$43.9M Contract for M192 Lightweight MG Ground Mounts
Small business qualifier Universal Technologies Inc. in Estill Springs, TN received a $7.6 million delivery order as part of a $43.9 million firm-fixed-price contract for manufacture, inspection, assembly, packing and delivery of M192 Lightweight Ground Mount Units. Work will be performed in Estill Springs, TN and is expected to be complete by Aug. 30, 2011. There were an unknown number of bids solicited via the World Wide Web on April 21, 2006 (see also pre-solicitation with details), and 6 bids were received by the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command in Picatinny, NJ (W15QKN-06-D-0023).
The M192 replaces the existing M122/M122A1 tripods for the M249 Light Machine Gun/SAW and M240B Medium Machine Gun. Compact and collapsible, the M192 is about 6.5 pounds lighter than its predecessors, while still providing a tripod’s improvements in weapon stability and effective range. It was listed by the US Army as one of the top 10 inventions of 2005 – and if you don’t think it’s all that great, try carrying it for about 10 miles and then having it available for use in a firefight.