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Description

And low, did the prophecy say, that defense development firm would create the awesome perfection in lightweight ammunition.. After a quarter century of spending the US Army's money, the chosen Textron AAI blessed our world with.. Cased Telescoped Ammo. Or just CT, for short.

Among all the of the possible entries into the Next Generation Squad Weapon program, Textron AAI is definitely the most well known. In fact it's CTS lmg has become the media's poster boy for the program. As it was developed from the Army's LSAT program, it's interesting to see CT weapons in the NGSW. Let's go over what we know about Textron AAI's possible entry and see if the media hype is warranted.

First, there's the CTS (Cased Telescoped System) LMG that boasts 20lb-27lb reduction depending on the variant: 5.56mm, 6.5mm, and 7.62mm. It uses a unique pivoting chamber that (in theory) reduces the heat on the ammunition and helps prevents cook-offs. As next round is chambered, the spent cartridge pushed out of the weapon. This concerns me. Not only does this oddball system necessary for the CT ammunition, it's function requires a mechanical mass to actuate 90 degrees perpendicular to the bore alignment. Call me a novice, but that sounds like it'll create a second recoil impulse and pull the weapon off to the right. Of course, the platform seems to make use of a constant recoil system like in Ultimax 100. Would this negate the the pivoting chamber effect?

Next, there's the 6.5 mm CTS rifle. Not too much is known about it, but it does use a gas piston. It also seems to have been used as the demonstrator for the US Army's 'proof-of-concept' for the NGSW. Of course, it was described as too bulky and it weighed more than desired. Comparing the CTS rifle to the SIG Sauer's NGSW-R entry (a prototype of MCX-MR), I can see that.

The real impressive stuff is Cased Telescoped rounds, as they're real reason for the boast a 40% system weight reduction. The polymer design of CT comes from the US Army's ACR program of the later 1980's, which at the time was developed a flechette projectile. While AAI has calmed it's a more compact design, that seems to only be true in length. And, as stated before, the round requires quite a different system for feeding and extraction than what the US military and all other militaries (including all NATO and other US allies).

While the Textron AAI entry has some very interesting improvements over the M249 and M4, it's kind of easy to see why the Army chose to open the NGSW to the larger defense industry. Textron did receive a contract for a NGSAR prototype, but the initial rating of the entries placed the company's system (most like a CTS LMG) as 4th or 5th over all... depending on how one looks at FN America's two entries which both came in last. But there's great deal of articles that talk about the LSAT and CT ammo, so I could only be scratching the surface what the platforms are capable of.

Description

And low, did the prophecy say, that defense development firm would create the awesome perfection in lightweight ammunition.. After a quarter century of spending the US Army's money, the chosen Textron AAI blessed our world with.. Cased Telescoped Ammo. Or just CT, for short.

Among all the of the possible entries into the Next Generation Squad Weapon program, Textron AAI is definitely the most well known. In fact it's CTS lmg has become the media's poster boy for the program. As it was developed from the Army's LSAT program, it's interesting to see CT weapons in the NGSW. Let's go over what we know about Textron AAI's possible entry and see if the media hype is warranted.

First, there's the CTS (Cased Telescoped System) LMG that boasts 20lb-27lb reduction depending on the variant: 5.56mm, 6.5mm, and 7.62mm. It uses a unique pivoting chamber that (in theory) reduces the heat on the ammunition and helps prevents cook-offs. As next round is chambered, the spent cartridge pushed out of the weapon. This concerns me. Not only does this oddball system necessary for the CT ammunition, it's function requires a mechanical mass to actuate 90 degrees perpendicular to the bore alignment. Call me a novice, but that sounds like it'll create a second recoil impulse and pull the weapon off to the right. Of course, the platform seems to make use of a constant recoil system like in Ultimax 100. Would this negate the the pivoting chamber effect?

Next, there's the 6.5 mm CTS rifle. Not too much is known about it, but it does use a gas piston. It also seems to have been used as the demonstrator for the US Army's 'proof-of-concept' for the NGSW. Of course, it was described as too bulky and it weighed more than desired. Comparing the CTS rifle to the SIG Sauer's NGSW-R entry (a prototype of MCX-MR), I can see that.

The real impressive stuff is Cased Telescoped rounds, as they're real reason for the boast a 40% system weight reduction. The polymer design of CT comes from the US Army's ACR program of the later 1980's, which at the time was developed a flechette projectile. While AAI has calmed it's a more compact design, that seems to only be true in length. And, as stated before, the round requires quite a different system for feeding and extraction than what the US military and all other militaries (including all NATO and other US allies).

While the Textron AAI entry has some very interesting improvements over the M249 and M4, it's kind of easy to see why the Army chose to open the NGSW to the larger defense industry. Textron did receive a contract for a NGSAR prototype, but the initial rating of the entries placed the company's system (most like a CTS LMG) as 4th or 5th over all... depending on how one looks at FN America's two entries which both came in last. But there's great deal of articles that talk about the LSAT and CT ammo, so I could only be scratching the surface what the platforms are capable of.