Category Archives: weapons

At least the Resistance was only ‘Moderate’

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It happened 80 years ago today.

Official period caption: “Soldiers of the 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, advancing to Hill 115 on Okinawa against moderate resistance. 16 June 1945.”

Photographer: Moller, 3233rd Signal Service Detachment. SC Photo 270801

Hill 115 was one of the keys to Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima’s 32nd Army’s final defenses on Okinawa, with the boys of the 32nd Infantry clearing out the Japanese 44th Brigade’s HQ there shortly after the above image was snapped.

“With a mortar squad of the 32nd Regiment, 7th Div., on Okinawa are Pfc. Guillermo Acosta, Los Angeles, Cal., and Pfc. James Barnes, Pontiac, Mich., both of whom have also participated in the assaults on Attu, Kwajalein, and Leyte.” Photographer: Moller, 3233rd Signal Service Detachment. SC Photo SC 270795

As noted by the Army’s Center for Military History: 

Within the zone of the 7th Division were Hills 153 and 115, jagged protuberances of coral which, after the fall of the Yaeju-Dake and Hill 95, became General Ushijima’s last hope of defending the eastern end of his line.

The 5-day battle for these hills and the fields of coral outcroppings on the surrounding plateau, lasting from 13 to 17 June, was as much like hunting as fighting. It was a battle of massed tanks that operated ahead of the usual infantry support, blasting the coral rocks with shell bursts and almost constant machine-gun fire. The battlefield was perfect for armored flame throwers, which poured flame into the caves and clusters of rocky crags and wooded areas, either killing the Japanese at once or forcing them into lanes of machine-gun fire. In five days, flame tanks of the 713th Armored Flame Thrower Battalion directed more than 37,000 gallons of burning gasoline at the enemy. It was also a battle of infantry platoons or individual infantrymen against disorganized but desperate enemy soldiers.

Some of the largest cave defenses in southern Okinawa were in the Yaeju and Yuza Peaks. Infantrymen of the 96th Division destroyed these positions with hand and rifle grenades, satchel charges, and portable flame throwers. For the infantrymen, it was a search for the enemy’s hiding places, often followed by a few minutes of reckless combat. Troops of the 381st Infantry occupied the commanding ground on the Big Apple Peak on 14 June, but, for lack of enough explosives to seal the numerous caves in the area, were forced into a night-long fight with the Japanese who emerged from the caves after darkness. Yuza Peak fell two days later, on 16 June. On the same day, the 17th and 32d Regiments reached Hill 153 and Hill 115, but another day of bitter fighting was required before the Japanese forces were completely destroyed.

During this battle, the 32nd won the nickname “Spearhead” because of its continuous attacks against the enemy, one that it still carries today as a unit of the 10th (Mountain) Infantry Division.

Lightweight and Wastelander Tommy guns

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While covering the NRA Annual Meetings in Atlanta recently, I made sure to stop by the Auto-Ordnance booth, as they always have something interesting.

One of these was a neat limited edition Wastelander Thompson, which carries a custom Cerakote finish that looks fresh from some post-apocalyptic badlands.

limited edition Wastelander Thompson
The Wastelander Thompson carries a custom finish that goes far deeper than just some exotic Cerakote and ships complete with a sling crafted from a salvaged motorcycle chain. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
limited edition Wastelander Thompson
“Forged for over 80 hours with grit and ingenuity by the survivors at Koted Arms, every detail of the Wastelander Thompson, from the graphic designs to the rusted-out Cerakote finish, reflects the harsh realities of a post-apocalyptic world,” notes Auto-Ordnance. 
limited edition Wastelander Thompson
Note the intricate, deep laser-engraved markings that feel like it has seen the abuse of some far-off end-of-times battlefield. 
limited edition Wastelander Thompson
The walnut furniture has been given a plasma-cut treatment that gives it a distinctive lightning bolt pattern. 
limited edition Wastelander Thompson
The Wastelander Thompson is chambered in .45 ACP and features a 16.5-inch finned barrel that extends to 18.5 inches with its compensator.
limited edition Wastelander Thompson
It has an overall length of 41 inches and a solid weight of 13 pounds due to its steel construction.

