The Army wants a new optic for a variety of machine guns that will allow soldiers to get the first rounds on target faster.

Officials with Program Manager Soldier Weapons posted the notice for a new Mounted Machine Gun Optic recently on the government website fbo.gov.

In their Request for Proposal, officials want an optic that can achieve faster target acquisition times and increased first-burst probability of hit.

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And they want an optic for each of the following: the M240B the standard issue 7.62mm machine gun, the M2/M2A1 .50 caliber, also known as the “Ma Deuce,” and the Mk19 machine gun, a fully automatic grenade launcher.

Officials will take three companies’ submissions by mid-November and expect 35 MMOs for testing.

They plan to make an award by early 2019.

They’ll be taking test data on “magnification, weapon shock ruggedization, zero retention, parallax, and high temperature performance” into consideration.

But, most importantly, the result must “enable warfighters to scan with both eyes open, then rapidly slew the weapon on target, and engage with a higher confidence of getting the first burst on target,” according to the posting.

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

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