

So much for an adversary taking cover behind a compound wall or an embankment. Last month, the Army sent about 800 prototypes of its cover-destroying computerized grenade launcher to Afghanistan. Now, it says, by 2014, it expects to assign one to every infantry squad and Special Forces team.

The XM-25 is a grenade launcher tricked out with a guidance system called a Target Acquisition Fire Control Unit that talks to sensors and microchips inside a 25-mm high-explosive round. A laser acquires the target – but like a videogame controller, it's got plus and minus buttons to program precisely where you want to place your shot. The idea is to add a little distance, so a shot can clear an enemy's cover. The projectile burst from the round takes care of the rest.

In a blog post yesterday, the Army pledged that it would listen to soldier feedback in Afghanistan, where the XM-25 is "carried actively on patrols" and spend 2011 building "a large quantity of production representative weapons and ammunition" to push out to the fight. If all goes according to plan, writes Lieutenant Colonel Chris Lehner, the gun's project manager, "12,500 systems will be produced and issued beginning in early 2014."

The Register's Lewis Page observes that this could just be the beginning of smart-grenade-launcher variants. Army documents have mentioned "an armour piercing variant – presumably intended for impact rather than airburst, and using a shaped-charge warhead – and non-lethal both airbursting and blunt," he writes. "The airburst non-lethal would be a smaller version of the "flash bang" stun grenades popular with special-ops and police SWAT teams in hostage situations, and the blunt version a more ordinary plastic or rubber bullet."

It would be an understatement to say the Army's enthusiastic about the gun. "The introduction of the XM25 is akin to other revolutionary systems such as the machine gun, the airplane and the tank, all of which changed battlefield tactics," writes Lehner. "No longer will our Soldiers have to expose themselves by firing and maneuvering to eliminate an enemy behind cover. ... This will significantly reduce the risk of U.S. casualties and change the way we fight." Now to learn how soldiers find the "Men In Black" grenade launcher to actually work in Afghanistan.

Photo: U.S. Army

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