Known for their 9mm hand cranked Gatling Gun, Tippmann Armory is now Tippmann Ordnance and is adding a .22LR version to the lineup.
Releasing in April
Rate Of Fire – 600 Rounds Per Minute
Overall Length – 20″
Aluminium Housing
Weight – 15lbs
Barrel Length – 8.5″
50 Round Belt Length – 54 3/4
100 Round Belt Length – 109 1/2
OTTE Gear has developed a new low-profile attachment system for placards and other pouches in lieu of a QASM buckle.
This as-yet-unnamed clip is a two-piece design and hinges on one axis.
With the split ring design they can be adapted to existing webbing or quickly employed if a repair is needed. So far, I’ve seen them in Coyote and Black, but as they are injection molded, they could be made in virtually any color.
Salomon FORCES displayed their new models of popular tactical footwear. I chose two for sharing.
The X Ultra MID GTX FORCES is heavily based on Salomon’s best selling consumer mid hiking boots. For tactical customers, they increased the durability of the construction on the upper and added a flexible anti-puncture plate to the mid sole.
This boot is an extension of the Speed Assault 2 and Speed Cross 6 family of lighter, faster boots that are appropriate in and out of uniform and on the job.
The Quest 4D FORCES High GTX has all the performance features of the Quest 4 GTX but in an 8” version. Salomon’s Roland Beliveau related that our Northern European NATO partners and Canadian military have been asking us for a rugged 8” boot for quite some time. He also explained that the “EN” in the name means European Norm and the boot meets ISO standards for: Anti-Static, Anti-Puncture and Anti- Slip.
Currently under evaluation by the US Army under the Soldier Enhancement Program, the new ROMEOM17 red dot sight from SIG SAUER was designed specifically for use with the Modular Handgun System.
When SIG offered a version of P320 to the US Army for the MHS program they included a feature not included in the formal requirement, a means to mount a red dot optic to the slide via the Leupold Delta Point Pro footprint, which at the time was the industry standard.
Last year, the Army decided to take advantage of that feature and called upon industry to provide samples of red dot sights for use with the M17 and M18 pistols variants of MHS. Evaluating these optics under SEP, the Army plans to issue National Stock Numbers to candidate optics it deems acceptable for use with MHS. Rather than issue a formal requirement for this enabler, it will be up to the individual units to determine which of the authorized optics they want to outfit their pistols with. This also allows the Army to revisit the subject more regularly than they would if they commenced a formal program.
I sat down with John Nichols, Product Manager for Pistol Optics, during the recent SIG Range Day in Las Vegas and he went over some of the background of the ROMEOM17.
SIG Electro Optics took a look at the pistol and realized that while they could use the existing DPP footprint to mount a sight, they could also mount it from the underside of the slide and patented the idea.
This offers a couple of advantages. First, there’s no bulky mounting plate so the sight remains as low as possible. Second, it integrates the standard height rear sight. Finally, it allows use of the standard front sight so there’s no need to replace the front sight with a suppressor height model. The armorer can reuse the pistol’s tritium rear and front sights which means less work for the armorer and lower first for the unit.
It is held in place with one bolt tightened to 40 inch pounds and there are two points which keep it aligned during mounting.
In addition to the mounting patent, SIG also has a patent for a shield to prevent the front lens of the optic from gas released during the firing cycle from the loaded chamber indicator port.
The sight is Argon gas purged and completely sealed. The base on the other hand has drainage holes.
It is adjustable for elevation and windage. Mimicking a full-sized telescopic optic, the internal Flexure System has fewer moving parts than other adjustments.
The reticle is selectable 32 MOA Circle or 2 MOA dot and offers 15 brightness settings. It also incorporates Magnetech technology to help maintain battery life. The sight features toolless battery removal and replacement for the CR2032 which is a standard battery in the stock system.
In order to give shooters a tactile cue under stress, they included slight protrusions indicating the button increases or decreases the intensity of the LED.
During manufacture, the sight is anodized in Black and then receives elite level Cerakote in Coyote. This means that the interior of the shroud is completely Black for easier sighting.
While the ROMEOM17 is initially only for military customers, it’s simply because of the compatibility with standard P320 slides. A commercial version is in the works.
The ROMEOM17 is assembled in Oregon.
Australia’s Contact magazine maintains a virtual collection of banned unit symbols called the Museum of Arrogant Hubris.
Visit the museum at www.contactairlandandsea.com/museum-of-arrogant-hubris
As Soldiers progress through the ranks in the Army, their level of responsibility increases to include leadership roles. Part of the process involves learning how to be an effective leader and mentor while balancing ongoing demands.
To better prepare for their role as a squad leader, four Soldiers with the “This is My Squad” Leader Panel attended the Squad Leader Development Course and the Counseling Enhancement Workshop at Fort Eustis, Virginia, to learn the necessary skills to enhance the performance of their squads.
