General Dynamics Awarded $7 Million by U.S. Army for Conversion of M2 Crew-Served Machine Guns

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Arma­ment and Tech­ni­cal Prod­ucts, a busi­ness unit of Gen­er­al Dynam­ics (NYSE: GD), was award­ed a $6.9 mil­lion con­tract by the U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Man­age­ment Com­mand to con­vert more than 3,500 M2 heavy bar­rel (M2HB) machine guns to the M2A1 con­fig­u­ra­tion.

The M2A1 offers the proven per­for­mance of the exist­ing M2HB heavy bar­rel (HB) machine gun, along with new fea­tures and design improve­ments that are adapt­able to exist­ing M2HB weapons. These inno­v­a­tive improve­ments help elim­i­nate oper­a­tor error, decrease muz­zle flash and stream­line bar­rel changes. Gen­er­al Dynam­ics devel­oped the M2A1 .50 cal­iber weapon upgrade after more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence man­u­fac­tur­ing the M2HB for the U.S. Depart­ment of Defense. The M2 machine gun is one of the world’s most effec­tive crew-served weapons. 

“Gen­er­al Dynam­ics is proud of our role in mak­ing this high­ly effec­tive weapon even bet­ter by improv­ing its safe­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty and ease of use,” said Steve Elgin, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of arma­ment sys­tems for Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Arma­ment and Tech­ni­cal Prod­ucts. “Our suc­cess pro­duc­ing and advanc­ing the M2 machine gun posi­tions us to con­tin­ue pro­duc­tion well into the future.” 

Pro­duc­tion work will be com­plet­ed at the Gen­er­al Dynam­ics facil­i­ty in Saco, Maine, which employs over 400 peo­ple and has been the ven­dor of choice for the M2 machine guns since 1979. Con­ver­sion of the M2 guns under this con­tract will be com­plet­ed in 2013. Pro­gram man­age­ment will be per­formed at Gen­er­al Dynam­ics’ Willis­ton Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter in Willis­ton, Vt. 

For more infor­ma­tion about Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Arma­ment and Tech­ni­cal Prod­ucts, please vis­it www.gdatp.com.

Source:
Gen­er­al Dynamics