SIONICS
SIONICS (an acronym for Studies in the Operational Negation of Insurgents and Counter-Subversion) was an American company producing firearm suppressors. It was founded in the 1960s by Mitchell WerBell III, a former OSS officer.{{cite book|last1=Herman|first1=Edward S.|last2=O'Sullivan|first2=Gerry|title=The Terrorism Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror|year=1989|publisher=Pantheon Books|isbn=978-0-394-58080-7|page=138}}
History
The company was originally formed to design suppressors for the M16 rifle. Later, WerBell began work on designs for a low-cost, efficient suppressor for machine guns.{{cite book|last=Rottman|first=Gordon L.|title=The M16|date=20 December 2011|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-84908-691-2|pages=49–50}}
In 1967 WerBell partnered with Gordon B. Ingram, inventor of the MAC-10 submachine gun. They added Werbell's suppressor to Ingram's SMG (submachine gun) and attempted to market it to the U.S. military for use in the Vietnam War.{{cite book|last=Hogg|first=Ian V.|title=The complete illustrated encyclopedia of the world's firearms|year=1978|publisher=A & W Publishers|isbn=978-0-89479-031-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/completeillustra00ianv/page/194 194]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/completeillustra00ianv/page/194}} The suppressor was the M14SS-1, designed for the M14 rifle, and forty suppressors were sent unofficially to the 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam during early 1969 for combat evaluation. An undisclosed number were procured under ENSURE Number 360.1, but the suppressor was not adopted officially.{{cite book|last=Thompson|first=Leroy|title=The M14 Battle Rifle|date=20 October 2014|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-4728-0256-9|page=47}}
To obtain capital for manufacturing, Werbell solicited 29 investors, each for 7 million dollars, into a holding company called Quantum Ordnance Bankers. They created a manufacturing corporation called Military Armament Corporation, and merged it with Quantum and SIONICS. The efforts to sell to the military failed and Werbell lost control of the company.{{cite book|last=Larson|first=Erik|authorlink=Erik Larson (author)|title=Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FzV82AD3GlQC&pg=PA66|date=27 July 2011|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-80331-3|pages=66–68}}
Other companies
SIONICS Weapon Systems, which manufactures AR-15 type rifles in Tucson, Arizona,{{cite web|url=http://www.recoilweb.com/preview-sionics-weapon-systems-lightweight-patrol-rifle-57167.html|title=Preview – Sionics Weapon Systems' Lightweight Patrol Rifle|first=Tom |last=Marshall|year=2013|volume=4|number=13|publisher=RECOIL}} has no relationship to the original SIONICS beyond the name.