The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) overseeing the activities of the US Armed Forces' special forces commands aspires to launch US manufacture of Russian weapons, local media reported
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th October, 2018) The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) overseeing the activities of the US Armed Forces' special forces commands aspires to launch US manufacture of Russian weapons, local media reported.
According to the National Interest media outlet, in its Small business Innovation Research (SBIR) proposal, the USSOCOM is offering grants to the US companies which will be able to "produce fully functioning facsimiles of foreign-made weapons," namely, the Russian Pulemyot Kalashnikova Modernizirovany machine gun and the NSV heavy machine gun, while the manufactured weapons should be "equal to or better than" the prototypes.
The USSOCOM will not provide any technical drawings, parts and raw materials to the interested companies. Applicants for the SBIR project will have to manufacture the weapons only on the US territory, using only the US-produced materials and employing only the US citizens.
While the companies are currently suggested to produce copies of two Russian machine guns, the USSOCOM may encourage them to manufacture copies of some other foreign weapons in future.
According to the National Interest, this USSOCOM's move may be related to Washington's plans to provide the copies of the weapons to various groups operating in Iraq, Syria or other unstable regions. The outlet qualifies the idea of producing US copies of foreign weapons instead of procuring them abroad as a "sensible and economical" one.
