ATK wins $65M EMD contract for XM25 Airburst Weapon

The Army has quietly awarded Alliant TechSystems (ATK) a $65M contract for engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) of the Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, better know as the XM25 Individual Airburst Weapons System (IAWS), according to a contract press release published today:

Alliant Techsystems, Inc., Plymouth, Minn., was awarded on March 24 a $65,807,670 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract.  The award will provide for the engineering and manufacturing development of the Counter Defilade Target Engagement System.  Work will be performed in Plymouth, Minn., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2013.  One bid was solicited with one bid received.  The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity (W91CRB-11-C-0024).

XM25. PEO Soldier photo.ATK has the airburst ammunition contract for XM25; Heckler & Koch (HK), a German company, has the weapon development contract so I'd expect a similar award shortly for the weapon itself (unless HK is a sub-contractor to ATK, in which case this would be the only contract).  An EMD contract award means the weapon has passed "Milestone B" and is formally ready for final design and development testing, which if successful is followed by a low rate production decision or "Milestone C". That means the system is moving along, though not up to the "12,500 production weapons in 2011" claimed by the XM25 wikipedia article.

The weapon has been sent to Afghanistan in very small numbers for initial assessment; this award may be an indication that assessment is going well, or it may be unrelated.  The tech behind XM25 has been in development for a long time, as it was originally part  of the 20mm over-under superweapon the Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW); what has become XM25 was the grenade rifle portion broken out, then scaled up to 25mm to fix shortfalls in lethality.

Truth in advertising: SoldierGeek has prior history with the XM25, and is extremely skeptical of it as a solution.  More details some other time, but the short version is: the need to engage targets behind cover is a valid need, and the XM25 contains promising technology, but it is packaged in the wrong form factor as it is stil both too heavy and too expensive for its intended use.  The desire to retain OICW work without changing form factor has, in my opinion, precluded serious consideration of other alternatives that may not be as effective but are also not as costly nor require as many compromises by the soldier using the weapon.  Time will tell.

Update on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 7:18PM by SoldierGeek

Newly released XM25 video.

Comments

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