“The Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program is the most audacious effort in decades. It is the ability to participate in writing history and whatever happens now will dictate the next twenty, thirty, forty years,” explains Cohen in a video released by SIG. The NGSW Program is in fact aimed at developing weapons that will enhance squad-level lethality, and SIG already delivered to the US Army the systems, consisting of the revolutionary 6.8x51 hybrid ammunition, the NGSW-AR lightweight belt-fed machine gun, the NGSW-R rifle, and suppressors.
Next Generation Squad Weapons Program, an “audacious effort”
In detail, the SIG Sauer Lightweight Belt-Fed Machine Gun (NGSW-AR) doubles the effective range and is 40% lighter than the current M249 while maintaining the preferred belt-fed operation, with reduced felt recoil increasing soldier lethality, while the SIG Sauer Rifle (NGSW-R) is built on the MCX platform. Both the NGSW-AR and NGSW-R are chambered in 6.8x51 – a a lightweight cartridge designed to handle higher pressures, providing increased velocity and terminal performance – and feature familiar AR-style ambidextrous ergonomics. The final component of the system is the SIG SAUER Next Generation Suppressors for reduced sound signature.
"We are the only company that makes the ammunition and the weapons so we were able to harness the engineers on the weapons side with the engineers on the ammunition side”, stresses Cohen.
