Back in July, the US Army released a Sources Sought Notice for a Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System or CSASS. Now, Project Manager Soldier Weapons has consolidated the info received from industry in a Draft Request for Proposals for the new M110 carbine variant. The can be used by industry as a sort of warning order to prepare for an actual procurement by the Army.
Manufactured by Knights Armament, the current M110 is a lightweight, direct gas operated, semi-automatic, box magazine fed, 7.62 x 51mm rifle intended to engage and defeat personnel targets out to 800 meters.
According to the FedBizOpps announcement, the Draft RFP seeks the best value to “manufacture a complete system or reconfigure some or all of the existing 7.62 x 51mm M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System (SASS) currently available in Army inventory.”
The Army anticipates a full and open competition for a single award Indefinite-Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) with two options:
Option one (1) will create five (5) one(1) year ordering periods with Firm Fixed Price (FFP) delivery orders. The minimum ordering quantity for this five (5) year option is 30 DT/OT units and a maximum ordering quantity of three thousand, six hundred forty three(3,643) CSASSs. The Government will have 24 months from contract award to exercise this option.
Option (II) is for the purchase of a technical data package. The government will have 36 months from date of contract award to exercise option II. Additional delivery orders cannot be placed until the successful completion of Milestone C/TC-STD.
It is anticipated that the winning manufacturer will initially provide “thirty (30) CSASS for Developmental Testing (DT)/Operational Testing (OT) which is expected to last 2 years, (2) An additional maximum quantity of three thousand, six hundred forty three (3,643) CSASSs…”
As with all Draft RFPs there’s no guarantee the Army will actually issue a final RFP and this Draft is valid until January 14 2013 just in time for SHOT Show so that Army Acquisition officials can speak openly with industry about this weapon.
Notice that they are still talking full and open competition for remanufacturing of M110s or a completely new weapon that meets their requirements.
Wwith the way the army has run the whole IC program with the M4 I would be surprised on how many companies sign up for this. When S&W and LWRC pulmonary out of the program it doesn’t look good. Not many companies are willing to waste their. R&D money on the army to have nothing come out of it
Hmmmm… Well this should be interesting, don’t know if this is just an excuse to get some ECCs or possibly move on to other systems. I seem to remember reading about the shorty SCAR 17’s on here with the non reciprocating charging handle, or maybe a jump to the HK417. The only other four that are on the civi market with short configurations I could see competing successfully, if they even decide to bid at all are are Colt, LWRC, LaRue, or LMT. Should be interesting, but I don’t know if anything will come of it…
What they need is a bullpup. Chopping the barrel off of a precision rifle to make it shorter makes it not a precision rifle anymore.
That said, you Americans still haven’t worked out that the metric system is a good idea and not some crazy plan for world domination by the French; you’ll never go for a bullpup. 😛
LOL
Yep. Because that FAMAS and L85 worked out so well for you guys across the pond.
Yeah those two have had huge issues… The one you never hear about having problems is the Steyr Aug. The Austrians designed a damned good rifle. The Aussies adopted it a longgg time ago, and I have yet to see anyone mention any serious issues with it. I don’t see why you couldn’t chop up the receiver a bit to save on some weight. Then add a heavier barrel and maybe a longer forend to accept, bi-pods, larger scopes, etc.
Yep, we’ve been using the Steyr in Australia from 1988 and it has proven to be reliable and effective.
M16 – 20″ barrel in a 39.5″ package, 7.2 lbs.
M4 – 14.5″ barrel in a 30″ package, 6.4 lbs.
AUG – 20″ barrel in a 31″ package, 7.9 lbs (includes optical sight).
According to Knights Armament they’re still able to maintain acceptable accuracy with a 16inch barrel… they don’t say anything about performance at ranges though.
Can someone post the complete PSpec on this? I’m interested to see how they got around the FAR or somehow completely invalidated the SCAR. Does anyone know of another upper that can plug and play with a KAC upper? I know that the DPMS/Remimgton proposal with the original SASS competition used MK11 magazines but I don’t know if the uppers are interchangeable.
