The McDonnell Douglas AIWS (Advanced Infantry Weapon System) was a prototype American assault rifle designed by Goldin Maury in 1986 and produced by the McDonnell Douglas Corportation.
The weapon was entered in Phase I of the Advanced Combat Rifle program along with five other prototypes but was swiftly withdrawn from the program, making it one of two dropouts wth the other being the ARES-Olin AIWS. Both weapons were given the option of reentering the program but their issues could not be solved on time.
History
The AIWS was created by Hughes Helicopter Systems, later known as McDonnell Douglas. The weapon was tested with a variety of different ammunition types, all of which proved fairly unreliable, as the cartridge used required more propellant than the average cartridge. The AIWS was ultimately withdrawn early from testing, with McDonnell Douglas citing technical issues.
Design Details
The AIWS used lockless "chiclet" rounds that were first used in older prototypes made by Hughes. A saboted flechette was positioned in the center of the cartridge with the powder compartments on either side, with the "lockless" chamber closed off at the breech end with a slot at the top and bottom of the barrel. Ammunition is fed into the chamber from the magazine located on the left side of the weapon and a sliding pressure sleeve closes off the barrel’s openings. Once the round is fired, this sleeve retracts and the spent casing is pushed out of the ejection port by the next round feeding from the magazine.
Ammunition
The AIWS uses lockless "chiclet" rounds, which were first used in older prototypes tested by Hughes Helicopters. The rounds are nicknamed chiclets due to the flat, box-like profile of the casings resembling the popular candy-coated chewing gum. The original loads for the rounds were single 5.56×45mm NATO M193 rounds, this was changed to multiplex bullets such as duplex (2) or triplex (3) loads, but these caused excessive recoil; the loads were later changed to flechettes rounds of various calibers. The flechette rounds also came as multiplex rounds, first 11mm quintuplex (5) and quadruplex (4) and eventually 8.6mm triplex rounds with the darts sitting grouped tightly next to each other in the middle "lockless" chamber, encased in a two-piece molded sabot. The rounds could also be loaded with a single projectile instead. Before the contract had been terminated some sources claim 8.6mm triplex flechette rounds was chosen as the final ammunition configuration while other sources claim the final load-out before termination was a 9mm or .338 cartridge with triplex flechettes.
Gallery
See also
- Advanced Combat Rifle program
- Steyr ACR
- H&K G11
- AAI ACR
- Colt ACR
- ARES-Olin AIWS
- 5.56×30mm Hughes Lockless
- Multiplex ammunition
- Flechette
- Telescoped ammunition
- Hughes Lockless
External Links
- Information regarding the ACR program on Reddit
- Cartridge Collector 5.56x30mm Hughes Lockless
- Municion Lockless Rounds(Spanish)(Old)
- Strange Weapons(Russian)
- Docdroid PDF Advanced Combat Rifle program
- Wikipedia article on Advanced Combat Rifle program
- Pew Pew Pew Work's article on the McDonnell Douglas AIWS