They also have the new T5P, a polymer-stocked Thompson. Black on black, it is a standard 1927A1 but with wood grain polymer furniture, which drops almost five pounds from the hefty .45 ACP carbine. Seems like they could have shaved a few more ounces dropping it down to a 16.1-inch barrel rather than the 18 it ships with, but hey. MSRP is expected to be $1,558.

Spec sheet below:

The new models come as the old-school “Chicago Typewriter” has been getting a lot of time on the silver screen in recent weeks. The iconic drum-magged Tommy gun is seen in both the trailers and extensively, in the end scene of the smash new horror movie “Sinners.”

The Guns of the National Infantry Museum

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The Army is celebrating its 250th Anniversary this week, and we hit the road to visit the museum dedicated to the American infantry, the grunts, and found some amazing guns.

The National Infantry Museum, located in Columbus, Georgia, just outside Fort Benning, is a non-profit organization that opened its 190,000 sq. ft. facility in 2009. It holds over 100,000 historical artifacts dating from the 1600s to the present, covering uniforms, equipment, bayonets (they have a whole wall of bayonets), small arms, relics, and trophies.

With so much to see, any visitor could spend days there and not be able to take it all in. We’ll do what we’re good at and stick to the guns, but encourage you to visit the museum yourself (it’s free) as we’re only covering a small portion of the exhibits.

Benning is the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence and supports over 120,000 active and reserve service members, their families, military retirees, and civilian employees daily. It spans some 182,000 acres across Georgia and Alabama. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
The “Follow Me” sculpture at the entrance to the National Infantry Museum depicts a 1950s Korean War-era Soldier, complete with bayonet-affixed M1 Garand. The model for the statue was  Eugene Wyles, a 20-year Army veteran, and was created by two soldiers.
The museum “emphasizes the values that define the Infantryman, as well as the nation he protects: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage.”

One of the most striking parts of the museum is “The Last 100 Yards,” a chronological walk through the American infantry experience over the years, where the weapons and uniforms change, but the courage endures. It is as life-like as possible and gives the visitor a very immersive feel.

For instance, check out this display of the storming of Redoubt #10 at Yorktown in 1781, with the Colonials fighting the British at eyeball-to-eyeball range. The night assault on the key position helped seal Cornwallis’s fate, leading to the end of the Revolutionary War.
The brother-against-brother hell of Antietam. Of note, the figures in the Last 100 Yards are not mannequins; they are cast sculptures of Active-Duty Soldiers “who auditioned for the opportunity to represent their predecessors.”
Fighting inch-by-inch with the Doughboys “Over There” at Soissons, France in 1918. Note the M1903 and M1911.
Storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and landing atop the “Rock” at Corregidor on opposite sides of the world in WWII. Note the M1 Carbines, M1918 BAR, and M1 Thompson. 
The bayonet charge of Capt. Lewis Millett up Hill 180 at Soam-Ni, Korea in 1951, leading his company of the 27th Infantry Regiment to rout the enemy.
Setting down from a Huey at Landing Zone X-Ray during the Battle of Ia Drang, where the 7th Cavalry Regiment was the first American unit to fight a set-piece battle against NVA regulars in Vietnam in 1965. Note the 40mm M79 “bloop gun,” the early M16, and the M60 GPMG.
The much more recent desert wars, with a dismount team and their Bradley. The era of M4s, M203s, and ACOGs. 

 

Related: Inside the Army Museum Support Center for a peek at the rare stuff!

