But there was no request from DoD about .338 MG. Now there is an official program, the need to overcome personal armor and a very high possibility of making a nice mountain of money from all the program. We are talking about rearming the entire squad of several armies during decades

poliorcetes said:

But there was no request from DoD about .338 MG.

No thats what I'm saying - GD managed to get the DoD program created, $ on the table for SOCOM and possibly the wider Army/Marines - and has apparently then decided to drop out. 

https://soldiersystems.net/2017/03/20/gd/

Worked on it from 2012 to 2019-20, and then suddenly it was no longer on their website and no more info was out there about it. 

Now I understand. But anyways, a LWMMG was not easy to integrate in any organic structure, while rifles and assault rifles are and by the hundreds of thousands. Hombre, it's a totally different scale

I can fill in the missing backstory here for you guys...

The short version is the USG has fucked GD somewhere between 5 and a dozen times in the last 3-4 decades and I suspect gd smelled a familiar smell from this program that has burned them so many times before.

This also pretty handily explains why they took the low effort bullpup route that's based off of their existing patent portfolio which the US gov has jacked them around on and cancelled programs within sight of the finish line on multiple times before this round.

While I'm sure GD didn't eat the WHOLE COST of the previous programs, the USG and big green gave screwed them every time they've tried to play in this sector.

I can give you a PARTIAL LIST of programs here 

Dover devil / lwgphmg

Lwgpmg 

Xm307, xm806, xm312, and several others I'm certain I'm forgetting but basically this comes down to 5 times bitten 6th shy.

how about a .20 caliber /5mm, with similar energies to the .224 valkirie or 220 swift.....

total size would be much smaller than 762

Textron being called out by TFB:

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2021/11/18/textron-ngsw-program/

A source associated with Textron’s participation in the NGSW program confirmed that ‘Textron are no longer in the project’ and that the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program is now likely to be between SIG Sauer and Lone Star Future Weapons’ submissions.

Following up on this we gained independent confirmation from a number of industry sources that Textron has withdrawn from the program reportedly due to issues with weapon and ammunition that emerged during testing.

...

In terms of the NGSW program’s progress Lt. Col. Joshua Headley, the NGW program’s new product manager, advised that it may be towards the end of the year when we hear which submission has been selected.

Alternatively, the Army Times reported that Maj. Gen. Anthony Potts, commander of Program Executive Officer Soldier (PEO), has stated that a selection is expected by mid-2022. This would be a considerable delay when the original selection announcement was planned for the second half of 2021.

"When we approached Textron for comment on the possibility that Textron and their weapons were no longer part of the NGSW program Betania Magalhaes, Textron’s Director of Corporate Communications, said":

"Textron Systems has completed its scope of work for the prototype phase and have delivered all our weapons for government testing; we are closely tracking the Army’s next steps."

They still haven't confirmed they're out, it sounds like they're waiting on an Army decision 

Gr1ff1th said:

They still haven't confirmed they're out, it sounds like they're waiting on an Army decision

Its still hard for me to fathom that they would be out, given that their tech seems to be the genesis for much of the NGSW program...

now I think sig has a chance to win because the army may want stuff from one distributor since sig already bagged the m17/m18 and the mg-338 contracts. But idk I'm no expert

BruhMomento said:

now I think sig has a chance to win because the army may want stuff from one distributor since sig already bagged the m17/m18 and the mg-338 contracts. But idk I'm no expert

I think almost all of us were betting on Textron - which now may have dropped out - so I'd say none of us are experts at this point. 

SIG does have a number of advantages:

-Already provides guns to US Mil (as you mentioned)

-SIG Spear shares M4/AR ergonomics and familiarity 

-LMG is extremely light, reportedly low recoil 

-SIG's case design is probably the lowest risk, and can also be loaded on existing ammo loading machines 

Its main downsides are

-Heaviest ammo choice 

-Metallic case does not reduce weapon heating compared to polymer 

-SIG's civilian weapons can have somewhat spotty QC, and its MHS pistol was not without some teething issues 

Overall I wouldn't bet against them, especially if Textron is out.