Rifle Scopes Vortex Squad Optic Contract

[Lowlight]

New Year, New contracts...

SAM.gov

sam.gov

Next Generation Squad Weapons – Fire Control (NGSW-FC) Follow-on Production Award​

The Next Generation Squad Weapons – Fire Control (NGSW-FC) Production Other Transaction Agreement will provide the U.S. Government the ability to procure fire controls, supporting accessories, contractor support, spare parts, repairs, and engineering efforts to support the National Defense Strategy, to include other Department of Defense Services and potential Foreign Military Sales. The NGSW-FC is the planned fire control for the Next Generation Squad Weapons – Rifle and Next Generation Squad Weapons – Automatic Rifle. The NGSW-FC is the planned replacement for the Close Combat Optic, Rifle Combat Optic, and Machine Gun Optic within the Close Combat Force.

 

[call_me_ski]

The maximum value on this one is 2.7 BILLION…. Maybe they can afford to make the Razor Hd line in black now.

 

[The King]

I’m sure the civilian version will be economical lol. Nice new car economical.

 

[Makinchips208]

Good for Vortex! This is awesome!

 

[_Windrider_]

It’s worth so much because the warranty claims will never stop.

 

[346ci]

It’s worth so much because the warranty claims will never stop.

It's called job security, lol.

 

[The King]

“We gots us a caterpillar here guys. You take the optic off, box it up, put the new one on, shoot 5 times, check on the sheet how it failed, and swap to the next one outta the Conex...”

Joking aside I expect based on the design and etc it’ll be a tough mofo.

 

[Lost_Phil]

I read about a while ago on guns.com, VORTEX GETS GREEN LIGHT FOR ARMY'S NEXT GEN SQUAD WEAPON OPTIC. It was agreement between Vortex but there was no contract at that time. I am glad that they got it and it looks like a neat optic.

Here is the Army Times article on it as well, Army finally picks an optic for Next Generation Squad Weapon.

 

[nightman89]

Damn, they are packing a shit-ton of tech into that optic

 

[koshkin]

Active reticle is a game changer.

ILya

 

[The King]

I just hope the ghost of the PSQ-18 stays in hell this time.

 

[2aBaC̶a̶]

But will it survive an EMP attack?

 

[The King]

In all reality it’s an $8000 solver and laser, a $1600 optics package, and a $1000 custom housing. (all msrp not cost cost).

$10,000 to $12,000 would be very reasonable per unit.

 

[Huskydriver]

It’s worth so much because the warranty claims will never stop.

Shoulda went with Arken wtf are they thinking

 

[BigJimFish]

Wow, congrats to Vortex.

 

[Glassaholic]

Glad to see they won, been hoping this would come to civvy market in some form.

 

[Sniperwannabee]

Wow, congrats to Vortex.

Yep good company and always gave great discounts and took care of military guys

 

[M8541Reaper]

Now you have to just get supply boots to not hoard all of the batteries so the armory guys actually have some to hand out with the kits.

 

[Lightning8]

I will be checking the pawn shop across from bases

 

[CSTactical]

Glad to see they won, been hoping this would come to civvy market in some form.

In for our demo model

 

[deersniper]

Wonder if Wilcox or who provided the solver / LRF

 

[deersniper]

What power is this ?

Could be economical if it replaces Raptar and tracir

 

[DeathBeforeDismount]

They leaked these photos out a couple years ago. This project has been going on for a while and I am really excited for Vortex to win this solicitation. It could mean big things for bringing more infrastructure to the US to support more domestic produced or at least assembled optics.

From a technical/tactical standpoint for the warfighter, this brings tremendous capability to the squad and team level. Assuming the reticle/solver can be tailored to any load (Say M885A1 out of a 14.5") it should make the average soldier/marine much more lethal. Just hope they can get them cheap enough to put one on every Combat Arms weapon system.

I doubt we will see these for civilians due to the lasers, but maybe one day they will make class 1 for us plebs.

 

[rlsmith1]

Anyone at SHOT get to take a look at this firsthand? Or did I see somewhere Vortex doesn't have a booth?

 

[southerngolfer]

 

[RedDirtRifleman]

Interesting that they say in the comments this is where the AMG team has been tied up all this time.

