In a special notice issued just minutes ago, United States Special Operations Command has canceled the Suppressor Upper Receiver Group solicitation.
The Suppressor Upper Receiver Group solicitation is cancelled.
United States Special Operations Command plans to analyze the results of the testing and post a new solicitation to industry in the future.
The message was simple and straight forward, yet doesn’t explain why. Many in industry have been very critcal of the ambitious program due to its requirements to keep the weapon cool enough to handle in spite of high operating temperatures.
Considering the solicitation closed just a month ago, this move seems quite sudden. It sounds like none of the candidates met the program’s goals and SOCOM is going to circle back around.
Told you.
I love the name.
Can’t beat physics.
I agree the name rocks.
But I believe I had the same concerns about where is the heat going to go.
That’s hilarious.
But seriously- I could’ve made it work.
Let me show you my “Shocked face”
This is what happens when you let some engineer, inspired by a video game, generate a requirement based on “wouldn’t it be cool if…” (true story)
You mean like when the DoD tried to make an invisibility suit after some general saw predator?
Hyperstealth has already crossed that line, but being made in Canada it proposed challenges that weren’t overcome here it seems for now
Called it!
You and everybody else. However, I expect it to pull a Lazarus with more realistic expectations.
But first, a solicitation for a gloveless FRIES rope.
Because, science, and reasons, but mostly science reasons
Gotta remember though, they had heart. Lots of heart.
But will JJFU continue their efforts in this direction?
I forgot to wipe, what’s that smell
SSD, that’s actually a bit inaccurate regarding failures. There is one company that passed everything so far; I’m shocked anyone passing the cookoff test, which by itself is extremely flawed. No soldier would ever blow a full deployment by mag dumping 210-240 rounds at once. As one SEAL put it previously that he only deployed with 4 mags and he never in over 250 missions ever shot his full round count. I recall him saying “my wife would be real pissed at me if I did so, that’s just stupid and probably not going to end well”. Maybe SOCOM and the PM have decided to change the threshold levels to make it where some of the flawed testing can be corrected. Maybe the PM realized that by forcing samples 45 days before the proposal date was absolutely stupid and limited development. Whatever it is, internally this is causing waves and some units might go beyond the scope of SOCOM and source the weapon system of their choice.
First off, I didn’t say “failures”, that’s your word.
Passing one portion of the solicitation is awesome, but you don’t make a decision based in that. The issue is that there were plenty of requirements, and materials are what they are. A gain in one area is a loss in another.
The timeline wasn’t short for the companies who submitted. This project has been going on for years and companies have been fully aware of it. The reasons most did not participate were that the good idea fairy had created a requirement, that in its totality is not attainable with currently available material technology combined with lack of interest from SOCOM’s components. Without buy-in, no one is going to sell anything.
Ok, I knew it was going to happen, someone would drop the “S” bomb. There needs to be a version of “Godwin’s Law” in regards to mentioning SEALs to defend a position.
I got it: “Marcinko’s Law”. As an online discussion regarding anything “tactical” grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving or citing experience, SEALs approaches 1—that is, if an online tactical discussion goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will mention SEALs to defend their position.
So, “LaughingAtRuss”, you are hereby notified that you are in violation of “Marcinko’s Law”.
But I digress.
First we need to understand how we arrived at this juncture. Now, I’m going to take some artistic liberties with this for entertainment purposes and paraphrase the whole process.
Picture if you will, a couple of engineers on a weekend first person shooter video game bender, fueled by Mountain Dew and pizza. Suddenly, one of them has an “Epiphany” and says: “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could make an integrally suppressed select fire assault rifle?”. This spark of inspiration is followed by several hours of technical writing on napkins until the inevitable caffeine crash sets in.
Monday morning arrives and the young engineers speed reasonably to work in their Priuses and skipped into the lead engineer’s office with their idea. After a Jedi Counsel Vulcan Mind Meld, they had their proposal. This leads to the formation of an Integrated Product Team (IPT), which probably had SEALs in it, and then after much grunting, more Mountain Dew and still more pizza, the SURG requirement was born.
Delusions of grandeur abounded… finally, the engineers had validated their existence by actually coming up with something the operational force had not thought about. Now, they would surely get the respect they were entitled to. The Mountain Dew flowed like water, desk tops were awash in a bounty of pizzas and bespectacled nerds did celebratory doughnuts in their Priuses.
However, in their ecstatic state, they’d forgotten some things. Predominately that this upper would be subjected to a durability test and course of fire to confirm compliance with the Performance Specification (P-Spec)… that was established by the IPT which, SEALs were probably on.
So, during this testing what happened? Well, the integrally suppressed barrel, under the hand guard you had to hold onto and also mount laser aiming devices and weapon lights (some made of polymer), reached around 518 degrees Fahrenheit.
But they wouldn’t be thwarted! They would show those knuckle dragging barrel chested freedom fighters that science would prevail!
They looked to NASA heat shield technology, to include reflective, refractory and vacuum, “under forearm muzzle blast airflow” and even patented a design.
However, it was all too much and the program was “Overcome By Events”. The engineers had been lied to by other engineers who created video games. There was detention within the engineer community. Insults were thrown on forums, qualifications were questioned, engineers called other engineers “POGs” and I even heard that there was a “SWAT’ing” event.
Their dream crushed, the engineers crawled back into their mom’s basement to find solace in adventure games, sci fi flicks and of course, Mountain Dew and pizza.
But one day, oh yes, one day they would rise again. And from the ashes of SURG would rise the phoenix that would be the “Plasma Rifle in the 40 Watt Range”!
+1 internets to you sir, best reply I’ve seen on SSD in a while. Humorous and informative.
Interesting and informative read, but apparently the correct plural for Prius has been determined by Toyota to be Prii even though that’s grammatically incorrect (ie correct plural of octopus isn’t octopi but octopodes).
Read the first hand accounts from the Battle of Wanat I think it was. Yeah they’ll blow their rounds as fast as you can give it to them, some people believe suppressive fire is the only fire.