The Marine Corps says it won’t have a full stock of the woodland-pattern camouflage combat utility uniform ― the everyday outfit for most Marines ― until summer or fall 2024. The shortage has prompted the top Marine leader to authorize unit commanders to allow the desert-colored camouflage combat utility uniform or the flame-resistant organizational gear, known as FROGs.

This flexibility is a rare step for a service that prides itself on adherence to strict uniform standards.

“What we cannot have is a situation where a Marine is wearing unserviceable cammies, because that looks bad for the Corps, and we can’t have a situation where that Marine is being given a hard time about those unserviceable cammies,” Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said in a video message to the force Thursday, using a nickname for the camouflage combat utility uniform.

“We’re going to get this fixed, Marines, but it’s going to take a little patience,” Smith said.

The commandant said he and Sgt. Maj. Carlos Ruiz, the sergeant major of the Marine Corps, had just come back from a trip to the Indo-Pacific, where Marines repeatedly told them, “I can’t get cammies.”

Smith and Ruiz, who also appeared in the video, were wearing their service uniforms rather than cammies.

“The guidance to battalion and squadron leaders and above is to make decisions that uphold the high standards of our service while maintaining mission readiness and reducing overall impact on daily operations,” Maj. John Parry, a Marine spokesman, said in an emailed statement to Marine Corps Times on Wednesday, the day before Smith’s message.

“This does not mean a Marine may make a decision unilaterally to wear a different uniform or civilian attire due to a serviceability issue with their designated uniform of the day,” Parry said.

Marines have been struggling to find cammies at the Marine Corps Exchange — the “one-stop shopping destination” for Marines — or even at thrift stores, Marine Corps Times previously reported.

Marine recruits are supposed to receive three sets of woodland cammies and two sets of desert cammies, but the Marine Corps has been issuing two woodland sets and one desert set, Parry told Marine Corps Times in August. Recruits and new Marines have been doing entry-level training in flame-resistant organizational gear, typically reserved for deployments.

Meanwhile, Marines in the fleet have had to get creative with tailoring. Sgt. Ethan Underwood told Marine Corps Times in August that he knows Marines at Yuma, Arizona, who have patched up holes in cammies using Marine-pattern bandanas or scraps of old uniforms.

Chuck Lambert, CEO of American Apparel Inc, the primary manufacturer of the uniforms, told Marine Corps Times his company has had trouble producing enough items at the fixed price in the Defense Logistics Agency contract. Even as inflation increased and it became harder to find workers, he said, he couldn’t increase the price of items to pay for a big bump in wages.

“McDonald’s and a lot of the fast food guys are paying $2 and $3 more an hour than we could afford to pay,” the CEO said in August. “Where they could go up on the price of the hamburger, we can’t go up on the price of a uniform.”

The Defense Logistics Agency has awarded two additional contracts to companies to make the uniforms, potentially easing the shortage, according to Lambert and online records.

It’s unclear whether Marines in units that allow desert cammies will be able to get their hands on those uniforms, either. The website associated with the Marine Corps Exchange estimates the desert-colored blouses will be out of stock until fall 2024.

“Based on the current USMC course of action, the USMC desert camouflage uniforms are unavailable at this time on myNavyExchange.com,” Courtney Williams, a spokeswoman for Navy Exchange Service Command, confirmed in an emailed statement to Marine Corps Times on Friday. “For any information and specifics regarding the uniform’s current stock levels or in reference to any decision-making on its resupply allocation, I’ll defer to the USMC and MCX.”

The desert cammies were, since 2008, the standard attire for Marines during the summer, as the Marine Corps’ attention was focused on wars in the Middle East. The Marine Corps in 2016 ditched that rule, making the woodland cammies the standard uniform year-round, with exceptions for deployments, training and certain installations.

Editor’s note: This article was updated Friday with a statement from the Navy Exchange.

The Army announced Tuesday that it selected Sig Sauer to manufacture and deliver a 6.8 mm Next Generation Squad Weapon to replace the M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, which both fire the 5.56 mm round.

At a Wednesday media briefing, two Army brigadier generals and a colonel answered questions about the selection, the weapon, the ammunition and the fielding process.

