The AAI CAWS (Close Assault Weapon System) is a prototype

automatic shotgun An automatic shotgun is an automatic firearm that fires shotgun shells (thereby making it a shotgun) and uses some of the energy of each shot to automatically cycle the action and load a new round. It will fire repeatedly until the trigger is rel ...

—designed as a

combat shotgun A combat shotgun is a shotgun issued by militaries for warfare. The earliest shotguns specifically designed for combat were the trench guns or trench shotguns issued in World War I. While limited in range, the multiple projectiles typically ...

— produced by the

AAI Corporation AAI Corporation is an aerospace and defense development and manufacturing firm, located in Hunt Valley, Maryland, US. Formerly a wholly owned subsidiary of United Industrial Corporation, AAI was acquired by Textron in 2007. It currently operate ...

during the 1980s. It was AAI's entry into the U.S military's Close Assault Weapon System program. It is a 12-round,

12-gauge The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...

shotgun with two firing modes: semi-auto and full-auto.

Development

In 1982, the United States was seeking entrants for their Close Assault Weapon System program. Grown out of previous combat shotgun programs, this program had inherited the specification from the RHINO program that had preceded it. These specifications required a magazine capacity of 10 rounds, a requirement for the new ammunition to be incompatible with commercial 12ga shotguns, that felt recoil be no greater than a Remington 870P firing M162 or M257 buckshot cartridges and that the system provide penetration and incapacitation capability significantly better than M162 and M257. In response to this, AAI developed their entrant, the AAI CAWS - a select fire, recoil operated, magazine fed shotgun. Using the standard M-16 stock and pistol grip, recoil operation and with an inline design, felt recoil was supposedly less than an M16. A shorter version, without stock, was also developed for

Airborne forces Airborne forces, airborne troops, or airborne infantry are ground combat units carried by aircraft and airdropped into battle zones, typically by parachute drop or air assault. Parachute-qualified infantry and support personnel serving in a ...

. A day/night Reflex sight was offered as standard.Hogg, Ian V. Jane's Infantry Weapons 1993-1994. Jane's Information Group. 1993 To meet the requirements to both provide ammunition that could not be fired by commercial shotguns, but also for the weapon to fire commercial ammunition, AAI developed a special cartridge larger than 12-ga and then provided a chamber adapter for the weapon to fire regular 12ga. The standard antipersonnel cartridge developed by AAI was loaded with 8, drag stabilized

flechette A flechette ( ) is a pointed steel projectile with a vaned tail for stable flight. The name comes from French , "little arrow" or "dart", and sometimes retains the acute accent in English: fléchette. They have been used as ballistic weapons sinc ...

s. All 8 flechettes were able to hit a circle at . The flechettes at that range had a velocity of and were capable of penetrating of pine or of mild steel. Although tested by the U.S. military, the CAWS was canceled, and production, both military and civilian, has halted.

References

Flechette firearms Automatic shotguns Trial and research firearms of the United States {{Shotgun-stub

Development

See also

References