AAI Close Assault Weapon System (CAWS)
In the early 1980s the US military’s Joint Service Small Arms Program (JSSAP) launched the Close Assault Weapon System program. The CAWS program evolved from several other efforts, including RHINO and Multipurpose Individual Weapon System (MIWS) to create a new combat shotgun. CAWS aimed to create a shotgun with greater range and more firepower than a conventional shotgun which could engage targets within 100m to 150m. The weapon was to be used in anti-area, material and personnel roles using a variety of specialised shotgun cartridge loads. The military based the need for a CAWS on both British experience during the Malayan Emergency and American experiences during the Vietnam War when shotguns had played an important tactical role during close range engagements.
While Carroll Childers, who had developed the experimental Special Operations Weapon (SOW) during the Vietnam war, helmed the initial project at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Childers intention with the SOW was to enable magazine reloading and increase the shotgun’s handiness and lethality. However, by the early 1980s Childers’ designs had been shelved and in an effort to progress with the program JSSAP invited private manufacturers to submit designs. The CAWS program saw the focus shift towards a fully automatic shotgun with improved range and cartridge load capabilities.
The two primary private manufacturers that entered designs were Heckler & Koch and the AAI Corporation. While H&K’s design used a bullpup layout, AAI’s used a more conventional configuration. The AAI entry used a recoil operated action and fed from a 12-round box magazine. It was a select fire weapon with semi-automatic and fully-automatic settings, capable of firing 450 rounds per minute. The AAI CAWS had iron sights which the option of fitting a reflex optic. AAI made use of the M16′s buttstock (which was removeable) and its pistol grip to aid user familiarisation. The AAI CAWS weighed a hefty 9lb (4kg) unloaded and was 39inches (99cm) in overall length.
Heckler & Koch’s CAWS program entry (source)
AAI’s CAWS entry fired a plastic cased flechette round designated SCMITR, AAI developed this ammunition to increase the shotgun’s range out to 150m while increasing hit probability. H&K, in partnership with Winchester/Olin had developed a similar brass-cased flechette round, however this had suffered issues with accuracy and was quickly abandoned for convention buckshot. The wider, flatter flechettes of AAI’s SCMITR ammunition were developed to have improved wounding potential and were reputedly able to penetrate up to 76mm of pine board or up to 3mm of mild steel plate at 150m. AAI sales literature from 1984 also stated that high explosive, armour piercing and tear gas rounds were also in development. The AAI CAWS could also fire standard 12 gauge buckshot rounds if fitted with an adapter.
While a number of companies, including AAI and H&K, entered designs into the Close Assault Weapon System program, the US military abandoned the trials program in the late 1980s when none of the designs performed adequately.
Sources:
Images: 1-5 6
1984 AAI Corporation Close Assault Weapon System brochure, Small Arms Review Archive, (source)
AAI CAWS Shotgun, Firearmsworld.net, (source)
Combat Shotgun’s Identity Crisis, American Shooting Journal, J. Trevithick, (source)
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