The Procurement Board of the Ministry of Defence has published on the Procurement Platform the tender specifications of a framework agreement endowed with an amount of more than 31.9 million euros for the supply of more than 68 million 5.56x45mm cartridges in two batches, one with a budget of 30.8 million for ordinary ammunition and another endowed with 1.1 million for tracer ammunition. The purchase, which was initially published in January and was previously approved in December by the Council of Ministers, will be joint for the two armies and the navy. What has now been punctuated is the total number of shots to be supplied, which amounts to 67 million in the case of the ordinary divided into two annuities of 33.5 million cartridges each (2024 and 2025) and in the case of the tracer of 500,000 units in 2024 and 800,000 in 2025. Ordinary ammunition should have a service life of 15 years and tracer ammunition 10 years.
This type of ammunition is used by the HK-36 assault rifle – the basic light weapon of the Spanish military – the HK-416 assault rifle, the Minimi machine guns or the HK-MG4 light machine guns, in service in the Armed Forces.
The Ministry of Defence has closed several contracts this year with the company Nammo Palencia, the only one that produces this caliber in Spain and, for that reason, the main candidate to win this new framework agreement, but not the only one, among the candidates there are also firms such as Fiochhi Munizioni and the Brazilian CBC.