 

[BigJimFish]

Really interesting video. I'm impressed that they fit a display in the ffp of a 1-8x scope. That is no easy task as a display in the ffp is magnified by the erector system. In the case of a 1-8x that is a lot of magnification. Just a few years ago this presented a good deal of difficulty to a simple conventional etched reticle and lead to a lot of products having thick, fuzzy, looking reticles devoid of small features. I'm quite surprised that the technology exists to put a display there today.

Another thing that impresses me about this new optic which has without question the worst freaking acronym ever (NGSW-FC) is its modularity. Setting up the base unit as a conventional optic with a screen, power supply, and attachment ports is a stroke of genius. Vortex is right, the electronics technology is likely to continue to change and improve a great deal over the life of conventional parts of the optic. Being able to easily keep up with that as well as swap out different mission specific components is a great idea. It also strikes me as a very non-military type idea. It often seems to me that many .gov products seemed to be designed more with the needs of the manufacturer and it's stockholders in mind than those of the soldier. Lots of systems that don't integrate well with each other, weigh entirely too much, cannot be easily upgraded, and frankly sometimes don't even appear to work.

I'll share a little story with you guys. A few years back, probably around the time of the start of the Vortex NGSW-FC-abc-123-#@%*^2 project, I was on the floor of Shot Show not far from the little ballroom annex where Vortex has it's small LE / Mil display (It has a separate, gigantic display in one of the main halls for all the other products). This smaller ballroom has the coolest stuff though and also hosts many of the other companies most familiar to the SH crowd such as Nightforce, AI, B&T, GA precision, and U.S. Optics (though I think they since moved). I don't remember exactly who I was waiting to talk too but as I did I overheard some very loud, very young, uniformed .mil types complaining to each other about Vortex. They had specifically been assigned some task relating to determining the feasibility of sourcing something from Vortex and were surprised and unsatisfied with the lack of any preferential treatment they were receiving from the company. From what I gathered, they were used to quite speedy and complete service when dealing with potential suppliers. Vortex didn't seem to constantly lobbying them itself. Worse, they weren't even dropping everything to meet and make their life easy even when directly contacted. Instead of pouring over their paperwork and writing up proposals on how its products could fill their needs, Vortex seemed to be handing the .mil guys the Vortex brochures and simply asking if they wanted to place any orders. So.... basically Vortex was not inclined to hire someone to do their job for them. They found this inconvenient as there were many things they would rather do in fabulous Las Vegas than wait here for their appointment with an optic company that seemed more interested in it's core hunting customers than in them. Having already had my yearly visit to Trijicon where no one who knows anything is ever available and I am proffered the card of someone only tangentially related to Trijicon who will never respond to any query I might have, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my own experience mirrored in another. I also found the inside information on Vortex enlightening. Obviously, whoever drew up those folks assignments eventually got what he or she wanted, and it looks like a pretty interesting product to me.

 

[Glassaholic]

Interesting that they say in the comments this is where the AMG team has been tied up all this time.

Yes, and they have a "new" AMG team working on the civilian items so I am hoping we see something new from AMG in 2023

 

[Glassaholic]

Another thing that impresses me about this new optic which has without question the worst freaking acronym ever (NGSW-FC) is its modularity.

Agreed, there is really no quick nickname for this one, I guess "Squad Weapon Sight" is probably going to be it.

Setting up the base unit as a conventional optic with a screen, power supply, and attachment ports is a stroke of genius. Vortex is right, the electronics technology is likely to continue to change and improve a great deal over the life of conventional parts of the optic. Being able to easily keep up with that as well as swap out different mission specific components is a great idea. It also strikes me as a very non-military type idea. It often seems to me that many .gov products seemed to be designed more with the needs of the manufacturer and it's stockholders in mind than those of the soldier.

