Army turns to researchers for future lethality

This morning the Army posted some highlights from their 'Army Technology' magazine.

now I'm going to share with you all several links starting with the cover article.

Experts predict an individual Soldier of the future armed with a 40mm grenade may have the same lethal effects as 155mm artillery.

"Lethality is more than just offensive lethality," said Keith Jadus, acting director of the lethality portfolio for the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology. "It is the ability to provide protection. Lethality is what protects our Soldiers. It is the capability to reach farther than our adversary and the ability for Soldiers to hold their ground, protect their ground and move forward.

That one caught me eye because my issue weapon and an M15-A2 with a mounted 203.
And that takes us to another article.

[url=http://armytechnology.armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2014/09/02/enhanced-grenade-lethality-on-target-even-when-enemy-is-concealed/]Enhanced grenade lethality: On target even when enemy is concealed

Gilbert described the round as being complementary to the XM25. The XM25 is a Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, which has an onboard laser system that determines the distance to the target.

“SAGM is complimentary to that; we are not competing against it,” Gilbert explained. “The XM25 provides direct fire, SAGM is indirect.”

The second phase was making the fuze smart by including sensors. The round detonates in what is called airburst. It will detonate over and past defilade obstacles that are detected by the sensor.

With this new capability, which is fully autonomous onboard smart sensors, much like a smartphone, the grenade can perform a task without being told to do so by the user. It is designed so that, when fired, it will recognize its surroundings and can detonate over an obstacle that might conceal the enemy.

The things they can do today is totally astonishing man...
But when you talk about coolness factor then you have to talk about this...
Army developing small missile for big mission

The Miniature Hit-to-Kill, or MHTK, guided missile is about 27 inches long, 1.6 inches in diameter and weighs just 5 pounds. It has no warhead. Rather, as the name implies, it is designed to intercept and defeat rocket, artillery and mortar threats with kinetic energy during a direct hit.

Initially researchers developed three candidate interceptors under EAPS ID, but in 2013, the requirements changed to exclude additional fire control sensors in the battlefield which led to a system down select. The Army redirected MHTK efforts to incorporate the risk reduction miniature fully active RF seeker that the AMRDEC had been working on with applied research S&T funding.

Also in 2013 it was announced that all IFPC Inc2-I interceptors would share a common launcher, the Multi-Mission Launcher. In a separate effort managed by AMRDEC, the MML is being designed to fire a variety of missiles to meet IFPC Inc2-I requirements. The MML tubes allow for multiple missiles of different types to be loaded simultaneously.

They are talking about being able to set up a bank of like 60 of these bad little boys capable of tracking rockets, artillery, or mortar fire.
Speaking of---
Improved Mortars
they talk about some of the changes they plan to make...

always cool to read about what's coming down the pipe... so enjoy

a reply to: HardCorps

The lesson of the story: in a war, your enemy evolves too.

"rods from space" are getting very very likely now. They say the potential kinetic energy from one from a satellite would only go through a building but it would practically explode, the most frighting thing is they could have a hundred of these satellites in orbit and strike anywhere in the world in minutes!

is there no end to weapon technology?

the XM25 is a scary piece of tech, they use range finding equipment that pre arms the grenade so they can pop a round through a window and it explodes right in the middile and have all sorts of round types from gas to explosives to shrapnel, its going to give a pretty big advantage.

Funny thing is, once you explain tech like that, everyone else is going to develop somthing similar

a reply to: Biigs

Korea made their own version of the XM25 in a main battle rifle...and sent their solders armed with it when they showed up in Iraq.

I never did hear how well it worked for them? All I remember is that our Army gave up that project in rifle form.

a reply to: HardCorps


Guess you can never have enough new types of lethal weapons

The novel "Logan's Run" had weapons that had similar types of bullets:

Tangler Produces a large sticky web of material which entangles and immobilizes anything it comes into contact with; it can be dissolved by regular police with special gear. It is used for capturing fugitives alive.
Ripper An antipersonnel round similar to a hollow-point or hydroshock round. It is quite lethal.
Needler A round that breaks up into dozens of deadly needles. A type of flechette round.
Nitro A round with a high explosive warhead.
Vapor A tear gas round.
Homer A heat-seeking "smart" bullet. It homes in on evading targets with a temperature of 98.6 degrees. The charge kills the target by electrically burning out every nerve in the body. The homer can be decoyed by another warm body stepping in front of it.

www.projectrho.com...

a reply to: HardCorps

The U.S. Army is now 50% of the U.S. military, under General Dempsey, head of the Joint Chiefs. And if "future lethality" raises eyebrows, check out THIS doc:

fas.org...
APPENDICES: ARMY COMBAT ORGANIZATIONS AND CONTRACTORS

The biggest change which ATS hasn't picked up on is the Pentagon finally acting on the army marksmanship unit study awhile back looking for ideal small arms caliber... spoiler alert 6 to 7mm range with 6.5/6.8 projectiles faring best just like EVERY OTHER ****ING STUDY LIKE THIS FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY!!!!

Several researchers and engineers in this field I talk with on another forum recently announced that they could no longer add much if any comment on small arms cartridges due to being under NDA and or the threat of directly breaching classified data and the hellacious penalties that entails!!! (I suspect it's a NATO level combined nation push also due to confirming parties being an extremely multinational group!!)

I'm absolutely friggin ECSTATIC at this needs even if my primary pool of people I talk with about this stuff are now behind an iron curtain!!!

This has been a long time coming and sweet lord maybe we can get rid of 7.62 NATO FINALLY!!!! This round has been a millstone around the neck of western militaries from day one!!!! (It's a crap round truly in every way)

As evidenced by non ar15 destroying moderate loads of 6.5 Grendel loaded to stanag magazine OAL besting by MASSIVE AMOUNTS the long range performance trajectory and retained energy of the NATO 7.62 loads!

Step up to an action almost exactly halfway between 556 and 762 oal and you have an even more pronounced advantage!!

And. Tbh... I'm not absolutely sure grendel is the best it could be either... for example a newer 6.8 spc case based 6.5 round looks to allow substantially less magazine height for a given round count.

Either way it looks like we could be on the cusp of an intermediate rifle / light belt gun load with something similar to 338 Norma magnum or 338 lapua (hopefully in a militarized Adams arms uhlfbert modified for belt and magazine fed variants with high part commonality over the abortion that is the gdls lwmmg). Theoretically an uhlfbert modified this way could result in economy of scale advantages that could result in a 2 to 7 to 1 advantage in procurement cost over 240 series weapons and precision big bore rifles! Not to mention higher fire rate controllability and reduced complexity as compared to lwmmg while also being suitable for use by a gunner moving between position which the lwmmg is NOT suited for at all!!!

Oh and BTW...if you think I'm wrong about this but can't without frantic Google fu name the designer who originated the technology the gun is based on.... then don't bother!!