The first batch of NGSW rifles and automatic rifles, along with their high-tech fire control optic, are scheduled to arrive to a not-yet-identified Army unit by the end of fiscal 2023, which means by or before October 2023.

The $4.7 billion rifle and automatic rifle weapons contract and the $2.7 billion contract for the advanced, computer-assisted fire control optic that works with both weapons, are the most substantial changes to individual- or squad-level small arms in generations.

The weapon is designed and aimed at close combat forces. That includes infantrymen but also cavalry scouts, combat engineers, forward observers and combat medics, said Brig. Gen. Larry Q. Burris, Jr. director of the Cross-Functional Team-Soldier Lethality and Infantry School Commandant

There are no current plans to issue the NGSW to non-close combat soldiers. Soldiers in fields other than those listed or not assigned to a direct combat unit will continue to use the M4 options and the M249 SAW, Burris said.

And if their commands choose, special operations forces and combat arms Marines will also be included in fielding plans, officials said.

The NGSW rifle is currently called the XM5. The NGSW automatic rifle is being called the XM250. The numbers for both weapons are sequential to those they are replacing. The XM5 will replace the M4 carbine and the XM250 will replace the M249.

Once the weapons have gone through a series of next steps, officials said, the Army will drop the “X” designator, said Col. Scott Madore, project manager for soldier lethality.

The Army chose the 6.8 mm round following the publication of the 2017 Small Arms Ammunition Configuration Study. The study was driven in part by advances in adversary body armor and field reports of underperformance and lackluster lethality for the 5.56 mm round at distances beyond 300 meters in Afghanistan gun battles.

In Army research, officials said, the 6.8 mm round outperforms the 5.56 mm on distance, accuracy and energy for lethal effects on target. That measure counts for lethal effects on either protected or unprotected targets.

When asked if the new round would penetrate advanced body armor currently fielded, Burris declined to comment specifically on ranges or penetration. He said only that the round has “a lot more energy” on target.

Initially, the 2017 report called for an intermediate caliber, something falling in the 6 mm range. That would make it larger than the standard-issue 5.56 mm but smaller and lighter than the medium machine gun M240′s 7.62 mm round.

While the 5.56 mm reaches its lethality limits at or before the 300 meter range, the 6.8 mm can effectively destroy targets at 600 meters and beyond, according to Army officials.

For civilian shooters, the 6.8 mm baseline measurements resemble a beefed-up version of a familiar cartridge from the hunting world, the .270 caliber rifle round.

That size difference matters, but in different ways. The XM5 rifle is two pounds heavier than the M4 when both are unloaded. But the XM250 is four pounds lighter than the M249 SAW.

The ammunition is heavier but officials did not provide specific pounds and ounces for a full combat load when compared with the 5.56 mm.

Over the next 10 years, the Army may order as many as 107,000 rifles and 13,000 automatic rifles, Burris said.

The contract has the capacity to build as many as 250,000 total rifles and automatic rifles, according to previously released budget documents. Burris said the additional numbers are for Marine Corps and special operations forces, should they adopt the weapons as their standard issue rifle and light machine guns.

More than 1,000 soldiers provided hands-on feedback over a 27-month weapon testing and selection process. More than 100 Marines and SOF troops also participated in evaluations and feedback, Madore said.

But the first quantities of weapons issued will be rather small, as the Army spins up production at two different sites, said Brig. Gen. William M. Boruff, who is with the Joint Program Executive Office-Armaments and Ammunition.

In the coming months, Sig Sauer will build 25 XM5 rifles and 15 XM250 automatic rifles and “a large quantity of ammo,” Madore said.

Those initial items will help the Army and Sig Sauer tweak the manufacturing process before upscaling the operations to produce thousands of rifles each year. The contract is technically for an indefinite number of rifles. Burris said that the annual rifle production numbers will be determined by Army priorities and budget considerations.

He could not provide an exact timeline of when all of the Army’s 120,000 close combat forces would receive the weapons systems.

