Military Small Arms: New Directions

Report Highlights

• The overall military small arms market through the year 2004 includes military rifles, pistols, machine guns, grenade launchers, non-lethal weapons; and ammunition for those weapons.
• Total dollars sales for military small arms and ammunition in 2004 will exceed $400 million dollars, and on the whole will be following a moderate curve with the overall annual average growth rate nearing 7%.
• Non-lethal weapons will grow at the highest rate of slightly more than 10% as the U.S. military is assigned even more peacekeeping and non-traditional missions. Ammunition sales will increase with the consequent demand for stocks of training and combat ammunition. Overall growth will be at the average annual rate of nearly 6%.

INTRODUCTION

This report is an analytical tool the primary purpose of which is to cover the market for military small arms, and new technologies such as those being developed for the OICW and OCSW. This report will review the application and end-use markets as well as the technology, development of the market, and analyses of current and future market trends.

A number of current research and development programs - both by industry, and by the military with their drive to develop more capable military small arms, and less than lethal weapons - will lead to the commercialization of new technologies, and the re-arming of major military forces around the world.

The final segments of this report address the industry's structure, and provide an analysis of the technology currently under development and in the market.

METHODOLOGY

The material presented in this study is based on information gathered from personal contacts with government and industrial participants in the respective areas of research, development, and manufacture of these products as well as a thorough review of the technology gathered from various government and industry sources. In addition, the author of this report was a member of the corporate team, which successfully won the competition for the next phase of the OICW program.

Additional data was obtained from extensive review of secondary sources such as trade publications, trade associations, company literature, and on-line databases. All dollar projections presented in this report are in 1999 constant dollars.