Daniel Watters just published a very interesting article over at Defense Industry Daily that does a good job of reviewing the history of our country's procurement of the M4 carbine. While it focuses on the pricing challenge Colt is facing with the latest solicitation for additional M4s, Mr. Watters also tells how the technical data package (TDP) originally got leaked.
A TDP is basically the full set of manufacturing instructions for the creation of a military firearm, including all the process specifications, performance requirements, and quality assurance steps necessary to produce it. As you can imagine, there's a tremendous amount of proprietary and valuable information in a TDP. A competitor who gets ahold of a TDP would know how to create the exact same firearm from scratch, and would gain tremendous insight into the manufacturing capabilities and price points of the TDP originator. It'd be like not only learning which eleven herbs and spices make up Col. Sanders' secret recipe, but also the exact kitchen equipment used to cook the chicken, the quality characteristics of the chicken meat, oils and spices used, the exact time and temperatures used to cook the chicken, and how to equip a franchisee to open and run a successful Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.
As I got interested in AR-15s (the civilian, semi-automatic versions of the M16/M4), I read in various reviews that some manufacturers produced better-quality products than others possibly because they were (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) "familiar" with the M4 TDP. Until Mr. Watters' article I never knew how the TDP got out into the wild. Although Colt certainly suffered for the release of the information, it looks like the government has compensated them through not only sole-sourcing all their M4s until now, but also possibly paying a significant premium for each firearm. (This is why the latest, open solicitation for M4s is so interesting.)
The TDP release also tremendously benefitted the entire platform, allowing for unparalleled variety in accessories and components from a huge number of manufacturers—all of which has lead to the M16/M4 to be the longest-serving rifle in the US military history, and the AR-15 to be the most popular civilian rifle today.
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