2 years to production for military sniper rifle?

[wacki]

Watching future weapons and they said if the sniper rifle featured (appeared to be 7.62 version of the m16) was accepted it would take 2 full years for it to go from proving ground to the field. Anyone know why it takes so long? Sniper rifles aren't exactly high production items.

 

[skinewmexico]

I thought that was odd myself. Rave reviews from Afghanistan, and it's going to take two more years to issue them? And it's essentially an AR10? Military efficiency..........

 

[Rifleman 173]

The rifles are easy enough to produce. What they're talking about is the delay caused by paperwork and financing from Congress. Then you have integrating or delivering the rifle into the system for use in the units. So, if the leaders agree to a rifle today, rushing a sniper rifle into place would take probably a little over 2 years once all agreements are in place.

 

[Owen]

It takes at least a year to complete the testing.

Heck, it took 2 years for .mil to reject the XM8.

 

[trbon8r]

Wow, it takes two years for the military to test something as simple as a rifle?

 

[TexasRifleman]

Production rifle testing, including destructive testing
Armorer class course material creation
Armorer training itself
Rifleman training course creation
Integration into existing sniper training courses
spare parts inventory buildup
spare parts supply chain management
special ammo requirements if any
accessory acceptance and logistics; cases, mag carriers, cleaning kits, books
Funding and budget issues

2 years is an amazingly short time folks.....

The military is a very large organization. There is much more to this than picking a cool gun off the rack and taking it to war.

 

[Slamfire]

I will add some more

Technical Data Package drawing creation and approval of each drawing. All engineering changes incorporated and approved.

Technical specifications written, subcontractor scopes of work written

Subcontract solicitations

Subcontractor evaluation and downselect

Production line planning, process layout

Equipment facilitization

Long lead materials
Special tooling
Material testing
Special inspection equipment

Training and certification of factory workers
Critical process prove out

First article inspection

The transition to production is one of the least understood, and riskist phases in a program. Making one of a kind prototypes is a lot easier than going into production with an item.

The fire arms history windshield is covered with small businesses that splattered themselves out when they failed to make it from a custom shop to a production shop.

Remember the Bren 10?

Anyone remember reading how badly Rockola did on getting into production of M1 carbines, or the problems Winchester had making M1 carbines? And these were not mom and pop shops.