Sig Sauer will receive millions of 6.8 mm projectiles, designed and manufactured by the U.S. government already, to begin the process of pairing the powder, primer and brass cartridge casing to build the 6.8 mm round, Boruff said.

As the Epping, New Hampshire-based company builds an ammo manufacturing line, the Army is funding work at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant near Independence, Missouri, the key producer of most small arms ammunition production.

The Lake City plant is adding an entire line and building, which are expected to be completed by fiscal 2025, solely for the manufacture of 6.8 mm ammunition.

The first major step in getting this rifle into the hands of soldiers will be producing the ammunition. Boruff said that the Army had limited interaction with the companies as they designed their weapons and cartridge solutions around the government-built 6.8 mm projectile.

But with the selection, the Army can now work closely as it speeds up the production of the round to build war and training stockpiles.

Burris said that the weapons’ timeline and delivery will coincide with growing the ammunition base for this new round.

When asked how the new round might affect NATO allies and partner training, Burris said some partners have shown interest in the NGSW and 6.8 mm program. However, the Army’s adoption of the round does not change the U.S. military commitment to continue to produce and use NATO standard 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm rounds for its existing weapons.

In January, the Army selected Vortex Optics and Sheltered Wings to provide the NGSW Fire Control optic, dubbed the M157, for $2.7 billion over the next decade.

Madore told reporters that the optic and weapons will be delivered to units together from day one.

The M157 is more than an optic, it has the following features:

• Variable magnification optic
• Backup etched reticle
• Laser rangefinder
• Ballistic calculator
• Atmospheric sensor suite
• Compass
• Visible and infrared aiming lasers
• Digital display overlay

Sig Sauer beat out Lone Star Future Weapons, which was partnered with General Dynamics-OTS, in the final selection phase of the competition. A third competitor, Textron Systems, did not meet technical qualifications earlier in the process.

Over the next five years, the MRAD will replace the Army’s existing M107 sniper rifle and M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle under the Precision Sniper Rifle program, and all bolt action rifles in the Marines, delivering conversion options so that snipers can choose from 7.62mm, .300 Norma Magnum and .338 Norma Magnum, depending on their shooting needs.

The military designation for the rifle will be the Mk22, which is the nomenclature for the PSR.

“The Army plans to purchase Multi-Role Adaptive Rifle (MRAD) systems for Foreign Military Sales and Precision Sniper Rifles (PSR) systems for Army Snipers and EOD personnel,” PEO Soldier spokesman told the website Task & Purpose. “The MRAD is one component of the PSR.”

Marine Corps budget documents from early 2020 noted that the “ASR will replace all current bolt-action sniper rifles in the Marine Corps.”

Those documents cited a purchase of 250 MRAD rifles for the Corps.

That means the decades-old M40, which has been in service midway through the Vietnam War. The M40, was scheduled to be replaced by the Mk13 Mod 7.

SOCOM awarded a contract for the MRAD back in March 2019 and deliveries were scheduled to start this January, according to a Barrett company release.

The search for the convertible rifle began back in 2016 with a SOCOM request.

The original plan was for the Army to buy 536 MRAD rifles under the previous program, a PEO Soldier spokesman told Task & Purpose that the new plans will include purchasing an estimated 2,800 rifles over the next five years.

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“The U.S. Army is leading the world in the first significant upgrade to small arms in decades to meet the growing demands of soldiers on the battlefield. We are honored to have been selected for the Next Generation Squad Weapons program bringing increased lethality to the warfighter over the legacy weapons,” began Ron Cohen, President & CEO, Sig Sauer, Inc. “At the core of our submission is our newly developed, high-pressure, 6.8mm hybrid ammunition that is utilized in both weapons, and is a significant leap forward in ammunition innovation, design, and manufacturing.”

The Sig Sauer 6.8mm hybrid ammunition is designed for increased penetration at greater distances. Cohen continued, “using patent-pending technology the Sig Sauer Ammunition division has engineered a completely new cartridge resulting in a more compact round, with increased velocity and accuracy, while delivering a substantial reduction in the weight of the ammunition.”

