The Army has taken yet another step toward fielding a new rifle. It has released a pre-solicitation draft Request for Proposals (Solicitation Number: W15QKN-11-R-F003) for a new rifle. Dubbed the Improved Carbine in Army documents, this new shoulder weapon is meant to replace the M16 family of small arms that has served for five decades.
Overall, the Army is looking for a weapon with these generic attributes:
The Individual Carbine will enable the engagement of enemy combatants with a highly reliable weapon system throughout the range of military operations and environments. The IC will also possess the ability to utilize current and future weapon accessories and optics through the use of an integrated rail system.
An important statement in the RFP is, “The Government has determined a need to find the best IC weapon that provides the best value to the Government.” Readers need to understand that the Army is not necessarily looking for the best weapon, but rather the best value. The term “best value” is determined based on a set of factors that have yet to be revealed to us. It may be cost, accuracy, lethality, or a combination of these or other factors. Ultimately, it may turn out that the best value for the Army is to do nothing, if it turns out that none of the candidate weapons presents a significant improvement over currently fielded rifles. Don’t forget, the Army is mitigating risk by pursuing a “dual path strategy” that upgrades currently fielded M4s while it investigates a new IC to ultimately replace them.
As we said awhile back, the solicitation is not caliber or operating system specific so it will be interesting to see what concepts are submitted.
The draft status of this RFP gives potential offerors the opportunity to submit questions to the program office before March 10th. In addition to the heads up, the Army is planning an Industry Day (Pre-proposal Conference) for the IC program on 30 March, 2011 in Crystal City. Once these two events have passed they will no longer respond to questions.
The entire draft RFP (Solicitation Number: W15QKN-11-R-F003) can be read at www.fedbizopps.gov.
Interestingly, while under two separate Program Managers, between the IC and Family of Camo programs, PEO-Soldier looks to have their hands full this year. Since the Family of Camo RFP has been already been delayed let’s hope the IC program stays on its current schedule.