The Army Contracting Command – New Jersey, in support of Project Manager Soldier Lethality (PMSL), intends to issue a request for proposal (RFP) W15QKN-25-R-0016. This solicitation is to procure M4 Carbines (NSN: 1005-01-231-0973/Part Number 9390000) and M4A1 Carbines (NSN: 1005-01-382-0953/Part Number 12972700) built to print using the Technical Data Package (TDP). Due to Colt’s Manufacturing Company, LLC’s sole ownership of the M4/M4A1 TDP and the license agreement between Colt and the United States Government, this procurement action will be a sole source award to Colt’s Manufacturing Company, LLC.
This action should come as no surprise as pointed out on the notice that Colt owns the Technical Data Package for the M16 rifle / M4 carbine and the Army has previously awarded similar sustainment contracts in the past. Colt was purchased by CZ Group in 2021.
What many don’t understand, with almost a million M4(A1) carbines in service, the Army must continue to procure new rifles to replace weapons as they wear out. I expect this process to continue until the last M4 is pulled from service sometime in the 2040/ or beyond. This will continue to be the case as long as the weapon remains in service, somewhere in the Total Force, regardless of procurement of Next Generation Squad Weapon. This is a reality of almost every program of record.
The M4/M4A1 Carbines provide the Department of Defense with compact, lightweight weapons that fire NATO 5.56mm ammunition from a 30-round magazine, mount the latest generation of fire control accessories and enablers, and provide increased protection and firepower in close quarters. The period of performance (POP) of the contract(s) will be for five (5) one-year ordering periods to cover FY25-FY30 Army and Department of Defense (DoD) M4/M4A1 Carbine requirements. The anticipated contract minimum guarantee of 90 M4/M4A1 Carbines will be met with the first delivery. The Army expects to issue task orders with up to a maximum quantity of 30,000 units of any combination of M4 or M4A1 Carbines.
Dear SSD,
Does not FN produce M4/M4A1’s under contract for the US Military? Or am I confusing some basic point of fact here? Thank you in advance if you have/can take the time to answer my question.
Sole source just means that only a single entity (predetermined) may be the prime on a contract, no one else. This is in contrast to open source, where it is a competition of sorts.
Likely, Colt will continue to subcontract FN for M4A1 production.
Thank you very much Collin!
That’s only partly true. Colt owns the TDP but they must share with others for mil contracts, which is why FN, Remington and others won against Colt in past M4 contracts. It wasn’t subcontracting.
I assumed subcontracting happened. Thank you for the correction, Vet.
I thought the Army acquired the rights to the M4 some time ago.
Just get rid of the damn front side post, it’s 2025.
So does this mean no more FN Hersthal M4A1’s will be procured by the US Army?
So many better designs than the M4A1 out there that the US Army could simply buy off the shelf. Continuing to use the M4A1 is ridiculous. If we cant even do simple generational updates to Service rifles i don’t think we are gonna fair well in the next war. Procurement is broken.
I have yet to use a weapon better than the m16 platform. The USMC adopted the the M27 which has a 16 in h barrel, the same length civilians have pur hased for years. A piston drive operating system, which is easier to keep clean but reduces accurracy due to moving components on top of the barrel before the bullet exits. These rifles are produced by a German firm at a cost of $3000 last I heard. Simple gas piston conversions for existing m4’s are cheap and available to any civilian. The US military is currently procuring our standard infantry rifles and handguns from foreign owned firms at huge costs. We should source our weapons from domestically owned manufacturers. The m16/m4 platform is hard to beat and simple to maintain. They are used all over the world. Ukraine, israel and now even the taliban and hamas are using them. Israel hyped their new Tavor, yet all IDF troops I see use the m4. Ive used the Tavor and it sucks. If caliber of cartridge is a source of contention, the m4 is available in so many different calibers one can barely keep up. Sig manufactures in America, but its not an American company. Our weapons should be American through and through. The only execption is olympic smallbore. German Anshutz is the gold standard and we have yet to build anything that outclasses it. Colt has kept American services armed and should remain the sole supplier of m4’s. Today is the first ive heard of CZ acquiring Colt. What moron allowed this? Same with our ammunition plants. US Steel? Strategic industries should remain American and so should our infantry weapons. My range uses Kongsberg electronic target systems and I despise it. I maintain it every day. I dont trust it, its expensive and parts imported from Norway. It is not consistantly accurate and I refuse to even fire my uber expensive Anshutz competition rifles at it because even slight deviation degrades the absolute self confidence a top level competitor must possess.