 

The museum also has a sweeping series of galleries, highlighting the development of the U.S. Army over the years. For instance, the Revolutionary War, complete with British Brown Bess, French Charleville, and Colonial Committee of Safety flintlock muskets and assorted pistols. 
The New Army, immediately after Independence, with the first Springfield Armory and Harper’s Ferry Model 1795 .69-caliber flintlock muskets. Of note, the musket on the Army’s Combat Infantry Badge is the Model 1795. 
How about this impressive evolution, spanning from the left with the Model 1803, Model 1814, and Model 1817 flintlocks, to the M1841 percussion rifle made famous in the War with Mexico, the Model 1855 rifle with its interesting Maynard priming system? To the right are the Civil War-era Sharps and Spencer rifles, breechloaders with a rate of fire of 10 and 20 rounds per minute, respectively. 
The innovative breech-loading Model 1819 Hall rifle. 
This rare gem is a Lefever & Ellis .45 caliber percussion rifle used by a private of the 1st Battalion New York Sharpshooters during the Civil War. Made in Canandaigua, New York, it had a 30-inch octagonal barrel and an adjustable trigger. Never produced in great quantity, Lefever only supplied something like 75 of these guns with the sort of telescopic sight shown, complete with a crosshair reticle. You just don’t see these floating around. 
Securing the Frontier with the Model 1866 Springfield Allin “Trapdoor” conversion rifles, which took .58 caliber percussion muzzleloaders and converted them to .50-70-450 caliber cartridge breechloaders. This led to the Model 1870, 1873, and 1884 Trapdoors in the now-famous .45-70 Government. The museum has all these incremental models on public display. 
A 10-barrel Colt Model 1877 Gatling gun in .45-70. The Army used Gatling guns, which had a rate of fire as high as 200 rounds per minute, until 1911, when they were replaced by more modern machine guns. 
The cavalry isn’t missed, for instance, showing the troopers from the Civil War (left) complete with their M1860 Colt revolver and M1859 Sharps carbine, next to the Indian Wars trooper with his M1873 Trapdoor and Colt Peacemaker. The circa 1916 cavalryman, of the era that chased Pancho Villa into Mexico, sports his M1911.
The Spanish-American War was a time of the side-loading bolt-action Krag-Jorgensen .30 caliber rifle, along with the Army’s staple revolvers of the time: the Colt 1873 in .45 and the S&W .44 top break. To the left is a captured German-made Spanish Mauser, brought back from Cuba in 1898. 
The Great War, with the legendary M1903 Springfield, a French Mle 1907/15, and the dreaded Mle 1915 Chauchat LMG. With an open magazine like that in a muddy trench, what could go wrong?

 

Related: Visiting The Best Helicopter Gunship Collection in the World at Fort Rucker!

 

Lots of other hardware abounds, including a British .303 caliber Mark III Lee-Enfield and Mark I Lewis gun, along with companion German Mauser Gew 98 and MG08/15 in 8mm. 
Bringbacks from France in 1918, including a 35-pound German Tankgewehr 13.2mm anti-tank rifle and a Spandau MG08 machine gun, both captured by American troops. 
The original “Belly Flopper,” an experimental two-man weapons carrier developed at Fort Benning in the 1930s, complete with an M1917 water-cooled Browning machine gun and not much else. 
The iconic M2 .50 cal “Ma Deuce” has been around for over a century and is still “making friends and influencing people” worldwide. It is seen next to its smaller cousin, the .30-06 M1919 light machine gun. Both have the same father, John Browning. 
The M3 Carbine, a select-fire version of the WWII-era M1 Carbine, was outfitted with an early infrared scope during the Korean War. With the battery pack, it “only” weighed 31 pounds. 
A Viet Cong-made pistol captured in Vietnam. The museum also has a carbine that looks even crazier. 
Cold War experiments on display include the circa 1964 SPIW, chambered in XM144 5.6x44mm with its box-magazine fed 40mm underbarrel grenade launcher. 
Can you say, “Stoner?”
The museum has an amazing display on the evolution of the modern “black rifle” from the Winchester .224 caliber LWMR, Eugene Stoner’s early 5-pound AR-10s complete with carbon fiber furniture, and the slab-sided Colt-Armalite Model 01
…to the XM16E1 in gray phosphate to the rare M1 HAR, and the Colt “Shorty” whose 10-inch barrel led to the XM177 and today’s M4. The green guy in the corner is a drum-magged SPIW variant, of course. 
The museum even has the Next Generation Squad Weapon winner, SIG Sauer’s M7 and M250…
…along with the other competitors in the NGSW program.
Who doesn’t love a good steel-on-steel Mossberg M590 12-gauge? The Army has used shotguns going back to World War I. 
Speaking of shotguns, how about the M26 MASS? Fed via a 3 or 5-round detachable box magazine, this 3-pound 12-gauge can either be mounted Masterkey-style under the handguard of an M16/M4 or used in a stand-alone configuration.
A gold electroplated Romanian AKMS clone captured by the 3rd Infantry in Iraq in 2003. Even the internal parts are plated. Note the “Vader” style helmet of Saddam’s Fedayeen.
Hallowed relics: M4 and M249 remains after an IED strike in Iraq. 

