$5.5M for Rapid Fielding of Long Range Combat Flashlights

Small business qualifier Safety Systems Corp. in Carol Stream, IL received a $5.5 million firm-fixed-price contract for the M4 Surefire light’s rapid fielding initiative. Work will be performed in Carol Stream, IL and is expected to be complete by June 30, 2006. This was a sole source contract initiated on Jan. 23, 2006 by the Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ (W15QKN-06-C-0115). These are very high-end flashlights at $330 per (retail) with accessories extra, but $5.5 million will still buy quite a few of them. Is spending this much on flashlights a waste? Why should our readers care about a flashlight, anyway, or consider this important? No, it’s not a waste, and there are plenty of potentially life-saving reasons to care – as stories from both the front lines and the civilian world attest… Surefire M4s(click to view full) The Surefire series M4 Devastator comes with a 2.5 inch TurboHead to tightly concentrate the flashlight beam for longer-range applications, a shock-isolated bezel/ lamp assembly, and an extremely tough Mil-Spec Type III hard-anodized finish. It gets its name from 4 lithium batteries generating up to 350 lumens of blinding white light to spotlight and/or dazzle a potential enemy, […]