The NGSW guns were designed and are manufactured in New Hampshire using US labor and materials.
The AR15/M16 family is great I agree. But when off the shelf rifles at the local bog box stores are better made and more capable than US Army issue rifles then we have a procurement problem. We are long past time for an update to the M4A1 that are in inventory. Even a simple upper and trigger swap would go a very long way to improve lethality without braking the bank.
It’s almost a million guns. This isn’t just upgrading your rifle at home. Beyond buying whatever enhancement you want, someone has to install it. Once you start talking lower receiver parts, it’s beyond the scope of the company armorer, so a plan has to be instituted to evac all of those guns to a depot to be upgraded. You’re now in the realm of years and millions of Dollars just for the labor.
It does not take all of that to swap basic components.
Let’s take it smaller scale so you can understand the complexity of the problem:
One Brigade Combat Team has approximately 3500 personnel in it. Let’s say it takes 20 minutes of work (average) to get this magical enhancement work done. That gives us a total of 1166.66667 work hours (70,000 minutes) to get one BCT done.
The only organizations Authorized to do that kind of wrench turning in a Brigade are the Brigade Support Battalions. Let’s say they have 20 maintainers who can do the work: 20 minutes per gun (on average) to change parts x 3 (gets us our number capable of being done in an hour) x 5 work Hours (subtracting for PT, breakfast, and Lunch) gives us 6,000 minutes for one day’s work.
70,000 (total for BCT) / 6,000 (Potential amount/day) gives us 11.667 days, so 12 days. That is 2 1/2 weeks of time that will have all the maintainers doing nothing but turning wrenches on guns.
That is best case, and does not include things like maintainer Soldiers on profile, attending PME, Handing basketballs out at the gym, etc. It also does not include if the unit does not have a full compliment of maintainers.
This is one BCT… The Army has 37. So yes, it is a significant logistical challenge. And I used round numbers to keep it as simple as possible while still giving an idea of how complex the problem is. So sending weapons to depot would be the only way to do it as efficiently as possible… And it STILL will be a Significant Emotional Event to get it done.
Also, what is your definition of ‘basic components’? The Army’s definition of basic components would be operator-level, which involves no tools requiring a torque spec associated with them (with few exceptions for specific trained ASI’s like Snipers). For the M4A1, that means removing a buttstock is about the end of operator level components.
That means that anything involving turning wrenches (or swapping triggers) has to be done by the small arms maintainers… And there are significantly less of them then operators.
WOW, you managed to overcomplicate the simple. I proposed 2 easy options.
Option 1) Instead of buying 1990s era M4A1s the Army could buy a different more modern AR15. A simple purchase no labor needed.
Option 2) They could buy an upper and save even more more. Maybe an upgraded trigger if they wanted to be fancy, which a Company level armorers (Usually 1-2 per platoon) can complete for the entire rifle company in less than a week.
Neither option is complicated, both option end up with better equipment than 1990s era rifles.
You just over complicated everything. Buying new guns means a new requirement.
And no, company level armorers cannot replace trigger assemblies. It requires MOS 91F Small Arms/Towed Artillery Repairer.