I see that the solicitation is “Best Value” vice “LPTA”. So, to me that means they are looking for something other than “lowest bidder”. However, that could be a double edged sword because the current SASS is already fully fielded and provisioned (spares, manuals etc).
So basically, lets say HK comes in with a proposal for a system that incorporates the 417 and out performs the current system and the other proposals. A logical person who realizes that they expect to carry this into combat would ascertain that HK would win.
Right?
Wrong!
When it comes to “Best Value” all proposals will be evaluated against the PSpec, SOW etc. however, the “tie breaker” will come down to how the proposals stack up against the “desirables”. So in this case if the Program Office identified desirables as something that is “fully provisioned” you are going to get a Shorter KAC Upper unless there is no IP in KAC’s design in which case you’ll get a shorter upper made by someone else.
Right?
Wrong!
Because its “Best Value”, your “Disireables” are probably:
1. Provisioning (Spares, Manuals, Training)
2. Backwards compatibility
3. Cost
So, you’d think the backwards compatible one would win but it hasn’t been evaluated and that’s gonna take time and money and “we’re in a war”.
End answer, KAC wins
“Best Value” in this case is just a shell game they are playing to make it appear that they are fostering competition. In reality it’s a sole source procurement
This should have KAC’s from the get go. All the PM had to do was purchase upgrade kits direct. But they didn’t do that. The fact that they are working toward a full and open competition tells me that this isn’t a done deal for Knights.
I have seen a number of SOF guys on the ranges over the past year with KAC M110 Carbine Uppers on their M110’s. I’m sure the procurement folks are doing their best to get the end users the product they require while covering their 6.
I agree. It seems logical to me to have my weapon guys get some SASS uppers, install a KAC 16″ Enhanced Carbine Barrel, marry it up with a SCAR-H muzzle break, suppressor (both of which are in the system), test it, tweak it, test it some more, tweak it, play with some different barrel twists, test it, tweak it, finalize it. Then contract KAC to build it, provide them the suppressors and breaks, update the TM’s and field it. Probably take 6 months to a year.
However, I’m gonna need to justify a sole source to KAC and I’m sure due to the dollar amount that won’t fly. So, what I’ll do to satisfy the powers that be will to be conduct a “Best Value” full and open competition and rate the offerors in the following order:
1. Operational Efectivness
2. Supportability
3. Past Petformance
4. Cost
In the end I’ll arrive at the same solution but it’ll take 18-24 months and I will incure costs due to independent testing etc not to mention all the protests I’ll have to deal with.
Misha, your spot on-
I saw operators out at Niland shooting MK17 STD’s out to 1,000 yards sub minute (suppressed and unsuppressed) with the standard stock, barrel and trigger assembly. just sayin…
Brett, that’d be a viable option but then you’d probably fight with the SOF office because you’d probably impact their schedule. Then you’d need to rewrite the TM’s, conduct NETT for those going down range, those that are fielded and to the school house. Then you’d need to recover all the fielded SASSs, come up with a disposal plan or FMS them, not to mention you’d have to reprovision all your spares. In the end, the KAC may not be the BEST solution but right now it’s the most logical.
Im very aware of what that takes; I fielded the SCAR to every unit. I understnd hat your saying though. I’d write more but gotta get back to work…
and spelling class too!
Lol.
I just ran a battle rifle class in Florida a couple weeks ago and the vast majority of guns were KAC SR 25 carbines. I was very impressed with how well the guns functioned and how accurate they were. KAC has really put some serious work into making this format more reliable. My call is this solicitation is KAC’s to lose.
Had a KAC M110 in Afghanistan two years ago. Worked great as a spotter weapon. First time I saw them was in the Army Sniper School house. Only bad thing is that one of the bolt carriers cracked on one of the weapons while there. Seemed like a pretty rare thing though.