Heckler & Koch Awarded U.S. Army Squad Designated Marksman Rifle Contract
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 3 months ago
Heckler & Koch (H&K) is gearing up to deliver between 5,000 and 6,000 complete rifle weapon systems to the U.S. Amy, which plans to deploy them as M110A1 Squad Designated Marksman Rifles (SDMR). The rifle will be a variant of the 7.62×51 mm NATO G28/HK417, and will be manufactured by H&K in Oberndorf, Germany, before arriving at the H&K-U.S.A. facility in Columbus, Ga., in early 2020. There, scopes and mounts purchased under a separate agreement will be installed, as well as accessories from 12 other U.S.-based manufacturers. H&K will additionally provide spare parts, support and training.
Because presumably there aren’t any manufacturers in American that know anything about building firearms.
Colt offered to make the Army a piston variant of the M-16 around 1969. The Army turned them down. Now H&K is the most bestest ever rifle.
Same old same old. I wonder what happened to Trump’s “buy American” pitch leading up to the ’16 election.
ArmaLite designed the AR-18 in 1963. I always thought of it as Stoner saying “oh, you meant to give them to the Infantry to replace the M-14, not a pilot survival rifle? Here, use this one instead.”
HK and lots of others copied the design. I am surprised it didn’t go to somebody who would manufacture in the U.S.
ALCON, Department of the Army will argue those H & K’s are made in fUSA by Americans as H & K maintains a “manufacturing” facility in Columbus (Fort Benning), Georgia. Now isn’t that a convenient coincidence ? BTW….that “manufacturing” facility does “make” H&K weapons. They only assemble and package them from German & Austrian manufactured and imported PARTS ! Read globalization. Screw Americans courtesy fedgov. However, the fedgov’s DoD selecting & buying foreign product is nothing new. They have been screwing American citizens and manufacturing for YEARS ! Hell, do not forget DA’s selection 30+ years ago, of that POS Beretta to replace the venerable M1911a1. Army could have rebuilt the .45 ACPs with new barrels and internals for much less money than buying the Italian-made 9mm. Of course, you may know that Big Army’s justification for the Beretta selection was to align NATO member Amerika with the rest of the NATO 9mm-using members. Seeing as Amerika foots the bulk of NATO monies it would have made sense for NATO to align itself with it’s #1 Sugardaddy and converted to .45 ACP. Then all of them could have bought 1911a1’s from Colt, Remington, S&W and other domestic firearms manufacturers. But, hell NO ! That wouldn’t be fair. To add salt to the wounds of Amerikan manufacturing, DoD recently selected the German-Austrian Sig Sauer P320 pistol. So much for domestic manufacturers AGAIN ! Buy AMERICAN, eh , Well, not if you are DoD. Gotta support those NATO “allies”, eh ? However, DoD is not the only major fedgov agency procuring foreign product over American-made product. Now readers, have you seen the proliferation of Korean-built Hyundais and Kias running around with fedgov, General Services Administration (GSA) license plates. Well, lookey here….Mike Kelly, R-16 another Vietnam draft dodger and chickenhawk has been the elected, member of fedgov’s House of Representatives since assuming office in January 2011. Within a year after Kelly’s HoR annointment, Korean-built and imported automobiles were being spied wearing fedgov license plates of the General Services Administration. Well, you ask how Kelly may be connected to the fedgov purchase of Korean-built cars ? Speculatively simple…. Kelly having been in the auto dealership business in northwestern Pennsylvania for decades sells Hyundai and Kia automobiles through his automoble dealerships. Prior to Kelly’s election to CON-gress Kelly was president of the Hyundai Dealers Association. Since his 2011 election to CON-gress he has sat on the Ways & Means Committee. Kelly also enjoys membership in the below, listed CON-gressional Caucuses amongst others: 1. CON-gressional Automotive Caucus (co-chair). 2. CON-gressional Caucus on Korea (co-chair). 3. CON-gressional Manufacturing Caucus. 4. CON-gressional Steel Caucus. Isn’t the fedgov’s GSA purchasing of Korean-built Hyundais & Kias another convenient coincidence for Mike Kelly ? A call to Kelly’s D.C. office regarding the above provided this answer from a Kelly staffer: “Anyone can bid on a GSA contract.” Then “click” and the subsequent dial tone. More “Globalism”, courtesy of the fUSA fedgov, eh ? Back to DoD for one more (of many… Read more »
I’m in touch with none of the underlying reasons for it (maybe as simple as Payola), but DOD has had a long love affair with H&K. Of course, anyone waiting for rationality to issue from the Pentagon will die unfulfilled.
@Bill,
I know. What’s the deal? Is Big Army impressed by a cool company name, or what? It’s as if no one else, not DD, not BCM, not RRA, not Savage, not Knight’s Armament, not anyone, knows how to make firearms but H&K.
Does somebody have pictures on somebody else?