U.S. Army asks contractors to imagine that Steve Jobs were designing America’s next-generation rifle

“The [U.S.] Army isn’t on the hunt for any old rifle for it’s Next Generation Squad Weapon program — it’s looking to spark a ‘revolution in small arms’ on par with what the iPhone did to consumer electronics,” Jared Keller reports for Task & Purpose.
“At least, that’s how Army officials at the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey described their overall goal in a conversation with Task & Purpose following the release of a formal Prototype Project Opportunity Notice calling on industry partners for a rapid prototyping and testing run of the brand-new platform. ‘Imagine that Steve Jobs and his engineers were trying to convert the iPod Touch to the first 3G iPhone,’ said Army Col. Elliott Caggins, project manager for soldier weapons. ‘There were a thousand technologies they could have put in the first iPhone but they were looking to mature the platform before they could actually go onto the system.'”
A concept drawing for the Next Generation Squad Weapon (U.S. Army)
 
“Rather than slap future additions onto an outdated platform like the service’s current M4A1 improvement program, the Army wants future capabilities baked into the NGSW from the get-go in a ‘one end-all solution’ to replace both the M4 and the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon,” Keller reports. “One of three companies selected by the Army will ultimately end up cinching the contract to actually produce the weapon in all its glory. ‘We have hundreds of capabilities we can put into this weapons system, but we want to do it by holistically creating a system that that takes advantage of everything we’ve done in the past,’ he added. ‘This means its capabilities will only grow, just as the iPhone’s did.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, by invoking Steve Jobs and the iPhone, the U.S. Army is looking for a paradigm-shattering solution that’s capable of delivering significant disruption.
[Attribution: 9to5Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]