Bron: TheFirearmBlog
It has been a while since we had news from the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program, the last updates we got were on the final prototype and ammunition deliveries being made for the next stage of the Army’s evaluations. Now some interesting news regarding General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems’ bullpup entry the RM277-R and RM227-AR. A new company, LoneStar Future Weapons will be taking the lead on the post-development phase of the weapon.
What does this mean? Well it seems, from the statement released via LoneStar and True Velocity, that the new company, established several months ago, will leverage the skills from the precession engineering sector. Composite-cased ammunition manufacturer True Velocity will continue to lead the ammunition side of the NGSW submission.
Reading between the lines and extrapolating from the press release it would seem that the technical data package for the RM277 has been transferred to LoneStar Future Weapons. This is supported by a ‘Patents‘ page on LoneStar’s website listing half a dozen designs, patented by GD-OTS. Intriguingly, these also include some linked the GD-OTS’ Lightweight Medium Machine Gun design.
Elsewhere it is noted that LoneStar and GD-OTS have “executed their Next Generation Squad Weapons post development phase strategy aimed at giving the best overall system to the warfighter with a strong next generation focus going forward throughput the life cycle.” LoneStar Future Weapons is described as a Texas-based company specialising in advanced technology with a focus on the manufacture of next-generation defense solutions.
As yet there is no word from General Dynamics, who stated they could not comment on an ongoing open competition, or from Beretta who were previously linked with the GD-OTS led project as “providing Research & Development support and future high-volume manufacturing capabilities.”