$39M for 1.5M 40mm Training Grenades

Practice makes perfect(click to view full) The grenade machine gun was invented to provide area-effect infantry firepower that could decimate enemy infantry with fragmentation bursts from multiple 40mm grenades. The Saco/GD Mk19 is one of the world’s most common GMGs, and events in Afghanistan et. al. are making these weapons very popular. No weapon can be effective without proper training, however – which leads to the question of how one does live training involving a GMG? Glad you asked… Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH, doing business as Niederlassung NICO Trittau in Trittau, Germany, just received $39 million for delivery order #0003 under a previously awarded firm-fixed indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract (M67854-06-D-1027) for the production of 1,496,000 40mm MK281 Mod 0 Practice Cartridges, plus accompanying non-recurring costs. The MK 281 is a training cartridge consisting of 32 rounds linked together in a belt for use in the Mk19 Grenade Machine Gun. Upon impact with the ground, the cartridges expel a non-toxic orange dye that is visible up to a minimum of 1,200 meters in normal daylight conditions, and a chemiluminescent insert that is visible up to 500 meters in darkness (especially with night vision goggles). That ought to remove the old “I hit […]