A newly awarded December 2014 M240 contract with the Department of the Army will be for four one-year orders, with a quantity to be determined but not to exceed a total value of $84.6 million. This indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) order will include receivers, M240B (standard, shown), M240C (right-hand feed), M240D (aircraft model), and M240H (aircraft model with options) machine guns.
This contract comes after the 2009 FN M240L (lightweight) contract and the Colt M240B contract from the same year. There was some surprise of the M240 Colt contract (with official protests from FN, met with failure); further twisted by FN’s 2012 M4/M4A1 contract win (also with protests). Colt’s M240’s have been followed by rumors of disappointment in quality control and more buzz of full recalls.
FN Manufacturing aka FNMI merged earlier in 2014 with sister company FNH USA as FN America (but still using the FNH USA brand) – subsidiaries of the Belgian based FN Herstal.
Previously, and in some cases currently, FN has supplied the M240, M249, M16A2, M16A4, M4, M4A1, Mk19 grenade machine guns, Mk46, and Mk48 from their USA based manufacturing division.
Colt has confirmed their issues with the M240B in their recent SEC filings. They also had their M249 contract cancelled.
Thank you, I’d read something more official but couldn’t find what I was looking for last night.