The primary objectives set forth by the U.S. Army for the NGSW-AR was a weapon with the firepower and range of a machine gun, coupled with the precision and ergonomics of a rifle. The Sig Sauer NGSW-AR submission is an ultra-light, medium caliber machine gun with AR ergonomics, and chambered in 6.8mm hybrid ammunition. Features include quick detach magazines, side opening feed tray, increased available 1913 rail space for night vision and enablers, folding buttstock, and suppressor.

Additionally, the Prototype Project Opportunity Notice (PPON) requirements were inclusive of an NGSW-Rifle. The Sig Sauer NGSW-Rifle submission, also chambered in 6.8mm hybrid, is lightweight and features a free-floating reinforced M-LOK handguard, side-charging handle, full ambidextrous controls, folding buttstock, and suppressor.

“The U.S. Army challenged the industry to bring forward significant improvements to the legacy weapons. The Sig Sauer NGSW-AR is lighter in weight, with dramatically less recoil than that currently in service, while our carbine for the NGSW-Rifle submission is built on the foundation of Sig Sauer weapons in service with the premier fighting forces across the globe. Both weapons are designed with features that will increase the capabilities of the soldier,” commented Cohen. “The final component of the SIG SAUER Next Generation Weapons System is our suppressor, which through exhaustively researched design enhancements, reduces harmful backflow and signature.”

As outlined in the recent award issued by the U.S. Army, SIG SAUER will deliver a complete Sig Sauer system inclusive of the Sig Sauer 6.8mm hybrid ammunition, lightweight machine gun, rifle, and suppressors.

“Sig Sauer has designed the most comprehensive solution to meet the requirements of the Next Generation Squad Weapons to enhance mission effectiveness. We are looking forward to partnering with the U.S. Army throughout this process and ensuring our soldiers are equipped for the demands of the modern battlefield,” concluded Cohen.

U.S. forces use chemlights for a wide range of activities, from marking rooms during clearance operations to identifying friendly troops for aircraft.

The lights work through chemiluminescence, a reaction that produces light through the mixing of chemical substances.

But chemlights are single-use, meaning troops are often forced to carry strings of dozens when setting out on missions.

AFRL at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base developed a reusable solution that resembles a piece of chalk, but functions much the same as regular chemlights and can be used in the infrared light spectrum.

Researchers encased the liquid and oils found in chemlights into a waxy medium that can be used for writing and marking objects in the field. The pressure of writing breaks the tiny capsules in the wax, which causes the chemical reaction that creates the glowing effect.

Larry Brott, an engineer with AFRL’s materials and manufacturing directorate, came up with the idea after years of working in the automotive adhesives industry, where he used similar designs.

“This is such an intuitive use for this technology,” Brott said in an Air Force news release in March. “By packaging these materials in this form, we’re saving three things for the warfighter: volume, weight, and cost.”

Brott said the stick can be reused many times, and the substances contained are non-toxic.

Brott and his team were awarded a patent for their work in 2012.

AFRL’s technology transfer office then partnered with Battle Sight Technologies LLC, an Ohio-based startup founded by military veterans, to manufacture the new chemiluminescent chalk.

“As a former U.S. Army soldier and warfighter, I instantly saw the impact this technology could have for the end users,” Nick Ripplinger, Battle Sight’s president, said in the release. “After looking at it from a business standpoint it made sense to bring it to market.”

Ripplinger’s firm was selected through the Technology Acceleration Project, or TAP, a pilot program that links together researchers and entrepreneurs.

After entering into a licensing agreement that gave the company exclusive rights to use the AFRL technology for military and first responder use, Battle Sight began product development.

The company is currently producing a prototype infrared writing device called the MARC, which stands for Marking Appliance Reusable Chemiluminescent.

“We have some units in the field right now, mostly with the special operations community,” Ripplinger said in the AFRL video released Tuesday.

Air Force officials held up the chemlight replacement technology as an example of public-private partnerships streamlining the development process.

“This agreement is another example of the power of partnerships through AFRL,” Sunita Chavan, a civilian AFRL senior manager, said in the release. “Through the combined efforts of our innovative researchers and our commercial partners, this technology will soon be used for the good of our people in the field.”