So, while we’re wait­ing around for the XM-​​25 to make it into the armory, why not just strap this bad boy onto your M4 and rip out the 40 mike-​​mike?

Hope you all have a ‘blast’ this weekend…

– Christian

We wrote about this back in March…that indus­try was skep­ti­cal that the Army would seri­ously pur­sue a sub­com­pact rifle for Joes who can’t carry an M4 but need the punch of a rifle in a pis­tol pack­age (truck dri­vers, tankers, pilots, officers).

Well, after talk­ing with Col. Doug Tamilio yes­ter­day about the Wanat report, I came away with the story that the ser­vice seems as least to be pretty enthu­si­as­tic about the weapon and will move for­ward on its development.

You saw the teaser yes­ter­day, so I’ll give you a bit more, but I ask that you read the entire story over at Military​.com.

I’ll post more on my inter­view regard­ing the Wanat report and other top­ics later this morning.

The Army’s pre­lim­i­nary eval­u­a­tion tested a host of weapons in dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios and con­di­tions, their accu­racy at dif­fer­ent ranges and how well Joes could con­trol the small weapons with a big punch while firing. 

“We tested how Soldiers worked with those weapons and what seems to work form, fit and func­tion bet­ter than oth­ers,” Tamilio explained. “We got some great data on that.”

Though Tamilio wouldn’t say who par­tic­i­pated in the eval­u­a­tion, an indus­try source said that about six man­u­fac­tur­ers may have sub­mit­ted weapons for the shoot.

The search for a weapon that deliv­ers a Mike Tyson punch in Sugar Ray Leonard pack­age was included in an Army solic­i­ta­tion last year for a pos­si­ble alter­na­tive to the M-​​4 car­bine. The solic­i­ta­tion left open size, weight, bar­rel length and cal­iber, but many com­pa­nies had already devel­oped so-​​called per­sonal defense weapons, or PDWs, for con­tract secu­rity teams and other covert operators.

“We found out a lot of good things,” Tamilio said of the early sum­mer eval­u­a­tion. “There are a lot of good weapons out there [and] Soldiers can hit accu­rately, hit very well with all of the weapons that were out there.”

“So now it comes down to what are the best parts of all of these?”

Officials with the Army’s sol­dier weapons office said the Army Infantry School is work­ing on final require­ments for the sub­com­pact weapon, and while it may be two years before a Joe com­mand­ing a sup­ply con­voy gets to sling one of these ban­tam bad boys, Army offi­cials are mov­ing with delib­er­ate speed to get the pro­gram in gear.

“We got a lot of great data,” Tamilio added. “So, now as the Infantry School writes the require­ment they’ll be more informed on what they’re look­ing for.“

– Christian

OK, so I see there’s some doubt about my weapons ID skills (Byron.…)…

We also ran a story on this weapon about a year ago.

Allons! so they say…;-)

And oh, yeah, stay tuned to Military​.com tomor­row for a story I’ve got post­ing on the Army’s sub­com­pact weapon search. Here’s a teaser:

Despite ini­tial indus­try sus­pi­cion that the Army would let the effort die a slow death, the ser­vice is mov­ing for­ward with the devel­op­ment of a com­pact weapon that shoots like a rifle but slings like a sub gun.

According to the Army offi­cial in charge of field­ing new weapons for the ser­vice, the search for a so-​​called “sub­com­pact indi­vid­ual weapon sys­tem” is mov­ing ahead in earnest. In May, the Army spon­sored a user eval­u­a­tion where Soldiers put sub­com­pact weapons through their paces to see if the idea would stick.

And at least for the brass run­ning the show, it did.

“I’m excited about the sub­com­pact,” said Col. Doug Tamilio, the Army pro­gram man­ager for Soldier weapons, dur­ing an Oct. 15 inter­view with Military​.com. “There are a lot of Soldiers today who do not need to carry either a car­bine or an M-​​16, but yet a pis­tol may just not be enough.”

– Christian

It’s hard for me to resist, but no, I’m not going to take the bait and riff on the Peace Prize award…

No, no, this is Defense Tech, folks. I wouldn’t pos­si­bly tar­nish the rep­u­ta­tion of this fine blog by wad­ing into pol­i­tics and policy.

Instead, I’m bring­ing you a cool story we got from our friends at Tactical Life about a new machine gun the Army is send­ing over to Afghanistan — a ver­sion of the Navy SEALs’ heavy machine gun, the Mk-​​48.

U.S. Army infantry units are fight­ing in the moun­tains of Afghanistan with a spe­cial oper­a­tions forces machine gun thats 30 per­cent lighter than the stan­dard M240B but still packs the killing power of 7.62mm NATO.

Army weapons offi­cials are field­ing sev­eral hun­dred MK 48 MOD 1 machine guns in an effort to lighten the heavy loads ground forces, espe­cially machine-​​gunners, strug­gle to carry over the coun­trys unfor­giv­ing ter­rain. The MK 48, made by FN Manufacturing LLC, was first adopted by Navy SEAL teams in 2000. The elite com­mando units needed a reli­able 7.62mm machine gun that was light enough to carry on fast-​​moving raids and other spe­cial missions.

Its a great assault gun, said Army Col. Doug Tamilio, the head of Project Manager Soldier Weapons, the com­mand that over­seas Army small arms.

At 18.26 pounds, the MK 48 is about nine pounds lighter than the 27.5-pound M240B. But the 550 MK 48s being fielded are not the begin­ning of a move to replace the Armys beloved M240B, also made by FN Manufacturing, Tamilio said. Its a short-​​term fix until next year when the Army begins field­ing the lighter ver­sion of the M240Bthe M240L.

The MK 48 field­ing is intended to quickly get some­thing in the hands of sol­diers to fight with in the moun­tains of Afghanistan, Tamilio said.

