Looks like Sig is batting 1.000 for first round failures for big contracts

[pscipio03]

https://www.armytimes.com/opinion/co...apons-program/

[MCPO_SOCM_RET]

They know the game.
Look at the M17 & M18 (aka P320). Lost that first bid too.
This is what you asked for...this is what we think it should be (and under budget).

"Starting from a highly dubious intellectual, strategic and tactical baseline, the NGSW program is now failing mechanically and ballistically at once. Army came out hard with the program’s aims and expectations, unreasonably so, practically declaring a War on Physics from the outset."

[10x25mm]

This post at Military.com suggests that there are unforeseen problems with the 6.8mm weapons:

Army to Test Out its New Guns in Extreme Environments

This kind of testing is usually competed and evaluated well before deployment.

[10x25mm]

This post at National Defense indicates the Army adopted the 6.8mm weapons before they completed basic acceptance testing!

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine....w-squad-weapon

Army to Receive Test Package for New Squad Weapon
By Scott R. Gourley - 20 March 2023

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The Army will soon receive the “drop one” production qualification test package for its 6.8mm Next Generation Squad Weapons. The package, which will be delivered beginning in April, will include both XM7 battle rifles and XM250 light machine guns as well as associated logistics.

The test package includes nearly four dozen rifles, approximately 30 light machine guns, suppressors, both linked and unlinked ammunition, blank kits, blank ammunition, tool kits, repair parts and spare parts, Jason St. John, senior director of government products at manufacturer Sig Sauer, said on the sidelines of the SHOT Show in Las Vegas.

The ammunition will be delivered from a Sig Sauer facility in Jacksonville, Arkansas, and the firearms from its Newington, New Hampshire, factory, he said.

The upcoming deliveries reflect the third “bundle” of Next Generation Squad Weapons and equipment submitted by Sig Sauer. The first batch of weapons, called prototype activity one, was delivered in May 2020 as one of three contractor team submissions that allowed the Army to refine its test protocols for the program. A second submission occurred in January 2021, with those guns undergoing extensive Army testing and soldier touchpoints through the summer of 2021. Following that testing, industry proposals were submitted in October 2021, with the contract award going to Sig Sauer in April 2022.

“If you look at it from a very holistic approach, the upcoming [production qualification test] will allow the Army to look at things like reliability, durability, dispersion and fumes from the suppressor,” St. John said. “They will give us our ratings, but regardless of those ratings, we are going to continue to evolve and improve on all areas of the weapons and the ammunition. The machine never stops and waits for feedback. We are constantly looking at all of those issues ourselves.”

The Army and company representatives will test the weapons together at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

“They tell us what they’re seeing. We tell them what we’re seeing. So now the development process can accelerate,” St. John said.

Another recent change to the program involves the redesignation of the XM7 battle rifle. Formerly designated XM5, the Army subsequently discovered that the initial designation was already used by Colt Industries for one of its 5.56mm carbines.

[j-squared]

I love this line from the article

Given the platform is a piston-driven rifle it now lacks gas, as the M-16 was originally designed, to blow away debris from the eject port.

Aren't the M1 Garand, M1A, M1 Carbine, and AK47 all piston driven? Sure, they are all probably a bit more enclosed, but it seems the author is dissing piston driven rifles as malum ab initio.

[pscipio03]

I love this line from the article


Aren't the M1 Garand, M1A, M1 Carbine, and AK47 all piston driven? Sure, they are all probably a bit more enclosed, but it seems the author is dissing piston driven rifles as malum ab initio.

I took it to mean they don't understand how the system works. There is going to be a give and take with all the changes. In this case, maybe not as reliable when smothered in mud and caked on the bolt carrier, but will run longer between cleanings since pistons don't crap where they eat. Maybe a tad heavier, but tuned to run with a suppressor. And so on.
Where the author should have stayed true to was the fact that the US Army's procurement methodology is a Byzantine labyrinth mired in kickbacks, decisions that move at glacial speeds, and esoteric testing criteria that maybe 5 people completely understand.
I can remember qualifying on the M9 back in 1997 and having no idea why the sequence of firing always had us using half filled mags, and doing unnecessary mags changes when we could have just loaded 3 mags and completed everything. Wasn't until later on I found out that it was because we still used the 1911 qual scenarios, so nothing was above 7 rounds. So 12 years AFTER we had switched to the M9 Beretta, we were still using 1911 criteria. That, and examples such as that, should be the biggest 'WTF' of the article.