Again, we only scraped the surface of the holdings of the National Infantry Museum, and if you are ever within striking distance of it, you should stop by– and block off your day. It is ever more important to visit such places and remember why they are there.

Keep in mind that the Army plans to close more than 20 base museums in the next few years, and places like this carry the torch for future generations… lest they forget.

(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Ash Cans Away!

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Something once incredibly common, a staple then on its last legs.

75 years ago this week, the Gearing-class destroyers USS Epperson (DDE-719), center and USS Sarsfield (DD-837), at right, dropping depth charges during anti-submarine warfare exercises, 15 June 1950. Sarsfield has also fired her Mark 6 K-Gun depth charge projectors, making vertical smoke trails (aft of the ship) and impact splashes to port and starboard.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-415520

First fielded by the U.S. Navy in 1916, when it ordered 10,000 100-pound Mark 1 depth charges, the fleet would place orders for 43,466 “ash cans” during the Great War in seven varieties, with the largest being the mammoth 745-pound Mark IV.

This figure was swamped in WWII with orders for 622,128 depth charges of all types placed by the Navy Department between December 1941 and September 1945, with the 420-pound Mark VI being the most numerous (218,922 built). The last new conventional American DC was the Mark 16, a 435-pounder developed in 1946 that used an advanced acoustic fuse.

Post-WWII, rocket-propelled Hedgehog, Mousetrap, Squid, and Alfa/Alpha devices supplemented and then replaced the more traditional depth charge. Then came dedicated ASW homing torpedoes with the Mk 32 in 1950, followed by the Mk 43 and Mk 46, which helped bring the Rocket Assisted Torpedo (later ASROC) on-line in 1958.

While the 29-pound counter-frogman Mark 10 depth charge remained in limited service, and assorted tactical nuclear depth charges were kept as special weapons, the Navy was eager to remove its huge stocks of WWII-era charges from inventory by the late 1950s due to their high maintenance requirements and outright danger– just recall the final moments of the USS Reuben James.

When the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) program for updating the Navy’s WWII-era destroyers for the Cold War kicked off in 1958, depth charge racks and projectors were “unceremoniously removed.”

As recalled by Captain Eli Vinock, U. S. Navy (Retired), in the meeting about the program with CNO Adm. Arleigh A. Burke, probably the most renowned destroyerman to ever hold a rank in the fleet:

Depth charges were unceremoniously removed as a weapon system for destroyers that presentation. As the list of weapon systems (new and old) that would be ‘incorporated in destroyers was being presented. Admiral Burke interrupted at the mention of depth charges and said, “Who included those things?” There was an embarrassing pause. Without comment, I drew a line through “depth charges,” turned toward the admiral, and said, “Sir. depth charges have been removed.” Good,” he said, and that was that.

Marines Award $95 Million Contract for Polymer-Cased .50 Caliber Ammo

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(USMC Photo)

After years of field testing, the Marines this week issued the service’s largest contract for polymer-cased .50 cal BMG ammunition.

The five-year $95 million contract, awarded to Nammo to be filled at the company’s MAC facility in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, was issued on Tuesday by the Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Virginia.

As I previously reported at Guns.com, the Marines have been ordering polymer-cased .50 cal from MAC as far back as 2019. The company uses an advanced polymer caselet over a metal cap to reduce ammo weight by as much as 30 percent and provide cooler chamber temperatures, ejecting cool-to-the-touch cases. No modifications are necessary in weapons or procedures when using their polymer-cased cartridges.

