Beretta is now out of the process entirely as they were only there for production IF the GD/True Velocity entry won. True Velocity appears to now want to do production themselves if they win since they own Lone Star Future Weapons. General Dynamics is now advisory/support. They were the prototype designers so either they believe the design is mature enough or they are just done with it. (Maybe they know something?)
W15QKN1991024 is just the contract awarding number for the NGWS weapons and ammunition prototyping contract that was originally awarded to GD/True Velocity. The GD/Beretta part was novated to Lone Star Future Weapons. There were originally three of these contracts. One to GD/True Velocity, one to SIG, and one to Textron/Winchester/HK (polymer cased, telescoped ammo entry). Each contract was for 53 "rifles", 43 "automatic rifles" (light machine guns), and about 850,000 rounds of the ammo specific to those weapons.
Friends who know military procurement actually think this novation may be a bad sign for the True Velocity offering because GD and Beretta being out marks True Velocity/Lone Star Future Weapons as "untried" in Army procurement's eyes. Big Army does NOT like buying weapons systems from vendors/manufacturers who have never held a large military weapons contract. SIG has the M17/M18 contract and several smaller ones. Textron/AAI, Winchester, and HK are all well proven military suppliers.
I would probably bet that Textron wins based solely on the parties involved and the fact that Big Army has been experimenting (in conjunction with AAI/Textron) with the use of CT ammo for over a decade. The Army doesn't want an incremental change. IF they are going to replace tens of thousands of weapons, they want something truly revolutionary. This is why the earlier efforts to replace the M16/M4 failed.
This, however, assumes the Textron entry works under all conditions. That was an issue with some of the early CT ammo but that has supposedly been resolved.
