The ALSETEX Cougar MS is a prototype French grenade launcher.
History[]
The Cougar MS was first sighted at EUROSATORY 2014 as a prototype, seemingly to cater to modern needs of the police or military when it comes to less-lethal crowd control. It is currently being marketed as a less-lethal police weapon, although SAE ALSETEX is planning to produce a "fully-lethal" version.
However, due to SAE ALSETEX's secretive nature and the fact that they maintain practically no public relations at all, other details about the history of the Cougar MS have been scarce. This makes it highly possible that no further news of the Cougar MS will be disclosed until it is almost ready to be put into full production.
Design Details[]
On first glance, it appears as though the Cougar MS follows in the footsteps of modern grenade launchers like the XM25 CDTE and Neopup PAW-20, albeit without the drawbacks of those two designs; for instance, the Cougar MS uses standard 40x46mm grenades, while the other two designs use proprietary ammunition which can be hard to source (25×40mm and 20×42mm respectively), and that all the Cougar MS uses is a normal EOTech sight, as opposed to the overly complicated computer-assisted sighting systems the other two designs utilize.
Due to the lack of a complicated sighting mechanism, the Cougar MS is quite light. To reduce weight even further, the Cougar MS is devoid of any self-loading system; this makes the Cougar MS a manually-operated, straight-pull bolt-action firearm, much like a Mannlicher M1895. The bolt handles of the weapon are present on both sides of the launcher, making it somewhat ambidextrous; however, the ejection port of the weapon is on the right hand side, which unfortunately, makes it somewhat unfriendly to left-handers.
The Cougar MS uses a 5-round box magazine, although SAE ALSETEX has said that high-capacity magazines will soon be available. The magazines are able to accept most 40×46mm shells, including ones up to 135 millimetres (5.3 inches) in length, most military 40×46mm grenades and even all the grenades SAE ALSETEX would be offering with this platform.
As per above, few other details about the weapon are known due to SAE ALSETEX's secretive nature.