US Army developing next generation small arms including Squad Automatic Rifle capable of accurately defeating current and future threats

The U.S. Army is currently evaluating a new small arms systems that could give their warfighters a serious edge, including squad weapon and sniper rifle. The Army is rolling along on multiple fronts in the small arms department, ranging from area weapons to those with a little more precision- to put it lightly.

 

One of the reasons, according to Norman, is the Pentagon’s current shift from the close quarters of urban warfare in Iraq and Syria to the mountains and open terrain of Afghanistan. While the carbine may be well-suited for a knock-down, drag-out brawl while moving house to house in cities like Mosul and Raqqa, it lacks the range to take out Taliban and ISIS fighters in open stretches.

 

Second is shift in posture from counterterrorism operations to near peer adversaries. “For the past 10 or 15 years, we’ve been really focused on the requirement of lethal effects against unprotected targets,” Norman said. “Now we’re looking at near-peer threats like Russia and others. We need to have lethal effects against protected targets and we need to have requirements for long-range lethality in places like Afghanistan, where you’re fighting from mountaintop to mountaintop over extended ranges.”

 

At Fort Carson, Colorado, eight snipers of the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade are testing out the newly-improved Heckler & Koch M110A1 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper Systems (CSASS), putting the upgraded models through their paces. Testing began earlier this year and has involved firing over 8,000 rounds from various positions and while wearing different equipment. According to the National Interest, the Army claimed the new upgrades include “increased accuracy, plus other ergonomic features like reduced weight and operations with or without a suppressor.”

 

In Maryland, officials at the US Army Combat Development Command have been testing the new Next Generation Squad Weapon-Technology platforms, which were sent forward as prototypes by Textron Systems. The new squad weapons (NSGW-T), were pushed from development to product in short order.  Textron Systems Senior Vice President of Applied Technologies & Advanced Programs Wayne Prender. “Our CT [Cased Telescoped]  weapons and ammunition offer the growth path to a true next-generation small arms weapon for U.S. warfighters, including increased lethality at longer ranges, while also delivering significant weight reductions to the warfighter.” Military Embedded Systems reports that the cased telescoped ammunition, while proprietary in nature, allows for more ammunition to be carried without giving in to the weight issue posed by conventional ammo.

 

The US Army is developing  new light machine gun  that will weigh less — and yet shoot farther, but will put M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank-style blasting power literally at the fingertips of US soldiers. It should make US soldiers even more lethal and enhance their speed and mobility while improving their safety in future combat. Distance, accuracy, ergonomics and lethality are all expected to be improved in this new generation of weapon. Infantry will also be able to take advantage of new specially designed, harder hitting, plus lighter weight bullets.

 

The service plans on fielding a Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) — the first version in the Army’s Next-Generation Weapons System that chambers a round between 6.5mm and 6.8mm — as a potential replacement for its 80,000 M249 SAWs starting in fiscal 2022 rather than the original target date of fiscal 2025, Col. Geoffrey A. Norman, force development division chief at Army HQ, told Task & Purpose, with two per nine-man infantry squad.