It’s not that Ops-Core doesn’t have their hands full with lots of work manufacturing helmets and protective accessories for our troops and allies. This shutdown is about politics and zoning.
See the video report here.
Hang in there guys!
Hat tip to www.thegearlocker.net.
Last week, SSD participated in a media roundtable concerning Army modernization. According to the Army’s top Modernization officials, one of the rejected recommendations of the “Decker-Wagner” report on acquisition reform was to change the name of PEO Soldier to ‘PEO Soldier and Small Units.’ At face value it actually makes sense, considering the Chief of Staff of the Army’s number one priority is to “unburdening the soldier and establish the squad as the decisive combat element.” That is, so long as you don’t know what PEO Soldier actually does, and that is equip the Soldier, which is the most fundamental weapon system our nation possesses. Fortunately, the Army’s leadership realized that changing the name could also change the focus and we applaud the Army for its decision.
The concern in the Army wing at the Pentagon is the perception that Army Acquisition is broke. According to LTG Bill Phillips, “The myth is, Army acquisitions can’t deliver. The truth is, we deliver for our soldiers. We’ve delivered yesterday, we deliver today and we’ll deliver tomorrow.”
MG Tony Cucolo, the Director of Force Development at the G8, spoke about several Army wins including the Double V hulled Stryker that was but a GDLS Powerpoint slide 24 months ago and has already been in the fight saving lives. The Army plans to buy a total of 760 of the vehicles, enough for two Brigades, a few spares and training and R&D.
However, we were a little disturbed by one thing. We were allowed to ask one question and it involved the Army’s impending date with destiny regarding camouflage. When we asked the panel if the Army was prepared to recapitalize all of its uniforms and Organizational Clothing and Equipment in a family of new patterns, we were answered with the General Officer version of the punt. You know…”Um yeah, we know they’re working on something down there at PEO Soldier.” They aren’t completely oblivious to the notion but the idea of fielding billions of dollars worth of personal gear over the FYDP isn’t even on their plate. Considering that the Soldier is the CSA’s number one priority, it begs the question; “Is the Army Camouflage Improvement Effort going to result in anything tangible?”
SureFire is like an iceberg. You only get to see a little bit of what they are doing and they are always working on lots of cool stuff behind the scenes like these adapters for the AN/PEQ-16A Mini-IPIM (MIPIM).
They’ve developed two adapters. The first accepts a scout light head to the MIPIM giving you 200 lumens of illumination over the 100 lumen lamp that comes with the PEQ-16A.
The second adapter accepts the Vampire head which combines both white light (150 lumens) and IR (120 lumens) in a single piece. The user simply twists the lockout dial to choose the desired lamp.
As you can see, there are two variants of the Vampire light adapter. Variant 1 just accepts the light and Variant 2 features a small hole (that you can see in the photos) at the rear of the adapter to accept a SureFire remote tape switch. This will bypass the MIPIM’s controls and allow you to use the remote switch to control the light. One other advantage to adapting the Vampire head to the MIPIM is that you gain an eyesafe IR illuminator.
In the case of either style, the lights can still be controlled by the buttons on top or the MIPIM remote switch.
We know that SureFire follows SSD so if this is something you need, leave a comment here and they’ll see it.
We first saw the SpecOps.PL PRM-1 medical pack as part of an article on the BS-1 Combat Shirt but all we saw was the exterior. Here’s a shot of what;s going on inside.
We broke the story on the SureFire Push Dagger during our SHOT Show coverage.
Here, Steve Ryan, director of SureFire’s Edged Weapons Division discusses why they designed the Push Dagger with an asymmetric edge. It’s a 7075 aluminum handle paired with a ATS 34 blade to keep weight down. The push dagger design allows for thrusting as well as slashing. He also explains in a round about way that it’s their entry into the latest trend of last ditch fighting knives for our troops. Most are more traditional narrow-blade dagger designs or even spikes. SureFire went a different route.
Coming soon from www.SureFire.com/edgedweapons.
Competition Dynamics and Thunder Beast Arms Corporation have teamed up to present the 2012 24-Hour Sniper Adventure Challenge, held 27-29 JULY 2012 at SniperCountry in Washakie, Box Elder, Utah.
It’s an adventure race for two-man teams involving: land navigation; practical shooting with long-range rifle, carbine, and pistols; fieldcraft; problem solving; and other related tasks. Teams will negotiate a 30 mile course on foot carrying the gear they require to complete the land navigation and all tasks. Additionally, teams must carry one long-range rifle, one carbine, and two pistols for the entire course.
For the whole low down on this interesting competition visit competition-dynamics.com/24-hour-sniper-adventure-challenge-2012. There aren’t many slots left.
SPECOPS.PL shared some photos of their new MBS-2 uniform with us. Currently manufactured for Polish SF troops in Afghanistan, it features a stronger construction and modified cargo pockets with special mounting for the wz.93 assault knife, issued to most Polish soldiers. Additionally, the field dressing pouch has been moved forward, and the calf zippers are simplified. According to SPECOPS.PL, the uniform is made from NYCO in MULTICAM, PENCOTT, OLIVE, BLACK and KHAKI.
They also included their ZMKT-2 integrated Quick Release vest. It features two soft ballistic inserts, standard is BALCS, but since in Poland there is no one set soft-armor shape, they can modify the vest to suit the customer’s soft armor inserts. The ZMKT-2 vest can carry two large SAPI front-back plates as well as two side SAPI plates.
