AZMEX EXTRA 16-12-17

AZMEX EXTRA 16 DEC 2017

Note: Mexican private industry is more than capable of producing the needed numbers.
Some little birdies have hinted at design issues, and also some manufacturing problems. Son of the SA-80?
Don't have the 2017 FX-05 production numbers, but still see the M16 almost exclusively around Mexico in front line units.
The G-3 still around also, but seems to be relegated to secondary duty.
Really old gun guys might remember the 1908 Mondragón rifle.
The unloved HK-21 not mentioned in this article
Gracias.


Pending, thousands of rifles for the Army
MANRIQUE GANDARIA
Saturday, December 16, 2017 in Mexico

https://www.tribunadesanluis.com.mx/mexico/pendientes-miles-de-fusiles-para-el-ejercito

In 2006, a group of 65 Mexican military engineers led by General Brigadier, José Antonio Iztiga Landeros, undertook the task of conceiving a new prototype weapon with special specifications: that is easy to use, 100% effective, light, low cost and suited for the build of the Mexican soldier.

It was thus that the Xiuhcóatl FX-05 Rifle was born, (a fire snake in Nahúatl) that will allow, in 2018, the little more than 230 thousand soldiers belonging to the Secretary of National Defense, (SEDENA) to migrate from the Heckler and Koch (HK) G-3 rifle (7.62x51) manufactured in Mexico under license, to the new 100% Mexican manufacturing weapon.

Last year, President Enrique Peña Nieto highlighted the momentum of the Mexican Military Industry and announced that, in 2018, all Mexican troops will use the FX-05 Xiuhcoatl rifle manufactured and patented by the Ministry of National Defense.

In 2016, the production of individual weapons of the General Directorate of Military Industry for the Army of Mexico was 16 thousand 600 rifles FX 05 caliber 5.56 mm (5.56x45) , representing 13.7% of the 121 thousand weapons considered in the Sectorial Defense Program National 2013-2018, that is, 86.3% of the total production is still pending.

According to the Ministry of National Defense, the new rifle was developed and manufactured in early 2006 at the Center for Applied Research and Technological Development of the Military Industry of Mexico, with lightweight materials that allow better handling.

The replacement of weapons with which the military daily face organized crime, is part of the sector program of National Defense 2013-2018, which details that the Mexican military industry, has two thousand 112 machines of which the 85.18% are older than 10 years and only 14.82% have an age equal to or less than 10 years, from conventional machines to modern automated machining centers. The 6.45% of the machinery and equipment has fulfilled its useful life and 14.49% is near it's end.

Still, the Sedena seeks to meet the needs of military personnel, so that during the current six year has been acquiring modernized machinery, equipment and infrastructure for the factories of the military industry, increased the productivity of the industry to meet the needs of Military Logistics, in the matter of armament, ammunition, grenades and spare parts and the total substitution of the individual armament of the personnel of troop will be completed, with the production of rifles FX05, caliber 5.56 mm.

Through the Transparency Law, SEDENA points out that the Center for Applied Research and Technological Development of the military industry (Ciadtim), responsible for the design and development of the FX 05 rifle, undertook the task of investigating among our national symbols that whose mere mention and image goes back to our pre-Hispanic origins, it transmits strength and confidence to face the future.

"Hence, by locating the Xiuhcoatl (fire serpent), as the weapon used by Huitzilopochtli to defeat the nocturnal powers against which he fought as a solar god and see it represented in the sun stone, the most appropriate name to designate the first assault rifle designed and developed by Mexican military engineers. "

SEDENA indicates that the industry generates 50 thousand jobs, so it has become a dynamic and strategic sector of the national economy and has made the national air fleet grew from 257 to 361 aircraft, an increase of 41% and that reduced the age of the commercial air fleet, which went from an average of 18 to only six years.

For lightweight materials and domestic manufacture, the federal government estimates that the new FX-05 rifle has a cost of production of 10,000 pesos, ( $523 USD ) approximately, while a similar rifle from abroad is between 30 and 40 thousand pesos. ( $1570 - 2,100 USD ??)

In the parade of September 16, 2006, the FX-05 rifle was officially presented to the nation although it is expected that by 2018 all Mexican soldiers have the new weapon.

Sedena points out that the reasons for creating the rifle were "reducing the costs of manufacturing the ammunition, increasing the volume of fire and granting tactical superiority to the Mexican soldier."

end