LaGana's Vietnam Tactical Tomahawk makes Nov 2003 issue of Army Magazine!!!

Here is the article, cut and pasted.



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New Equipment
November 2003


By Scott R. Gourley


U.S. Army planners are fielding three new program additions to the warfighter's equipment inventory. Historically proven additions include the Vietnam-era tactical tomahawk and the venerable 7.62 mm M14 rifle. New technology is also being tested and evaluated through the XM8 carbine.

In late July 2003, American Tomahawk Company LLC announced the selection of its tactical tomahawk for addition to breaching kits in selected Army infantry squads.

The system was originally developed in the mid-1960s as a hand weapon for selected Army special operations and Marine Corps units. Recently, special operations forces have carried the tactical tomahawk during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Weighing approximately one pound (17 ounces), the tactical tomahawk has a head length of 8.5 inches, a spike length of 3.25 inches and five cutting edges. Originally designed as a hand weapon, the device is now being applied as a versatile tool in non-explosive breaching operations, egress, excavation, extraction, obstacle removal and a multitude of combat-related tasks.

According to SFC Jeff Myhre, Force Modernization NCO for the Army's first Stryker brigade (3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division), the tactical tomahawk is being added to the brigade's breaching kits under the Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI) program. "You don't always need the breach backpack with the halligan tool and the battering ram, or the bolt cutters," Myhre explained. "A small tool, which in this case is the tomahawk, has allowed us to do many things. It's kind of a universal tool: you can break windows; you can knock padlocks off; you can pry doors open; you can cut through things; punch holes in stuff. It's kind of a widget that allows you to do a lot of different things. And we added it to the breach kit as a functional tool."

Another historically proven addition using the RFI for the Stryker brigade is the 7.62 mm M14 rifle. According to SFC Myhre, the M14s allow squad designated marksmen a larger caliber rifle that will cover more area and provide capability that was only available in very limited numbers within the individual sniper sections.

The M14s, which are equipped with Leopold Mk IV scopes, are fielded at a rate of one per squad, with additional weapons going to specific slice elements within the brigade.

At the same time that some Army units are looking back to the venerable M14, small arms planners are also looking forward, hoping to accelerate the fielding of future weapon technologies to tomorrow's warfighters. A clear example of this can be seen in the recently announced acquisition of 200 Heckler & Koch XM8 assault rifles for test and evaluation beginning late this year.

"The XM8 is really part of the new acquisition strategy that came out of the XM29 [objective individual combat weapon]," explained Lt. Col. Matthew Clarke, U.S. Army Project Manager for Individual Weapons (part of PEO-Soldier). "We switched to a spiral development approach to capture technology that we were working on to get it into the hands of soldiers as quickly as possible. So the XM8 was born -- it was the 5.56 portion of the XM29."

Under the new development strategy, instead of building one completely integrated XM29 system and then judging performance, planners focused on developing the integrated subsystems. "That means we focused in on the fire control, the bursting munitions piece, and the kinetic energy piece," Clarke said. "The XM8 piece was really the kinetic energy piece, the 5.56 piece to that."

"The XM8 has the capability to switch out barrels, which means you don't need an M4 and an M16A2," he continued. "You only have one weapon platform and you can configure different variants of what you need. That will really do a couple of things -- it will reduce the logistics tail and the cost of maintaining that weapon and ease the training burden. While the M16 and M4 have operating systems that are about the same, under the XM8, the operating system will be identical. The optics that go with it will be virtually identical. So the training will begin at the basic level. You won't have guys, for instance, learning how to shoot an M16A2 with iron sights in basic training and then going to the 82nd Airborne and suddenly getting an M4 that's a modular weapon system with lasers and all that other stuff that they suddenly have to train up on."

The Army began fielding its first 200 XM8s in late October and will continue through December. Developmental testing, which will be conducted in coordination with Army Test and Evaluation Command, will take place during 2004. Depending on the results of that testing, XM8 assault rifles could begin entering the field as early as mid-fiscal year 2006.

Clarke said, "We'll get them into the hands of the users and see how they like them. Then, in the end, we will go through another design iteration and fix anything that we think needs to be fixed. Then maybe do that whole thing again. The name of the game here is that it's a quick turn- around. We're trying to really beat the acquisition cycle and get out a product that's better than we've ever done before. If the XM8 isn't significantly better than what we have today, we're barking up the wrong tree and we won't keep pursuing that route," he added.

"The one thing I want to reiterate is it truly is a team effort," Clarke concluded. "When you look at the XM8 and things like it, you know, in a sense, we're a little bit ahead of the user with respect to requirements. But we really are working as a team, trying to get down the road together. And that goes for all of the weapon systems."

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Copyright © 2003 by The Association of the U.S. Army
 
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