Nammo MAC-made composite polymer cased belted .50 caliber ammunition. Note the “BYS” headstamp. (Photo: Cpl. Cameron Hermanet/USMC) 
Both the case and link are polymer. (Photos: Lance Cpl. Ryan Ramsammy/USMC)

Lighter weight per round comes in handy in logistics-limited operations typical of the Marines, who must move every bullet ashore either via aircraft, landing craft, or amphibious vehicle. In tests, a 100-round belt of polymer-cased .50 cal is 7 pounds lighter compared to legacy brass-cased rounds.

“This polymer ammunition also reduces fuel costs not only for aircraft but also for logistics and supply,” said Marine CWO3 Chad Cason, the project officer for .50-cal polymer ammunition at MCSC, in a 2022 release. “You can fit more ammunition on the pallet, increasing the overall pallet space used on a truck or ship. You can carry more on vehicles into combat or training as well.”

The Marines issued a $10 million contract to MAC in 2020.

Marines make do with refurb’d ACOGs

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A U.S. Marine with 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, zeros his rifle during a live fire range as a part of a Service Level Training Exercise (SLTE) on Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, July 21, 2023. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance. Joshua Kumakaw)

Michigan-based Trijicon recently picked up an eight-figure contract from the Marine Corps Logistics Command.

The Marines widely use the Trijicon 4×32 TA31 ACOG as the service’s Rifle Combat Optic on its M16 and M4 platforms, a practice made standard in 2008 after the acquisition of some 104,000 of the devices, leaving iron sights behind almost altogether after 2011. The service also utilizes smaller numbers of Trijicon’s VCOG 1-8×28 LPVO, primarily on its HK-made M27 IAR platform, turning it into an ersatz DMR.

The new $20,702,792 contract stipulates that Trijicon will provide “all materials, labor, equipment, facilities, and necessary repair or replacement parts required to inspect, diagnose, test, and restore RCOs to a fully mission-capable condition.” The work will be performed at Trijicon’s Wixom, Michigan, with an expected completion date of June 2030.

The Corps had previously issued a $41 million repair contract to Trijicon for legacy ACOGs in 2020, which expired earlier this year.

While the Army also uses the ACOG, that service is currently fielding a $2.7 billion contract with Wisconsin-based Vortex for up to 250,000 XM157 Next Generation Squad Weapons-Fire Control systems. These optics will be used on the M7 rifle and M250 machine gun, 6.8x51mm platforms set to replace the 5.56 NATO-caliber M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.

Send up the Kromuskit!

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It happened 80 years ago today.

Official period caption: “A gun crew of the 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, loads a shell into the new 57mm recoilless rifle to fire against Japanese pillboxes and caves on Okinawa, 10 June 1945.”

Photographer not credited. Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive. SC 208846

The M18 (T15E3) recoilless rifle seen above was new indeed.

Fielded in 1945, it was light, at “just” 44 pounds, and used the same tripod as the water-cooled Browning M1917 machine gun, or could be bipod-launched to save weight. It could be fired from the shoulder like the much smaller bazooka in a pinch. Later models used the M26 direct-fire sight.

Developed at the U.S. Army’s Infantry Section with cues from loaned British and captured German designs by two engineers, named Kroger and Musser, the gun was initially termed the “Kromuskit” after its daddies.

The Army ultimately fielded seven rounds for the cute little guy:

Three 5.3-pound 57mm shells for the M18 could be carried in the already fielded M6 rocket bag (designed for the 2.36-in bazooka rockets).

For use by airborne troops, it could be dropped in a M10 Paracrate complete with 14 rounds of ammo. The follow-on M12 Paracrate could carry 14 rounds of ammo as well as an M1917 tripod.

This “pocket artillery” was first used in combat in the Pacific in Okinawa, where its HE and WP shells proved particularly adept at handling dug-in pockets of Japanese.

It remained in use in Korea and with U.S. allies (and enemies, such as the unlicensed Communist Chinese Type 36) throughout the Cold War.

A GI with an M18 recoilless rifle in Korea – May 1951. While ineffective against T-34s, it was still a lifesaver firing 133-slug canister shot at incoming waves of Chinese “Volunteers” and in zapping lightly dug-in positions with HE and WP. LIFE Magazine Archives – Michael Rougier Photographer.

