rotor wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 1:30 pm
This is what it said.......
"On Monday, Army Contracting Command awarded Swiss defense contractor Brugger & Thomet a $2.5 million contract to outfit the personal security details with the APC9K semi-automatic carbine.
The award will furnish the service with 350 APC9Ks, with an option to acquire up to 1,000 of the compact 9mm weapons. "
To me that meant they were getting 350 guns with an option to get a total of 1,000. I interpret that to mean that they paid $2.5 mil for 350 and got an option to buy up to 650 more for whatever the additional price they would be charged. Perhaps I am wrong.
Surely you don't believe everything you read in the news?
If you follow the other link I provided, it goes to the actual government announcement of the award.
Note that the $2.5M figure in the article comes from the "contract award dollar amount" which is $2,575,811.76. That is the maximum amount of money that would be expended if every option is exercised and every item within each option is purchased. It includes the cost of the firearms and anything else the contractor is to supply: training, manuals, slings, optics, magazines, spare parts, etc. This figure drives some other requirements, like how the original solicitation is to be publicized, who the Source Selection Authority can be, how the award of the contract is to be publicized, and probably some other things. It also drives the budgeting for the program, of course.
Within that 2.5M (really, almost 2.6M) figure, the government contracts are generally structured with an initial award in the first year, then up to four additional option years. I think it's possible to have multiple options in a year, but generally the maximum life of a contract by law is five years. Money has to be budgeted and approved for each year, and only one year's money can be obligate at a time. The government may or may not execute the next year's options. So that 2.5M is can be spread out over five years of budgeting, and Congress or the Army could cut off future funding at any time.
Also note in the Synopsis portion of the government award announcement the following statement: "The purpose of this P-OTA ["P-OTA" is this particular contract] is to purchase 350 SCWs, with an option for additional quantities of up to 1,000 SCWs, with slings, manuals, accessories, and spare parts." So they definitely want to buy 350 Sub Compact Weapons now, and have the option to purchase up to 1000 of them in the future, along with all the other required gizmos like slings and such. And all that has to fit in the contract award dollar amount.
Now, my acquisition experience was with buying GPS widgets for all the services, not guns for the Army, but I think the general contracting process is similar, and that's my best somewhat educated guess as to what this contract does.
ETA: I looked around for info on the original solicitation, and it says the options for 1000 more SCWs will be exercised for amounts no larger than 350 units at a time, with a maximum of 1000 total. So that fits the initial award of 350 units, plus four option years of up to 350 each, with the actual amounts purchased not exceeding 1000. For example, the Army could buy 350 in option year 1, 300 in option year 2, 300 in option year 3, and then no more than 50 in the last year. This tells the contractor how to size his production line for this contract, e.g. max 350 per year.
They require a weapon with greater lethality than a pistol, yet choose a pistol caliber (9mm) weapon? The barrel is 6.9 inches, less than 2 inches longer than my M&P 2.0 5" 9mm. Can two more inches of barrel really achieve "greater lethality" than a pistol? Or is the point that the 30 round magazine/full auto capability makes it more lethal...with "minimal collateral damage" (run innocent bystanders!!)?