M4 competitor testing underway

[unhappycamper]

M4 competitor testing underway
By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Oct 15, 2007 17:28:55 EDT

Once postponed until December, the Army dust chamber test, designed to pit the M4 carbine against a handful of competitors, should now be finished by Thanksgiving.

Testers at the Army Test and Evaluation Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., began testing the M4 against the Heckler & Koch 416, the H&K XM8 and FNH USA’s Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle on Sept. 24, said Army Col. Carl Lipsit, project manager for Soldier Weapons.

The SCAR sample models, which weren’t scheduled for delivery until December, arrived earlier than anticipated, Lipsit said.

Army weapons officials agreed to perform the test at the request of Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in July. Coburn began questioning the Army five months ago about its plans to spend $375 million to purchase M4s through fiscal 2009. Lighter and more compact than the M16 rifle, the M4 is more effective for the close confines of urban combat. The Army began fielding the M4 in the mid-1990s.

Coburn questioned the M4’s “long-standing reliability” problems in his original April 12 letter and asked if the Army had considered newer, possibly better weapons available on the commercial market.

Army weapons officials at Fort Benning’s Infantry Center in Georgia — the command responsible for determining soldiers’ weapons needs — maintain that the M4 carbine meets the Army’s requirements and see no reason to replace it.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/army_carbinetest_071015w/

[Ganja Ninja]

1. And the winner is .......

The one that profits the Bush/Cheney crime families the most.