Wow… I have a feeling you don’t know the realities of the current Army and don’t understand the ‘simple’ problem isn’t so simple. I’ll answer your options concurrently:
Option 1)
How do we select the vendor for your ‘modern’ AR15? Keep in mind, the selection criteria has to be in such a fashion as to prevent a protest (a contract this big would have to be open competition, no sole-source) preventing the acquisition occurring in a timely manner.
What is the maintenance plan for this new weapon? How do we ensure the weapons meet the standards required? How do we develop training support packages for these weapons to ensure Operators (and more importantly, maintainers) are certified in their use?
Oh wait.. That’s what DOTMLPF-P is supposed to do to develop requirements for acquisition. Answer all the questions DOTMLPF-P (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel Solutions, Legal, Personnel, Financial, and Policy) brings up before you just say ‘simple’.
Not having all these things accounted for means the Small Arms Maintainers (again, legally the only people who can turn wrenches on guns for the army) legally CANNOT SERVICE THESE WEAPONS. So the Army would have to spend millions of additional dollars on contracted Field Service Reps to do the maintenance. That’s unit maintenance funds that CANNOT be used for things like getting vehicles working, so likely weapons will be deadlined for longer periods of time due to vehicles being the priority generally.
Option 2)
An upper swap could be done by Company-level armorers, but that is it. Army Company level armorers have not been authorized to do any work on the internals of weapons since pre-GWOT. They are not trained, nor are they authorized to do any work past disassembling to the operator level. They are an operator on steroids essentially.
I will say it one more time: The only personnel authorized to do any kind of wrench turning on Army guns are MOS-Qualified Small Arms Maintainers… Not an 11B with the assigned extra duty of Arms room NCO. As such, how are they supposed to do any of the work you claim they are to do?
It sounds like both of your ‘options’ are way more complicated than you first considered.
Ray, I went to 76Y AIT in 1986 and we couldn’t actually maintain weapons back then. Just replace basic parts.
What Ray said. Your idea of basic components and the military’s are two different things.
Every 91F can swap a trigger in their shop so its basic enough. Five working hours a day is weak but an armament shop with 20 guys, even when augmented by each BN’s FSC is probably a high count, so I guess your numbers may balance out there. I’m well aware of things that keep mechanics out of the shop, even if those examples given are also kind of weak. If you know anything about fielding, its never done all at once for the entire force. Maneuver BNs in one BDE could easily go through the effort, followed by support units, if they’re even included. Making this a depot level transaction would be overly complex for no good reason in the vast majority of circumstances.
Among others, I was present for a URGI fielding. While civilians came to each post to assist in that, it still didn’t involve sending guns out and that was far more complicated. I’m not advocating for or against the idea, I’m just saying, from experience, that this could be done and it wouldn’t be that hard.
The numbers I gave were just for ease of conducting math; They were not supposed to be accurate number of maintainers. Twenty is just a nice round number I chose to make the math easier. The reality is that there will be much less maintainers to do the work.
The maintainers’ hours were just for simple math. The reality is they would be working longer days to get that done. However, the things I mentioned would still be being done (PT, Breakfast, Lunch) and would have to be accounted for.
Granted, fielding would be spread across companies/battalions (not all done at once) but it would be based off the number of maintainers on-hand and an average number of weapons they can do in a day. So the planning factors I used to come up with the 2 1/2 weeks would be similar.
The URG-I and the M4A1 PIP were augmented by TACOM maintainers, but that was still at the BSB level (not the company arms room as some maintain) and done across several weeks.
The fielding is definitely doable to be executed, but not the ‘simple swap’ some believe it to be. The challenge is getting everything in line prior to the weapons actually getting to the point of being fielded (Training Support Packages developed, Technical Manuals verified, Making sure the weapons don’t fall apart after 1,000 rounds, etc.) to prevent units from having to spend extra dollars to have contractors service their weapons or have their weapons serviced a lot more frequently because the Army bought a ‘lemon’ rifle.