The weapons appear­ance resem­bles the M249 squad auto­matic weapon, also made by FN Manufacturing. It has the same ergonomic fixed poly­mer stock and pis­tol grip. But unlike the 5.56mm M249, the MK 48 is cham­bered for the potent 7.62mm NATO round and is capa­ble of spit­ting them out at a cyclic rate of fire of 720 rounds per minute.

The MK 48, while highly reli­able, wasnt designed to offer the long-​​term dura­bil­ity found in the M240 series machine gun, said Jim Sharp, deputy direc­tor for crew-​​served weapons for FNH USA. The MK 48s receiver will last about 50,000 rounds com­pared to the M240s 100,000-round receiver lifespan.

Tamilio agrees. Its a much lighter gun, both in weight and mate­ri­als, he said, describ­ing how the MK 48s bolt will have to be replaced after about 15,000 rounds while the M240s will last for about 100,000 rounds. Despite its durable rep­u­ta­tion, the M240 is too heavy to carry long dis­tances, espe­cially up and down steep moun­tain trails. In some cases, units have cho­sen to sac­ri­fice fire­power to save weight on multi-​​day foot patrols in Afghanistans Korengal Valley, by leav­ing their M240s at their com­bat out­posts, Army offi­cials maintain. 

Be sure to read the rest of this awe­some story over at Military​.com.

– Christian

Marines and Soldiers carry enough stuff already and wel­come any chance to go lighter.

That even includes lighter ammo — so long as the round remains as effec­tive as what they’re shoot­ing now — and to get there AAI Corp. is test­ing rounds with­out brass cas­ings. One, which promises to be 35 per­cent lighter than the stan­dard 5.56-mm bul­let, has a poly­mer cas­ing. The other, for all intents and pur­poses, does not have a cas­ing — the round is embed­ded in a high-​​temperature igni­tion pro­pel­lant that, when fired, is vaporized.

It was last December the com­pany picked up a three-​​year, $5.8 mil­lion con­tract from the Army’s Joint Service Small Arms Program Office to con­tinue work on its light-​​weight weapon and ammo. Total fund­ing under the con­tract could reach $28 mil­lion, accord­ing to the company.

The con­tact calls for AAI to con­tinue work on its 5.56-mm machine gun and two types of light-​​weight ammo — the cased and case­less rounds the com­pany had on dis­play this week at Modern Day Marine at Quantico.

The goal of the Lightweight Small Arms Technologies pro­gram is to reduce the weight and size of the small arms and ammo used by Marines and Soldiers.

“We’ve got a polymer-​​cased ammu­ni­tion,” said David A. Phillips, vice pres­i­dent for Business Development and Advanced Systems at AAI. “It has a tele­scoped con­fig­u­ra­tion and uses the same ball pro­pel­lant as the stan­dard 5.56-mm round.”

The com­pany is work­ing specif­i­cally on 5.56-caliber, he said, but has been asked by the Marine Corps and the Army to work every­thing scal­able to be 5.56– and the 7.62-caliber used by NATO.

The 5.56 round on dis­play con­sti­tuted about a 35 per­cent weight reduc­tion from the stan­dard brass-​​cased round, he said. The case­less round is about 50 per­cent lighter than the stan­dard round, he said.

According to another of the AAI offi­cials tak­ing part at Modern Day Marine, Marines who stop by and learn they might even­tu­ally be tot­ing ammo that’s up to 50 per­cent lighter than what they use now have a typ­i­cal response.

“Hey, now I can carry more ammo.”

- Bryant Jordan

An alert DT reader spot­ted this pic of 3rd Btln. 10th Special Forces Group Soldiers train­ing before their deploy­ment at a range in Fort Carson, Colo.

Check out the rifle in this guy’s hand…Mk-16…

Also, the funny thing is that the rest of the pic­tures show SF oper­a­tors weild­ing M4s in var­i­ous mod­i­fi­ca­tions. Wonder what you have to do to be the guy that gets the SCAR?

(Gouge: MP)

– Christian

An alert reader sent me a link to some footage of a DEA team in Afghanistan wear­ing some of the Gucciest high-​​speed gear I’ve ever seen in open sources.

But our friend noticed a shot with an oper­a­tor fir­ing some ver­sion of the SCAR. Now, I can’t tell if its the Mk-​​16 or Mk-​​17 (though I think it’s a 7.62mm 17) but it’s for sure a SCAR. The weird thing is that the uni­form is dif­fer­ent from the other DEA agents. They’re all wear­ing MultiCam and the SCAR shooter is wear­ing what looks to me like either the Marine Corps issued com­bat shirt in desert dig­i­tal MARPAT, or the after­mar­ket BlackHawk! shirt that’s part of the HPFU. Or maybe the guy’s a spe­cial oper­a­tor that’s attached to the DEA unit.

Anyway, check out the video your­self and do some IMINT for us.

(Gouge: PC)

– Christian

The lat­est SCAR field­ing num­bers are in…

My source declined to spec­ify which units are receiv­ing them now, but based on the math and time­line, it looks like Army Special Forces and the bal­ance of SEALs are get­ting theirs soon (and Marines)…SEE PREVIOUS STORY

My source said there are two “units” yet to receive their SCARs, but that so far nine units have received about 500 Mk-​​16 (5.56mm) ver­sions have been fielded, 350 Mk-​​17 (7.62mm) ver­sions have been fielded and 165 Mk-​​13s (the 40mm grenade launcher).

Fielding began in April and will end by the end of November, my source says. He also said that a bunch of acces­sory bar­rels, grips and sup­pres­sors have been included in the field­ing as well.

About 1,400 SCARs of var­i­ous cal­ibers are set to be fielded to spe­cial oper­a­tors through this year.

– Christian