Austrian Tiroler Jägerbataillon with M18 recoilless rifle, circa late 1950s. Bestanddeelnr 254-4382

The M18 was replaced in American service by the larger and more effective M20 75mm, M67 90mm, and M40 105mm RRs, and those, by the 1980s, by more modern guided anti-tank weapons.

SSNs and yellow drone submarines, coming to an ocean near you

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Of course, they won’t be yellow when they get operational, but the Navy quietly marked a milestone in undersea warfare: the successful forward-deployed launch and recovery of the HHI Yellow Moray uncrewed underwater vehicle, a variant of the company’s REMUS 600 series UUV, from the USS Delaware (SSN 791), a Block III Virginia-class submarine. In a further note, Delaware was the first American warship commissioned while underwater, making her the ideal historical testbed for such devices.

250501-N-N0736-1001 NORFOLK (May 01, 2025) – Sailors attached to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Delaware (SSN 791) lower a Yellow Moray (REMUS 600) unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) into the water during a UUV exercise in Haakosnsvern Naval Base in Haakonsvern, Norway, and then swim it to the sub. (Courtesy Photo)

Via DOD:

The Yellow Moray UUV executed a pre-programmed mission profile showcasing the potential to greatly enhance the Navy’s subsea and seabed warfare (SSW) capabilities. The successful completion of this mission demonstrates the feasibility of deploying robotic and autonomous systems from submarines, opening new possibilities for clandestine operations and battlespace preparation. As part of this operation, Delaware executed three Yellow Moray UUV sorties of about 6-10 hours each using the same vehicle, validating the reliability of the system and the ability to execute multiple missions without the need for divers to launch and recover the vehicle.

But wait, there is more:

This deployment also highlighted the ability of the Submarine Force and UUV Group 1 to learn fast and overcome barriers. During the first attempts to launch and recover in a Norwegian Fjord in February, the vehicle failed to recover to the torpedo tube after multiple attempts. After recovering the UUV to a surface support vessel, technicians discovered damage to a critical part. To avoid impacts to the ship’s deployment schedule and operations, the Submarine Force (SUBFOR) shipped the UUV back to the U.S. and replaced the failed component. Knowing there was another opportunity to operate the system later in the deployment, SUBFOR returned the UUV to the theater where Delaware completed an expeditionary reload, and multiple successful UUV torpedo tube launch and recovery operations. As part of the expeditionary load, the team also executed a first-ever pierside diver torpedo tube load of the UUV in Norway, providing the operational commander with flexible options.

While the Yellow Moray itself doesn’t have much information, check out this backgrounder on the REMUS 620, its developmental “daddy”:

How many Sidewinders Does $1.1B Buy?

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U.S. Marines with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA(AW)) 533 transport an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Sept. 28, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Gabriel Durand)

First fired successfully in September 1953 (!) and bagged its first confirmed aerial kills in 1958, the AIM-9 Sidewinder is still very much in demand and on front-line service in its 70s.

Of course, the current fifth-generation infra-red AIM-9X tactical weapon system family, which debuted in 2004 and has delivered well over 10,000 examples, is not your grandfather’s Sidewinder.

Unlike previous AIM-9 models, the AIM-9X can even be used against ground targets and has Lock-On-After-Launch and Data Link capabilities. Little wonder that it is used by 29 countries.

With that in mind, it should be no surprise that the DOD just announced a $1.1B contract for right at 2,000 war-shot and around 200 training missiles for both U.S. and overseas customers. This points to a cost of about $500K per round, which is a bargain compared to a $1.3 million longer-range AIM-132 AMRAAM.

As Sidewinders have proved useful against incoming Iranian and Houthi missiles in the Middle East in the past couple of years, a lot of these new purchases are likely to backfill for expended rounds.

Plus, the Ukrainians have shown them to be useful when fired in a novel fashion from their Magura 7 SAM-equipped air defense drone boats, which have claimed two shootdowns of Russian tactical aircraft in recent weeks over the Black Sea, ala Cold War M48 Chaparral style.  