I wonder how many military personnel lamented and argued over the "color" of the scope Seriously though, the modularity aspect seems beyond traditional decisions by .gov; however, this new breed of electro-optics reminds me of the "two years and outdated" cycle of much of our electronics - I try to make stuff last as long as possible, but anything computer related (PCs, laptops, phones, etc.) almost seem to be designed to be obsolete in just a few years. With military contracts that can span much longer, I'm sure it was discussed how the NaGSWuFiC needed to be modular in order to be forward compatible with future electronic advancements. Just look at how many different Leica HD-B units we've gone through in the past 5-6 years, meanwhile those who bought an Ultravid years ago are happy that their bino's are just as good, but throw electronics into the mix and now even though the glass may be just fine the LRF is obsolete or "old" and the value of optics that are just a few years old drops considerably. I would love to see a modular design in the bino LRF world where the LRF unit could be a module that is user swappable (or probably factory swappable as it would need to be calibrated) and instead of buying brand new binoculars to get the latest technology, you can simply buy a brand new module and swap it out for a fraction of the cost (might be a big fraction but a fraction nonetheless).

I'll share a little story with you guys. A few years back, probably around the time of the start of the Vortex NGSW-FC-abc-123-#@%*^2 project, I was on the floor of Shot Show not far from the little ballroom annex where Vortex has it's small LE / Mil display (It has a separate, gigantic display in one of the main halls for all the other products). This smaller ballroom has the coolest stuff though and also hosts many of the other companies most familiar to the SH crowd such as Nightforce, AI, B&T, GA precision, and U.S. Optics (though I think they since moved). I don't remember exactly who I was waiting to talk too but as I did I overheard some very loud, very young, uniformed .mil types complaining to each other about Vortex. They had specifically been assigned some task relating to determining the feasibility of sourcing something from Vortex and were surprised and unsatisfied with the lack of any preferential treatment they were receiving from the company. From what I gathered, they were used to quite speedy and complete service when dealing with potential suppliers. Vortex didn't seem to constantly lobbying them itself. Worse, they weren't even dropping everything to meet and make their life easy even when directly contacted. Instead of pouring over their paperwork and writing up proposals on how its products could fill their needs, Vortex seemed to be handing the .mil guys the Vortex brochures and simply asking if they wanted to place any orders. So.... basically Vortex was not inclined to hire someone to do their job for them. They found this inconvenient as there were many things they would rather do in fabulous Las Vegas than wait here for their appointment with an optic company that seemed more interested in it's core hunting customers than in them. Having already had my yearly visit to Trijicon where no one who knows anything is ever available and I am proffered the card of someone only tangentially related to Trijicon who will never respond to any query I might have, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my own experience mirrored in another.

That is interesting, also interesting that Vortex is Veteran owned so they are certainly not averse to the military. I don't think it was ever "on purpose" and I think Vortex is very excited about this military contract and has been trying for some time.

I also found the inside information on Vortex enlightening. Obviously, whoever drew up those folks assignments eventually got what he or she wanted, and it looks like a pretty interesting product to me.

I think of the AMG team like the group my father used to work for - Lockheed's Skunkworks. My dad was hand picked by Kelly Johnson in the early 50's and spent his entire career with them until his retirement even though he went through some rough seasons (especially when Ben Rich took over - my dad did not like him at all). My dad passed in 2005 but a year before my sister and I did several video interviews with him and I still love watching those and hearing all his stories about his time with the Skunkworks. Vortex now has their own hand picked AMG team working for .mil and another now working on civilian products - this can only mean good news for future products and technologies to trickle down to us lowly civvies

 

[Glassaholic]

Love his comment at 29:50 in "people are really good at making snapshot judgements based on absolutely no physical, personal or experiential evidence whatsoever..." I wonder if he's seen the Gen III 6-36x56 thread

 

[Glassaholic]

It is now officially called the XM157 according to their latest press release. Much easier to say than NGSW-FC

 

[Rockdoc173]

BREAKING: Tesla awarded MRAP contract! lol

I'm generally pretty skeptical of electro anything when it's use may determine whether or not someone lives or dies. This time, however, I find myself with growing confidence in the product. Maybe because I've had Vortex products (gens 1 and 2 Razors) and have found them to be very good pieces of equipment. I also like that someone outside of what we think of as the common military "players" has the ball, and they just happen to be CONUS which I like further. I have wondered though if optics will now be subject to Moore's Law, and does that mean that we'll all be trading in our stuff every year or two? Will a scope worth as much as the previous gen iPhone when it is time to download the old stuff? I don't like to operate like that because it takes time to really get going with a system. But, for now I say 'congrats' to Vortex and I really hope this turns out to be a good thing for American warfighters.