapon that best meets the Army’s requirements for the future. In his testimony, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8 Lt. General John G. Murray, spoke about the NGSW:

In the comments section of my recent Brief Thoughts article regarding caseless ammunition, there was a discussion about whether the cookoff issues of caseless would also be problem for LSAT-style polymer cased telescoped ammunition. Based on conversations I have had with subject matter experts regarding polymer cased ammunition in general, I noted that a lower cookoff threshold is one of the challenges I would expect CT ammunition developers to face. However, after some back-and-forth in the comments, I decided to contact LSAT/CTSAS program officer Kori Phillips regarding this issue (as it was not something I covered in my three-part interview with her), and she kindly agreed to allow her comments on the matter to be published here on TFB. They are below:

Caseless: The ammunition designer’s holy grail, and the engineer’s worst nightmare. It would obsolete the cartridge case overnight, resulting in cheaper, lighter, and more compact ammunition. Weapons would be able to carry 50, 60, or more rounds in slim, inexpensive magazines, and expel them at a rate of fire much higher than current weapons are capable of – not only because the ammunition is lighter and therefore more could be carried to feed such thirsty guns, but because the extraction and ejection cycles of the weapons themselves could be eliminated.

We have already seen the 6.5mm CT Carbine prototype brought out by Textron for the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, but TFB also got an up close and personal look at Textron’s cased telescoped machine guns. Textron has two different cased telescoped belt fed weapons in testing right now: A 5.56mm CT light machine gun, and a 7.62mm CT medium or general purpose machine gun.

The HK433 family is going full power, Heckler & Koch told TFB at the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting. When speaking to representatives of the company about their new rifle which was being shown off in the USA for the first time, I asked the question (expecting a sly wink and a “we can’t tell you that” as a response): “Will the HK433 family be available in 7.62mm NATO?” Much to my surprise, the answer was “yes, we are working on that now.” Beyond that, the representatives would not comment any further.

At the 2017 Association of the US Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting, Textron System displayed for the very first time their firing 6.5mm CT Carbine prototype. Previously, only non-firing mockups had been shown to the public, but after successful tests this summer the real thing was brought out to show at the conference, where TFB got its first look at the weapon.

The G36’s replacement is now known to be one of five guns – or at least that’s the report coming from reputable defense outlet IHS Jane’s. Competing in Germany’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (Bundeswehr Assault Rifle System) will be the Rheinmetall RS556, Heckler & Koch HK433, Haenel Defence MK556, SIG MCX, and FNH SCAR. For four contestants, no known 7.62mm variants exist; only the FN SCAR has a 7.62mm variant – the SCAR-H – that is known publicly. This means the Bundeswehr will likely not be going back to .30 caliber infantry rifles any time soon.

The Indian Army has released an RFI that is requesting interested companies to submit a proposal for 1500 Anti-Material Rifles (AMR as per Indian Army). The rifles must be in a 12.7mm caliber (x108mm or .50 BMG wasn’t specified) and must weigh lighter than the Army’s current Denel NTW-20 in 20mm/14.5mm. They must be capable of accurately engaging targets out to 1800 meters using “armour piercing incendiary, tracer rounds, sabot light armor penetrator, armor piercing explosive incendiary and high explosive armor piercing incendiary ammunition. In addition, the rifles cannot weigh more than 15 kilograms (33 lb) for a combined weight (we assume this is fully loaded).

Not long after SHOT Show, I got the chance to interview Mrs. Kori Phillips, former program officer for the Army’s Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) program, and current program officer for the Cased Telescoped Small Arms Systems (CTSAS) program. We talked at length about both programs, the technology they developed, and the state of lightweight ammunition today. The interview, which spans fifty-five questions, will be broken up into three sections, each covering questions about different aspects of the program, to be published monthly once each in March, April, and May-wait, hold on,

Not long after SHOT Show, I got the chance to interview Mrs. Kori Phillips, former program officer for the Army’s Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) program, and current program officer for the Cased Telescoped Small Arms Systems (CTSAS) program. We talked at length about both programs, the technology they developed, and the state of lightweight ammunition today. The interview, which spans fifty-five questions, will be broken up into three sections, each covering questions about different aspects of the program, to be published monthly once each in March, April, and May-wait, hold on,

Not long after SHOT Show, I got the chance to interview Mrs. Kori Phillips, former program officer for the Army’s Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) program, and current program officer for the Cased Telescoped Small Arms Systems (CTSAS) program. We talked at length about both programs, the technology they developed, and the state of lightweight ammunition today. The interview, which spans fifty-five questions, will be broken up into three sections, each covering questions about different aspects of the program, to be published monthly once each in March, April, and May. This first installment deals primarily with the history of the LSAT and subsequent CTSAS programs, with a little bit of the ammunition technology thrown in.

Strike Industries is in the works with a design to replace existing MP5 receivers, with a design that essentially revamps the existing H&K MP5 in Military and Law Enforcement armories all over the world. For right now it is in the prototype stages, but Strike is very keen on sharing their progress with the world, keeping the rest of us updated on the design process. What they have so far is an injection molded version that shows the industry the direction Strike is headed. Changing from existing MP5s to the Strike design would involve removing the bolt, and changing out the trunnion with barrel into the Strike receiver. All of this work can be done by a Police armorer, and won’t require the submachine guns being sent in to be revamped. The old trigger group is fitted into the receiver. Once completed, the receiver will be aluminum.

SIG has issued a press release that outlines an issue with the MCX rifles. They claim that the issue has only been seen in the .300 Blackout versions, but is extended to ALL MCX RIFLES with serial numbers between 63C000044 and 63C003702. Any MCX with a serial ending in 25000 or higher is exempt from this recall.

Sabrewerks has been making a very indigenous optics mount that replaces the Kalashnikov factory rear sight blocks. The initial unit requires some gunsmithing or least knowledge of complete Kalashnikov disassembly (removing the OEM rear sight block). Once this is removed, you now have a system on which to insert a variety of optic platforms made by Sabrewerks onto the mount. These are held in place by a very snug dovetails on the base mount, in addition to a cross pin that doubles as a gas tube retaining pin (previous retaining pin is removed with the old rear sight block). The company makes a mount for just about any optic you want to throw on the rifle, and I’m sure if you have an older scope, they’ll be able to do a custom fit for it. Every mount they make has an integrated non adjustable rear sight within it, so if the scope goes down, there will always be a back up rear sight, without the need to affix an aftermarket rear sight. Of course, this does take away the ability to co-witness a rear sight (However, some of their reflex optic mounts do allow for a co-witness). In addition, an important point about their system is that it allows removal of the top cover for disassembly without needing to take off the optics mount first.

The French next generation rifle competition is coming to an end, the two finalists, one from Belgium and the other from Germany, and the incumbent is set for replacement over the next few years. Before either the SCAR or the HK416 are inducted as the new arm of France, let’s take a look at the last French-designed standard rifle to serve in that capacity, the innovative and distinctive FAMAS. Fortunately for us, Ian of Forgotten Weapons has done just that, with a half-hour long video on the rare imported civilian version, the MAS 223: