Under new deal, U.S. military buys non-standard weapons

Global Military Products has been selected as one of several contractors on a new U.S. Special Operations Command indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for U.S. and foreign weapons, ammunition, and personal protective equipment, the Tampa, Florida-based company said Sept. 21.

The five-year contract has a ceiling of $19.5 million, and GMP will compete against other contract holders for individual delivery orders as the command’s needs arise.

The company has not disclosed which specific weapons this contract will cover. But GMP’s business has long centered on sourcing non-standard, foreign-made military equipment through a separate line of contracts known as Special Ammunition and Weapon Systems, or SAWS, which the company has held with the Army for over a decade. Those items typically include Soviet and former-Eastern-Bloc-pattern hardware not in the standard U.S. arsenal: Kalashnikov-pattern rifles such as the AKM and AK-74, PKM and RPK machine guns, RPG-7 rocket launchers, SVD-pattern sniper rifles, and mortars in non-NATO calibers such as 82mm, along with the ammunition that feeds them. The U.S. military uses this kind of foreign-made equipment to train special operations forces on weapons they may encounter in the field, to equip foreign partner forces already using Soviet-era arms, or for testing.

This is the second consecutive USSOCOM IDIQ contract for weapons and ammunition procurement that GMP has held. The company said its work on the earlier agreement, which involved sourcing and delivering weapons and ammunition through its international supplier network, factored into its selection this time.

“Special operations forces require speed, flexibility and dependable access to equipment,” said Austin Gouveia, associate program manager at Global Military Products. “This award reflects Global Military Products’ commitment to providing U.S. and allied forces with reliable access to critical defense equipment and capabilities.”

“This award also reflects our ability to perform under the previous USSOCOM IDIQ contract, where we excelled at sourcing and delivering weapons and ammunition while leveraging our global network and supply chain capabilities to respond to evolving operational requirements and support USSOCOM missions,” Gouveia said.

GMP, a subsidiary of Global Ordnance, has built its business around supplying this kind of non-standard hardware to the U.S. military and its allies, including mortar systems, sniper rifles, assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, anti-armor weapons, ammunition, electro-optics, and weapon accessories. The company separately holds a $639.8 million Army contract for 155mm artillery rounds awarded in 2025.