FN UK will produce and assemble components of True Velocity’s lightweight medium machine gun at its manufacturing facility in Slade Green, Kent, thanks to a a strategic alliance signed with U.S. advanced defence technology company TV Ammo, Inc. (“True Velocity”).

The lightweight medium machinegun, is an innovative impulse-averaging, recoil-mitigated weapon which, thanks to the ballistics of the .338 Norma round, promises to combine quasi-Heavy Machine Gun .50 performance and lethality into an agile and lightweight package comparable to that of a common M240 / GPMG machine gun firing the much less energetic 7.62x51 mm round.

In its press release, FN reveals that the LWMMG has been “designed with input from the UK customer” so is “fitting that there will also be a UK manufacturing element to it”.

True Velocity is under contract from the US DoD for continued development and evaluation of the new machine gun, and clearly FN UK sees potential for future purchases in the UK as well. FN UK is vying for recognition from the government of its strategic value as the only firm with a fully active production line for military assault rifles and machine guns. It plans to expand and improve its capabilities within the next 4 years by moving into new structures and hopes to play a key part in upcoming UK defence programmes.

Back in January, FN UK has been awarded a 40 million pounds, 5-year contract for the remanufacture and mid-life improvement of the UK’s .50 Heavy Machine Guns (L111) which will re-life the weapons for another 60.000 rounds and “add new parts” (presumably the new triple-rail for optics and accessories, the cocking handle ready for fitting a shot-counter and the barrel modification for taking a flash suppressor).

FN UK will also be producing “parts” for the new lightweight EVOLYS machine gun which is heading into industrialization right now. We can safely assume the FN Browning Group hopes the British Army could procure the EVOLYS and/or the LWMMG as a replacement for the venerable L7 GPMG, particularly in the Light Role configuration (with bipod, for Platoon / Section employment).

FN UK also very openly says it wants to produce the next British Army assault rifle, which should be selected in the next few years to replace the SA80 family under project GRAYBURN.