Anyway, the announcement:

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $1,100,806,209 modification (P00004) to a previously awarded fixed-price incentive (firm-target) contract (N0001924C0032). This modification exercises options for the production and delivery of AIM-9X production Lot 25 requirements as follows: 1,756 AIM-9X-4 Block II All Up Round Tactical Missiles (492 for the Navy, 456 for the Air Force, and 808 for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers); 242 AIM-9X-5 Block II+ All Up Round Tactical Missiles for FMS customers; 187 Captive Air Training Missiles (CATM)-9X-4 (40 for the Navy, 62 for the Air Force, and 85 for FMS customers); 13 Special Air Training Missiles (NATM) (five for the Air Force and eight for FMS customers); six Data Air Test Missiles for FMS customers; 30 Multi-Purpose Training Missile for FMS customers; eight Block I Tactical Sectionalization Kits for the Air Force; seven Block I CATM Sectionalization Kits for the Air Force; 33 Block II Tactical Sectionalization Kit (21 for the Navy, eight for the Air Force, and four for FMS customers); 34 Block II CATM Sectionalization Kits (24 for the Navy, six for the Air Force, and four for FMS customers); 31 Block II Tactical Maintenance Kits (30 for the Navy and one for FMS customers); 28 Block II CATM Maintenance Kits (27 for the Air Force and one for FMS customers), as well as various associated spares, containers, and support equipment. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona (36.14%); North Logan, Utah (9.96%); Niles, Illinois (7.83%); Keyser, West Virginia (7.65%); Hillsboro, Oregon (4.71%); Midland, Ontario, Canada (3.17%); Heilbronn, Germany (2.58%); Goleta, California (2.5%); Simsbury, Connecticut (2.49%); Anaheim, California   (2.39%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (2.10%); Murrieta, California (2.10%); Valencia, California (1.68%); San Diego, California (1.57%); Kalispell, Montana (1.56%); St. Albans, Vermont (1.21%); Anniston, Alabama (1.15%); San Jose, California (1.12%); Cincinnati, Ohio (1.03%); and various other locations within the continental U.S. (7.06%), and is expected to be complete by October 2028. Fiscal 2025 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $490,708,962; fiscal 2025 missile procurement funds in the amount of $183,651,109; fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $2,082,840; fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation (Air Force) funds in the amount of $952,404; fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $664,351; fiscal 2024 missile procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $55,470,485; fiscal 2024 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,961,405; fiscal 2024 research, development, test and evaluation (Air Force) funds in the amount of $952,404; fiscal 2023 missile procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $8,768,269; fiscal 2023 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,448; and FMS customer funds in the amount of $597,227,867, will be obligated at the time of award, of which $19,623,826 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract action was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

 

Welcome the first new (to the USCG) icebreaker in 25 years…

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For better or worse, the third-hand 360-foot oilfield support vessel M/V Aiviq, acquired in December 2024 from an Edison Chouest Offshore subsidiary, was renamed the future USCGC Storis (WAGB 21) and has spent the past six months in a series of shipyard availabilities along the Gulf Coast.

This week, “following modifications to enhance communications and self-defense capabilities,” the country’s newest “polar icebreaker” departed Bollinger’s yard in Escatawpa (formerly VT Halter) on its “maiden voyage to safeguard U.S. sovereign interests in the Arctic and conduct Coast Guard missions.”

Photos courtesy of Edison Chouest Offshore.

While scheduled to be commissioned in Juneau this August, where she will eventually be based once the service has built the necessary infrastructure for her, in the meantime, Storis will be homeported in Seattle with the agency’s other icebreakers. The cutter’s new skipper is the former captain of the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10), so at least he is used to working with a mixed bill of goods.

To be clear, Storis will be used as a bridging strategy to “expand U.S. operational presence in the Arctic and support Coast Guard missions.”

At the same time, the service awaits the delivery of the delayed, and much more capable (potentially to include anti-ship missiles) 460-foot, 19,000-ton (launch weight) icebreaking multi-mission Polar Security Cutter class.

Unless they get DOGE’d.

 

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