Army to Test

[Malsua 1,422]

If you've been watching future weapons or some of the discovery channel stuff on guns, this is not new. Still it's a neat "gun"(really it's a mortar/rocket launcher).

 

If they deploy this thing, they need to get them all out on the field and not commence using it until a certain day. Once a bunch of Taliban are perfed by this thing, the tactic will change so to maximize the effect, don't start using one here, one there. All at once, wherever the battles are happening will take them by surprise.

 

There's a video at the link.

 

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http://www.military.com/news/article/ar ... 6032310810

 

 

ABERDEEN TEST CENTER, Md. -- The Army is set to send its high-tech "counter defilade" weapon to the war zone in the next few months, the first real-world deployment for the much-anticipated XM-25 Individual Airburst Weapon.

 

Officials announced May 5 that a group of Army Special Forces Soldiers will take the weapon with them to Afghanistan sometime this summer.

 

During live-fire demo here, Soldiers shot the Heckler & Koch-made XM-25's high-explosive rounds through the window of a simulated building, showering "enemy" mannequins inside with lethal metal fragments.

 

Afghanistan veterans who fired the weapon for the first time this week predicted it would be a "game changing" weapon, a gun that can engage Taliban insurgents using distant ridge-tops, thick mud walls and tree lines as cover.

 

"It brings, right now, organic to the squad, the capability to defeat targets that we're seeing everyday in Afghanistan -- targets that we can't currently hit," said Col. Doug Tamilio, project manager for Soldier weapons with the Army's Program Executive Office Soldier. "It will save Soldiers' lives, because now they can take out those targets."

 

While labeled a grenade launcher, the XM-25 is much more than that, Army officials say. It's a precision direct, and indirect, fire weapon system that combines an array of sophisticated sensors, lasers and optics with a microchip-embedded 25mm high explosive round.

 

Tamilio pointed to the example of the Taliban attack on Combat Outpost Keating last October in eastern Afghanistan where some 300 Taliban insurgents swarmed a remote American base, killing eight Soldiers and wounding 22. The XM-25's long-range, precision fire could have tipped the firefight in the Army's favor, he said, because Soldiers could have targeted insurgents firing down on the base from distant ridgelines with high explosive rounds.

 

Firefights in Afghanistan take place at much greater ranges than in Iraq, typically beyond 300 meters. At that range, even skilled marksmen are hard-pressed to hit a fleeting target ducking behind cover -- a bullet is only lethal if it hits the head or vital organs, which equates to about a six-inch-wide zone from the forehead to the groin, Tamilio said.

 

With the XM-25, Soldiers don't have to actually hit that vital area to dispatch the enemy, they only have to aim the launcher's air burst fragmentation warhead nearby. The warhead's blast is equivalent to a hand grenade.

 

The enormous firepower advantage is obvious -- Soldiers don't have to get within throwing distance, they can drop the 25mm rounds directly into an enemy's lap from up to 700 meters away, officials say.

 

"In the last area we were in, there were a lot of rolling hills, so maybe three or four hilltops away there are [insurgents] setting up on an outpost.

[bbk 188]

I think this is a pretty well thought out system. Having Apaches with their Hellfires over there really is a waste of money unless there is a specific type of operation going on.

The military's biggest challenge is the asymmetric warfare, and this is the type of warfare that will be most likely conducted for the next decade or so... so, to add a tool to the toolbox that actually would have some everyday application is better then trying to develop tech that is so mission specific that its practically useless (even if it can go through the bunker of a bunker's bunker's bunker's offspring's bunker).

 

Along with this, I'm waiting for the official uniform change for the Army from the ACUs to a uniform with the multicam design (SOCOM and a few other units have been field testing it for awhile now in theater). And I'm also waiting for the battle rifle contract to either officially disappear or be awarded finally...

[Old School 611]

I wonder if this was developed at our own NewJersey Picatinny Arsenal?

[Malsua 1,422]

I wonder if this was developed at our own NewJersey Picatinny Arsenal?

 

The XM-25 is by HK, so it probably was primarily designed in Germany.

[Old School 611]

I wonder if this was developed at our own NewJersey Picatinny Arsenal?

 

The XM-25 is by HK, so it probably was primarily designed in Germany.

 

 

Bull!!! Much of our stuff is developed here and built elsewhere. Mark, let me take you to lunch at Picatinny one day. You'll love it!!!

[KpdPipes 388]

Is this a Stand-alone version of the 25mm launcher that was supposed to be a part of that "Future Soldier" program Combination weapon?

[mipafox 438]

I wonder if this was developed at our own NewJersey Picatinny Arsenal?

 

A lot of the development and testing took place there. Not sure where it's actually built:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytPa8ihfrPU

 

This sucker makes me think about all the videos from Iraq where the bad guys are shooting around walls. Wouldn't it be nice to send a few of these babies sailing by to F-up their day. And, of course, all the Taliban shooting from behind ridges on hilltops. They better start carrying roofs with them!

 

Speaking of which, how come the Taliban always get the hilltops, anyway?

 

Here's some more pics (but grainy) of the crew-served version:

 

http://www.gd-ots.com/webpdf/ACSW.pdf