Work call is 09, lunch is 12. So 09-12, the 91Fs are working. 13-16, they’re working. That’s six hours. Accounting for PT, breakfast, and lunch is not a hard task and it really doesn’t take away that much time.
The URGI and M4A1 were both more complicated than a trigger but the BSB’s having the responsibility for their BDE and using the FSC for each BN would probably be ideal. The actual labor could be done in the arms rooms or the FSC’s shop. Nothing needs to happen at the company armorer level besides the basic process of accountability, certainly nothing needs to be depot level.
That is all a simple swap. Uppers and other things would be more complex, but it is not some incredible feat. As far as testing, SOCOM has standards that equipment has been tested against. Using those standards, if they make sense for the big Army (which is rare), should be completely doable. For the original point of this discussion, the SSF would be an easy swap all the way around, minus the actual funding piece for the part itself.
In your favor, the Army did consider an M4 PIP several years ago but abandoned the idea. Currently, the main effort for small arms is NGSW and then PGS and MMG. However, I expect to see an M4A2 requirement (URG) requirement sometime in the early 30s. That sounds like a long time, but in the procurement world, that’s day after tomorrow.
Don’t be dramatic the RFP clearly states (if you simply click on the link SSD provided,
“To meet this requirement, The United States Government intends to award a five (5) year IDIQ FFP contract, with an approximate maximum quantity of 30,000 units of any combination of M4 or M4A1 Carbines.”
30,000 vs 1,000,000.
I think you were off by a few zeros.
Also I dont think you understand how to calculate labor cost in the Army. You see, they already pay us, whether we sweep the motor pool or sleep all day. So labor cost is not relevant. The question is simply man hours.
BTW, a 91F can SUPERVISE a unit armorer to install a trigger in a lower. Dozens of armorers across a BDE make lite work. I guess you would rather have inferior rifles and let the company armorers get back to sleeping in the arms room.
First off, the Army isn’t going to do something like you envision at the unit level. They’ve already demonstrated that with the transition to M4A1. Consequently, all of those hours that the civilians will work, and TDY, if that’s involved is certainly part of the equation.
Second, it’s about 985,000 parts. Those cost money. On top of that is sustainment of the change. They’ve got the parts being replaced already in inventory. Someone has to buy out that inventory. Yes, that’s how it works.
So yes, your plan is complicated and expensive.
You know that the M4A1 conversion was far more work than a trigger swap so obviously it would involve more moving pieces.
Regardless, there’s a lot of discussion in the DOD about how to innovate and field equipment faster. Its a large, slow moving bureaucracy, but there’s a lot of questioning the status quo right now. Dismissing an idea because of the bureaucracy’s complexity is exactly what we’re being discouraged from doing.
Granted, the procurement system does move slow. But not all of it is bureaucracy per se. Keep in mind a lot of what happens with any major acquisition in the DoD is legally mandated by Congress… Which is the exact same reason the Army had 512 days in annual training requirements with only 256 days a year to execute them in:
https://www.ausa.org/articles/no-time-literally-all-requirements
“Regardless, there’s a lot of discussion in the DOD about how to innovate and field equipment faster. Its a large, slow moving bureaucracy, but there’s a lot of questioning the status quo right now. Dismissing an idea because of the bureaucracy’s complexity is exactly what we’re being discouraged from doing.”
I’ve also seen the inverse just right here in this post though. People seem to think all that needs to happen is the Army should go to Cabela’s and plops down a big GPC card to buy weapons. Doing that would set Soldiers up for failure.
A surprisingly lot of thought goes into how to field a new item of equipment. All some folks consider is the initial purchase, but what about maintenance? How do we certify that maintainers have an understanding of this weapon and can fix it? When should this be incorporated into small arms maintainer AIT?
What about training? Does this new rifle have any issues with existing range infrastructure? What about Doctrine? Do we need to change the qualification standards for this weapon? What does that look like?
Try and bring these things up and some people will hand-wave them away. But hat doesn’t mean these questions are not valid and don’t need to be answered for a new weapon to work for the Soldier.
