Anyone surprised by the turnout?
I was rooting for two manufacturers, especially the one who's also bidding for the USASOC MSR contract.....but oh well
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...entWeapon.aspx
The Army has officially called off its search for an M4 carbine replacement without anything to show for five years of effort other than data suggesting that its current weapons work about as well, if not better, than anything industry had to offer.
The Army vetted eight contestant rifles, fired tens of thousands of rounds through each, and found itself at square one. None of the carbines tested hit the service’s reliability target.
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Those were the Adcor Defense BEAR Elite, the Colt ACC-M (sometimes called the ACM), the FN FNAC, the Heckler & Koch HK416, the Remington ACR, the ARX160 rifle made by Beretta USA Corp. and submissions from both Troy Defense and Lewis Machine and Tool.
Phase one of the three-phase competition got underway in November 2011. That portion consisted of taking measurements of the various carbines like length and weight. None were fired.
The following spring, all eight weapons were cleared to begin phase two, in which each was “stressed” to determine accuracy, reliability, compatibility with the Army’s existing optics and long-term durability, Ostrowski said.
“It was during this phase of the competition that none of the vendors were able to meet the requirements to pass into phase three,” he said. “The Army is not cancelling the individual carbine competition, it is in a position where it must conclude the competition. If the Army could have moved forward in any way, shape or form, we would have. We could not. We were surprised by these findings.”
After phase three, an analysis of alternatives was planned to determine if any of the new carbines provide enhanced capabilities that would justify the $1.8 billion planned investment to replace the M4.
The competition drew the attention of the Pentagon inspector general after lawmakers questioned the need to replace the existing weapon.
Many of the improvements touted by IC hopefuls — such as ambidextrous controls and a heavier, floating barrel — can be achieved by modifying the existing M4 for less money than new rifles cost. The service is already making some of those improvements.
wow, finally common sense, efficiency, and cost-savings in the army? 
The Army plans to continue fielding the M4A1 carbine and upgrading older M4s to that rifle, which has a heavier barrel and a fully automatic setting rather than the three-round burst setting on the M4. The Army’s 2014 budget request includes plans to purchase 12,000 M4A1 carbines for just over $21 million.
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“None of the new rifle designs advance us to another basic combat shooting doctrine to increase our fighting capability in battle,” Westrom said. “None of the new cartridges do, either.”
The Army changed infantry doctrine from massed musketry to precision fire when the rifle was invented and demonstrated its lethality against grouped troops in the Civil War. The self-contained cartridge and semiautomatic rifle further advanced tactics to where an individual soldier carried the firepower of several troops. Automatic fire allowed troops to wield devastating bursts of lead with the introduction of the M16, which was shortened and slimmed down to the lighter M4. The switch from a .30 caliber round to the smaller 5.56 NATO round currently in use allowed soldiers to carry more ammunition without adding to their load.
“It’s little understood, but when we bought the M16 rifle we advanced from the previous school of combat marksmanship — precisely aimed fire — to rapid semiautomatic,” Westrom said. “The real gain was a new firing capability that combined excellent accuracy with the ability of engaging targets with a series of well aimed, quickly fired shots that combined accuracy and probability to increase the soldier’s hit rate.Bottom line is that if you’re willing to fire some more rounds and accept more misses, you gain hits.”
A return to automatic riflery is the evolutionary step in small-unit tactics, Westrom said.
“I am convinced we have had guys get killed because of the three-round burst fire,” he said. “If you go into a room and there is 10 feet of wall you want to render uninhabitable, you don’t do that with a three-round burst. One of the best things they are doing is going back to automatic fire. Meanwhile, the incremental improvement of the M4 is absolutely acceptable.”
hmmmmmm...huh? 
Armalite did not participate in the competition. Westrom determined that his own rifles weren’t a revolutionary improvement over the M4 and that the Army’s published requirements set the bar so low that the outcome almost predetermined that no contestant would win a contract.
“There is always a background of discontent with the current firearm, whatever it is,” he said.
Ostrowski said 80 percent of soldiers are completely satisfied with the M4 and the rate at which the rifle is given high marks is trending upward.
For the last two years, 86 percent have praised the weapon in after-action reports, he said.
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