Megawatt maker
Member
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2017
- Messages
- 699
yep., bout how I see it too. Again, the old quote "You can sell the government anything"...Remember this is a contract for XM designated (experimental) weapon (XM5 for the rifle XM250 for the belt fed). Sig won the design contest but this is still far FAR from a fielded system. This contract is for a number of experimentally designated rifles and machineguns for the Army to do more in-depth and extensive testing. Some of this testing later in the program could include limited actual field use but it will still not be a fielded system. These rifle could languish in this status for years or longer. It might be accepted as designed if the testing goes exceptionally well and it might get kicked back to Sig to fix things if it goes good but they find deficiencies. And as is more often the case the Army will simply play with them for awhile and then drop the program completely.
Another little story...off topic and I apologize for this..its a once and done...
Back in 2018 I took the family on a tour of Cape Canaveral. We visited the Saturn 5 center. After seeing and hearing the tour guides trump up and promote their shiny new fanatic Space launch system and how it will do this that and the other thing....I ask a dude with an engineering dept something or other badge on, nASA employee no doubt,, who was walking around the Sat V center, why we, the tax payers, where spending so much money and effort to reinvent the wheel in the form if the SLS, which dispite claims otherwise, WILL NOT have near the thrust of the final version of the Sat V rocket...and wouldn't it just be better to break out the plans for it (on display in a room in the center) and put it back into production...since it had a perfect operational record?
His response...."Yep, I agree. Lots of us here in NASA agree too, but the bureaucracy must be fed!"....
That little statement summed up ALL government spending for me.
This new rifle, round, SAW...is just more of this....a waste.
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