Is ‘Secret’ US Order of Decades Old Machine Guns Destined for Ukraine?

The Pentagon announced a call for interest earlier this year for the provision of M60E6 and M60E4 machine guns, announcing on Monday, Sept. 30, it had awarded a contract for the provision of the weapons to the Nevada based company U.S. Ordnance.

The contract is for an unspecified number of the 7.62x51mm (7.62 NATO) weapons worth nearly $15 million and includes both new builds or kits to convert older M60s into the newer E6/E4 configurations, as well as ancillary items and training.

The reluctance of the Pentagon to issue the normal information of the contract and the fact that the publicly released announcement was heavily redacted has spun up military commentators into speculating into where the weapons, which the US military stopped using in the late 1970s, are destined.

Speculation on the destination of the weapons wondered if they could be intended for special forces or some covert operation, a classified testing program or for a foreign ally or partner.

The immediate conclusion to which most of the military issues sites leapt was, unsurprisingly Ukraine, with earlier mention of the possible use of the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program which transfers surplus military equipment to partner countries. According to Defense Express M60 machine guns were supplied to Ukraine as part of the first US military aid packages provided a few weeks before the full-scale Russian invasion.

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The original M60 machine gun entered service in the 1950s with several variants being produced for infantry, vehicles, aircraft, and naval use. The M60E4 and M60E6, are modernized versions of the gun that are lighter, shorter, and contain improved operational features.

Since being phased out by the US Army, which replaced it with the Belgian FN MAG range of weapons in the same caliber, they have been exported to and are still in use with several foreign armies including NATO forces. While this contract could simply be destined for one of the existing overseas customers the apparent secrecy will continue to raise questions.

The military issues web site The War Zone points out that a similarly unusual purchase of soviet designed 5.45 x 39 mm AK-74 assault rifles in 2023 piqued the interest of the defense talking heads only for it to turn out the contract was for an unspecified internal US “training” requirement.