Even though we don’t sell anything, we often get requests for quotes. This is one worth sharing. However, the name of the actual requestor has been deleted.
Dear Sir or Ms.,
Request price, at your earliest convenience, on your Gun Pack for M240 Machine Gun.
Thank you.
Respectfully,
Project Officer
U.S. Army Rapid Equipping Force
For those of you unfamiliar with an Ironman, it is a government owned design for an ammo backpack with feedchute for the M240 developed by Natick’s Quick Reaction Cell and the Rapid Equipping Force, the very office asking us for a quote. Talk about Irony, man.
Consequently, our answer for the request is simple…
But seriously, if you’re looking for an ammunition pack for the M240 Machine Gun, we suggest you take a look at a product made by one of our advertisers.
The MICO by TYR Tactical was created specifically for this requirement at the request of a military customer. In fact, it was fielded by SOF before the Army developed the Ironman for deployed forces from the Iowa National Guard. What’s more, the MICO even has an NSN: 8465-01-629-5960, and it works.
Par for the course
Did they mix you up in their emails to PM Soldier Systems?
No
You clearly don’t know how the government works. You should have:
A) Quote price
B) Negotiate contract
C) Subcontract successful bid to Natick
Haha!
Nice try ISIS.
It was a real email
…spoofed by China.
Sounds like the Army I know!!!
wow, what a fucking joke.. although its not surprising..
I am assuming that I don’t have to time travel back to 2011 to get this, like when the Ironman link was posted.
Well, have they responded?
That officer has the same grammar as a Nigerian Prince I know ..
I could be pursuaded to make one probably. I built several prototype ones and one when I was at TYR. I even have a hookup for a super fancy sauce ammo feed chute.
The funny thing is that aside from a design that was made ad hoc and came with that DIY price, Natick decided to say that they made it, and slapped a $5K price tag on it.
Jeebus… Sounds just like my Army. Stories I could tell…
This shit ain’t new, either. Back at the beginning of WWII, a Swiss dude named Mohaupt was trying to sell the Army the great secret of how the Germans had gotten into the casemates at Eben Emael, which was “shaped charges”. He’d turned the technology into these little AT grenades, which later became the warheads for the Bazooka. The Army was very impressed, and was about to pay him big money. Then, the lawyers got involved, and casually pointed out that his warheads were based on the the ground-breaking work of one Charles Monroe, a US Navy researcher working here in the US back before WWI…
The technology had been invented by us, and literally left on the shelf for forty years. Like as not, had the Germans not picked up on it, or developed their own, that shit would still be on the shelf…