Lightweight Small Arms Technologies
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| Lightweight Small Arms Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Picture with Future Force Warrior 2010 |
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| Place of origin |  United States,  Germany |
| Production history | |
| Designer | AAI Corporation |
| Designed | 2004 |
| Manufacturer | AAI Corporation |
| Unit cost | unknown |
| Produced | 2007 ? |
| Number built | unknown |
| Variants | cased, caseless |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 9.3 Ibs |
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| Caliber | 5.56 mm telescoped, M855 bullet |
| Action | Gas operated, rotating bolt |
| Rate of fire | 600-650 rd/min |
| Muzzle velocity | 3020 ft/s |
| Effective range | 300m |
| Maximum range | 2000m |
| Feed system | box magazine and belt feed |
| Sights | iron |
The Lightweight Small Arms Technology (LSAT) was a U.S. Army program initiated in 2004 to develop a new family of small arms to replace the family of small arms firing the 5.56x45mm NATO round. The proposed new family of weapons would use either polymer Cased Telescoped Ammunition (CTA) or Caseless (CL) ammunition.
Contents |
[edit] Development
The program had its roots in the cancelled OICW program, being an outgrowth of the OICW Phase I concept. The program was based on technologies licensed from Heckler & Koch that were originally used in the G11 advanced combat rifle, primarily the rotating bolt design and the potential use of caseless amunition.
Because the rounds were telescoped, longer high ballistic coefficient bullets such as those used by the 6.5 mm Grendel were as practical as shorter bullets and present no significant tradeoffs compared to such bullets. Pictures released in 2007 showed pictures of such bullets in 5.56 mm[1].
Unlike the G11, the LSAT prototype used a bolt rotating along the longitudinal axis of the weapon, allowing it to feed from belts and from conventional-pattern box magazines. In addition as a new round was fed into the bolt, any dud round or spent case was ejected forward parallel to the barrel. As a result, the design was potentially very compatible with a bullpup layout[2].
Unlike previous efforts to develop a new family of infantry weapons, this program started with the more difficult engineering challenge of the light machinegun rather than the individual rifle. This had the added advantage of being far less politically charged and the LSAT program maintained a relatively low profile compared to similar projects centering around rifles. The program also focused heavily on managing development risk, starting with licensed technology from the G11 which was itself nearly ready for deployment. In addition the system used parallel development tracks with both composite-cased and caseless ammunition being developed. The prototype weapons were designed to use maximum design commonality between the two ammunition options, so that if the caseless ammunition effort succeeded, the most of the development work gained with the composite cased weapon could be applied to it. If it failed, the composite case version was still likely to succeed on its own[3].
As of 2007 dramatic results were achieved. The weight of the weapon was 45% lighter than the M249 SAW. The weight of the cased ammunition was 33% lighter than comparable to brass 5.56mm ammunition, and the weight of the caseless ammunition was 51% less than for brass ammo[4] [5]. There were some suggestions that a barrel was being used which was constructed from a composite barrel with a ceramic core which was able to tolerate much higher temperatures than a steel barrel[6][7].
