A NEW US Army rifle will have the power to obliterate enemies with the force of a battle tank blast, military chiefs say.

The 6.8mm rifles will fire bullets capable of ripping through any body armour and are expected to be in use by 2022.

3 A US soldier from the Provincial Reconstruction team (PRT) Steel Warriors looks through the scope of his assault rifle. The new rifle will be far more powerful than this existing one Credit: AFP

Army chief of staff. Gen. Mark Milley told The Military Times: ""It will fire at speeds that far exceed the velocity of bullets today, and it will penetrate any existing or known ... body armour that's out there.

"What I have seen so far from the engineers and the folks that put these things together, this is entirely technologically possible. ... It's a very good weapon."

The new guns will offer major improvements in capabilities compared with the decades-old M16 and M4 weapons, the Army claims.

The “Next Generation Squad Weapon program,” is an Army initiative but has had input from Marines and special operations forces, reports The Military Times.

3 The 6.8mm rifles will replace the M16 rifles (pictured here) Credit: AP2002

3 They will have the power to obliterate enemies with the force of an army tank Credit: Alamy

Milley described it as “better than any weapon on earth today, by far".

He told the publication: "It's a pretty impressive gun.”

The so-called Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) will "weigh less, shoot farther, and pack more punch than the service’s existing infantry weapons," Col. Geoffrey A. Norman told Task & Purpose.

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According to Col. Norman, the aim is to equip soldiers with rifles that fire "a small bullet at the pressure equivalent to what a tank would fire."

Citing the Army's shift from the environments of Iraq and Syria to "near peer threats like Russia", he said: "“For the past 10 or 15 years, we’ve been really focused on the requirement of lethal effects against unprotected targets.

“Now we’re looking at near-peer threats like Russia and others. We need to have lethal effects against protected targets and we need to have requirements for long-range lethality in places like Afghanistan, where you’re fighting from mountaintop to mountaintop over extended ranges.”

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