Less than a year after releasing its requirement for a Sub Compact Weapon, the US Army has selected the Brugger and Thomet APC9K as it’s new Sub Compact Weapon.

The SCW requirement arose from the Military Police. United States military operations take place worldwide and in all types of terrains as well as under every environmental condition. The Secretary of the Army and/or the Chief of Staff approves senior commanders and key personnel as High Risk Personnel (HRP). HRPs are authorized a Personal Security Detail (PSD), which are assigned to guard against outlined threats. To address this operational need, PSD military personnel require weapons with greater lethality than pistols that are more concealable than rifles. The ultimate objective of this program was to acquire a highly concealable Sub Compact Weapon (SCW) system capable of engaging threat personnel with a high volume of lethal force while accurately firing at close range with minimal collateral damage.

An initial requirement was issued in May of 2018 and the Army issued contracts to multiple companies to investigate their weapon systems. However, they soon retracted the offers and instead, issued a prototype opportunity notice to industry for the Sub Compact Weapon. Six companies were selected and eventually provided a total of 15 weapons each.

The companies who competed are:

Angstadt Arms

B&T USA

Global Ordnance, LLC

Shield Arms

SIG SAUER

Trident Rifles, LLC

Note that B&T USA and Trident Rifle’s, LLC both offered B&T produced options, but that B&T USA was awarded the contract.

The timeline of the PON was fairly quick and the 15 weapons from each company were put through a test regime. The B&T offering came out on top of the source selection.

The Army will initially purchase 350 weapons with slings, manuals, accessories, and spare parts, but has an option to purchase up to 1000. The value of the contract is $2,575,811.76.

The adoption of the SCW is significant as this is the first service program of record to adopt a 9mm subgun and the first subgun service-level program of record since the M3 greasegun.

Please note that the weapon in the images is the commercial version of the APC9K. The contract SCW is very similar.