This is just a handful of things that need to be addressed before we even get to fielding weapons. But a lot of people seem to think using material solutions to ‘M away the T’ will result in better training outcomes. And if we don’t answer these questions and field something, how much more difficult have we made Soldier’s lives?
Do you have first hand experience on all of the thought that you say goes into fielding? A lot of the topics you laid out seem to have been on the back burner for the whole NGSW series of wins so I’d love to get insight from someone directly involved. The perception is certainly that there is a lot of M behind that one and not much else.
Not with the NGSW but I did do work on fieldings/NET while I was on active duty. Based off my prior experience, I can say that in my opinion that the NGSW has put more thought into the entirety of DOTMLPF-P than any other program I worked with.
From what I can gather from the pictures put on Soldier Systems (and other websites) It appears that they are doing some form of qualification with these weapons as a part of the NET. That means some form of qualification standard has been reviewed and accepted by the Infantry School. That was much faster than the M320 GLM.
Revised Modified Tables of Organization and Equipment have been figured out and approved showing who this is being fielded to down to the duty position. Figuring out how these weapons will be stored (And ensuring racks are in the system for them to be stored in) has been addressed as well. All that had to be done before they were fielded to a unit.
So it looks (from my outside perspective) as if a lot of thought has gone into this in a very short period of time (from an acquisition timeline POV). The NGSW has taken about 5 years to get to fielding, which is light speed as far as an Army Acquisition at this scale of numbers.
The good idea fairy showed up in the Air Force with the A2 conversion kits about 3 decades ago. When I separated almost twenty years ago there were thousands of rifles that had not yet been converted. I’d imagine probably still are today if you got an honest answer out of anyone. And that’s Air Force CATM doing the work where there is only depot and sub-depot level maintenance echelons; we could technically swap any part on the weapon that wasn’t serialized.
Yes, mod kits are technically “doable” but organizational level and piecemeal isn’t the way to do it. The way the Army did the M4 to M4A1 swap was slightly better in that the weapons were, as I understood it, swapped out entirely with the associated modifications being performed at a centralized point. And then you’re fielding different weapon types potentially within the same organization simultaneously.
If we are buying new guns at least buy UGRI.
It’s the Army. They don’t have a requirement.
Never lol. The FSB is so robust and the bunny ears are a great visual reference for when red dots get washed out by bright light or random stuff on fire. There were a lot of times in Iraq where shooting from inside a building I couldn’t see my red dot but if turned it up and had to keep clearing buildings it was too bright to see well inside.
Are you talking about the Geissele URG-I (Upper Receiver Group-Improved) or is it something else and I am completely unaware? But if the URGI is what you’re talking about, I totally agree. Not even to replace all at once, but when repairs/service is needed at least consider upgrading to the URG-I in terms of cost on a case by case basis
How many years do you want to have mismatched guns? One more time, about 985,000 carbines.
This is for foreign military sales. Base award. Colt as right of first refusal.
Most of this discussion is just mental masturbation.
As FMS Guy points out, this whole post pertains to Foreign Military Sales (see April 16, 2024 Sources Sought Notice ID W15QKN-24-R-M4A1, which this Pre-Solicitation relates to).
Y’all are getting worked up for no good reason.
Let’s clear the air…. Unit Armorers: what do they do?
“At this level, called -20 maintenance, the armorer makes simple
repairs to non-critical components such as handguards and slings. He is not authorized to order or maintain small arms repair parts (SARPs) at the company level.
He is a supply clerk, not a gunsmith or technician. He does not have the training
or tools to conduct the technical repairs needed to repair internal components.
The primary function of the Armorer is to account for and secure the weapons.
Since this Soldier is often in his or her first Army assignment, the Armorer does not have technical experience to do much more than those functions.”
– Operations Research Center of Excellence (ORCEN) Technical Report (DTIC: ADB326955)