Alliant, General Dynamics to compete for $1.85B ammunition contract

Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Alliant Techsystems Operations and General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems will compete for orders of $1.85 billion contract for 20mm, 25mm, 30x113mm, and 30x173mm medium caliber ammunition for the U.S. Army.

Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of September 2023, according to the Department of Defense, which announced the contract on Thursday.

Of the order, 20mm ammunition is the standard load for U.S. and many other nations aircraft and comes in many variants, while 25mm is used by the Bushmaster cannon mounted on Bradley fighting vehicles and autocannons onboard Navy and Coast Guard ships for point defense.

The 30x113mm round is by the M230 chain gun mounted on the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and comes in armor piercing, high explosive, training and other variants.

The 30x173mm is used with the GAU-8 Avenger minigun used by the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. It can come in depleted uranium, tungsten armor piercing, high explosive and incendiary variants.