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Sig Sauer’s rifle entrant for the Next Generation Squad Weapon competition, then called the NGSW-R. (Screengrab Sig Sauer promotional video)

WASHINGTON: The Army has awarded Sig Sauer the much-anticipated Next Generation Squad Weapon contract, the service announced today.

The decision followed what the Army said was a “rigorous 27-month prototyping and evaluation effort that included numerous technical tests and Soldier touch points of three competing prototype systems.”

Sig Sauer is on the hook now to make two different weapons: a new rifle dubbed the XM5, replacing the M4A1, and a new automatic rifle, the XM250, replacing the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Both will use a common 6.8mm cartridge and fire control system.

“Both weapons provide significant capability improvements in accuracy, range and overall lethality,” the Army said in its announcement. “They are lightweight, fire more lethal ammunition, mitigate recoil, provide improved barrel performance, and include integrated muzzle sound and flash reduction.”

The initial delivery order for the 10-year, firm-fixed-price contract is $20.4 million for weapons and ammunition to undergo testing, the Army said. The contract also covers accessories, spares and “contractor support.”

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The Next Generation Squad Weapons program is one of the Army’s 35 modernization priority programs and among the 24 programs that Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said would be in prototyping by sometime in fiscal 2023.

In 2019, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley hailed the new squad weapon as “a weapon that could defeat any body armor, any planned body armor that we know of in the future,” according to Army Times. “This is a weapon that can go out at ranges that are unknown today. There is a target acquisition system built into this thing that is unlike anything that exists today. This is a very sophisticated weapon.”