Sgt. Maj. Of the Army Michael A. Grinston worked with the Army Resilience Directorate to advance this initiative as part of the SLDC course to allow squad leaders to reflect critically on their leadership style and to learn to employ evidence-based leadership skills.
“Sergeants and staff sergeants are entering the phase right now where they are either emulating a leader or trying to figure out how they can develop their own leadership style,” said Sgt. 1st Class Michael Barin, Ready and Resilient Training Division, Army Resilience Directorate. “This course provides junior NCOs the ability to understand what their leadership style looks like and how to leverage their values to realize it.”
Based on Army doctrine, the two-day course for sergeants and staff sergeants is designed to equip squad leaders with evidence-based skills and strategies for effective leadership to use in a range of situations.
“We started the course by identifying our leadership styles and how we can improve them,” said Staff Sgt. Jova Silva, plans and operations noncommissioned officer with Joint Task Force- National Capitol Region, U.S. Army Military District of Washington, Provost Marshal Protection Directorate. “We had several scenarios throughout the course where we’d have to identify certain aspects like thinking traps, different ways to approach the situation and how to address them.”
The course of instruction is provided by performance experts who are civilian contractors with graduate degrees in sports psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, social psychology or related fields. Instructors are also certified through the American Association of Sports Psychologists and start teaching once they have been integrated into their local Army communities.
“We want to make sure the instructors can meet squad leaders where they are and communicate with them in their own language,” Barin said.
During the course, squad leaders examined Army Doctrine Publication 6-22 and research from the fields of human performance, organizational psychology, and positive psychology to highlight the impact and importance of squad-level leadership behaviors. In addition, students assessed their abilities to lead and evaluated their characters as defined in ADP 6-22 to determine whether they aligned with the leadership philosophy they wanted to create.
In addition to SLDC, Soldiers participated in the Counseling Enhancement Workshop, which took place over three days, to teach squad leaders how to effectively conduct a counseling session using communication techniques in Army Technical Publication 6-22.1. The class was peer-to-peer led, and instructor-facilitated with built-in scenarios where students acted out the roles of counselor and counselee.
“The workshop breaks the institutionalized way of counseling and gets out of the ‘template, copy and paste’ way of doing things,” said Barin. “It teaches students how to properly communicate, have those hard and rewarding conversations, and record them properly.”
For Staff Sgt. Winifred Collette, supply noncommissioned officer with the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade, the workshop was essential to help her look at counseling more humanely versus just following the regulation and policy.
“This class helped me realize that although we have a mission, we need to think about the humane aspect of the Soldiers standing to our left and right,” Collette said. “The mission will always be there, but the way we treat the people who accomplish it might determine how long we have them to rely on.”
According to assessments completed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research’s Research Transition Office, feedback from Soldiers who have gone through the course has been positive, with more than four out of five NCOs reporting the curriculum being well organized, important and beneficial.
“Junior leaders who complete the SLDC training leave with a better understanding of themselves as Army leaders,” said Dr. Ian Gutierrez, research psychologist with the WRAIR Research Transition Office. “Among those who received SLDC, the proportion of NCOs who agreed that they had a leadership philosophy and a mission statement increased by more than 30% from pre-training assessment to the final follow-up assessment, highlighting that the training not only prompted squad leaders to develop their own Army-aligned leadership philosophy during the course, but that they retained the benefits of this exercise two months following the training.”
ARD and WRAIR continue to refine the course curriculum based on iterative evaluations and direct feedback from Soldiers to produce a training experience that has a meaningful impact on junior Army leaders.
“It is important to ensure that Soldiers’ crowded training schedules are being filled with trainings that directly contribute to their ability to lead others, develop themselves and their fellow Soldiers, and achieve Army goals,” Gutierrez said. “We believe that this model of Army curriculum development for training in readiness and resilience will continue to yield successful outcomes in the years ahead.”
The SLDC course is available through ARD R2 Performance Centers at 32 Army installations. Any camp, post or station without an R2PC can submit a request for a mobile training team to come to their location.
The course is recommended for sergeants who have spent more than one year time-in-grade, and staff sergeants within their first year of promotion.
For more information, go to www.armyresilience.army.mil/ard/R2/I-Want-to-Schedule-Training.
By Josephine Pride
VLTOR Systems shared this video of the new single shot 40mm launcher developed by sister company MILKOR USA. During the GWOT, MILKOR provided the USMC and USSOCOM with the six shot rotary 40mm Multi-ShotGrenade Launcher, the M32A1.
Concentrating on additional military calibers, True Velocity announced during SHOT Show that they are expanding their line of polymer cased ammunition to include 5.56, 338 NM, and .50 BMG.
