US Army Unveils 'Revolutionary' $35,000 Rifle

rbrander writes "Don't call it a 'rifle,' call it the 'XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System' and get your $35,000 worth. Much more than a projector of high-speed lead, this device hurls small grenades that automatically detonate in mid-flight with 1-meter accuracy over nearly 800m. The vital field feature is the ability to explode 1m behind the wall you just lazed — the one with the enemy hiding behind it."

Comments

Battlefield 2142 Assault kit rockets

[GodfatherofSoul]

I've been using these for years to rape snipers and campers. One of the most versatile weapons in the game.

Re:Hope It Helps End the Fighting

[Allicorn]

Rounds are going to be relatively expensive yes, but it's not as if you fire the thing full auto.

How it changes the game in that enemies behind hard cover - who might otherwise engage you in a protracted firefight - will lose the benefit of that cover.

It's in service now with the 101st airborne apparently, so I'm sure we'll shortly find out whether it's the exceptionally useful tool it appears to promise to be.

Re:Hope It Helps End the Fighting

[eldavojohn]

Basically, look at the lowest price you can find on a reputable AR-15, then take 10-20% off of that to estimate what the government is paying.

Sounds like you two know a hell of a lot more about pricing on assault rifles than I ever will.

Basically, I treated it like everything else the government buys for me with my money: I googled it, found the highest price and then added about 100-200% for an estimate. Guess it doesn't transfer well to all military expenditures.

more useful against us...

[retchdog]

Wouldn't this weapon be more useful against an occupying force, than for them? That is, wouldn't urban "insurgents" have more and faster access to mostly-enclosed structures, while the occupiers would tend more to ad-hoc cover?

I suspect that we may regret introducing this, once it's copied and sold cheap by certain other nations which will go unnamed... Maybe it'll give us the advantage in a burned-out dust bowl like Afghanistan, but it would hurt us somewhere like Iraq.

Please correct me, I'm just a cynical jerk, not a tactician.

hard to see how this works

[ebonum]

The projectile is traveling say 1000 feet per second ( let's say that the target is 500m away starting behind a long stone wall ), then the projectile explodes. To kill someone it just passed, it will have to fire lots of large fragments backward and down ( or backward and sideways - if person is standing around the corner of a building ) at at least 1000-2000 feet / second to be lethal.

The physics on this is tricky. To do this, you need to meet the "for every action, an opposite and equal reaction" law. This means something of equal mass will fly forward at ~ 3,000 ft/sec ( this is wasted material not being aimed at anything except unsuspecting persons in the distance ) . In the end, you are talking about a round with what? maybe 20 fragments ( to increase the odds of hitting something ) and each fragment will have to 1) fly fast enough to penetrate and ideally cause hydrostatic shock and 2) be heavy enough to do damage. If the rounds are too big and heavy, a single gunner will have trouble firing the weapon ( bruising on the shoulder ) and won't be able to carry many rounds because of the weight.

For close range targets - 100m, the round is traveling at perhaps 2000 feet per second. Even if this thing blows up over someone's head, it seem most of the blast is going to continue forward, not towards the person behind the wall. Perhaps they hope the concussion wave will be strong enough to be lethal. A very high percentage of the metal fragments should blow forward due to the already high velocity of the round.

Keep in mind, this round is spinning, so the blast will go in all directions. It is not possible to tell the bullet to fire downwards when over the target.

note: a 22 cal bullet fires at bout 800-1200 feet per second. An M15, the standard round for the USMC, fires at about 2,700 to 3,500 feet per second and can have a range out to about 800 meters.

Re:hard to see how this works

[sznupi]

Keep in mind, this round is spinning, so the blast will go in all directions. It is not possible to tell the bullet to fire downwards when over the target.

Actually seems quite possible - if it spins fast enough (and it does count the spins very precisely already), the "window" of effective fire happening once per revolution might be enough. The hard part would be making a shaped charge with fragments on one side while carefully maintaining stability. But as a bonus it could be also more effective when firing sideways, behind a corner.

Re:Forget the cost of the gun

[sznupi]

Koreans already have quite comparable weapon in service, apparently ~3 less expensive.

Re:Hope It Helps End the Fighting

[bumptehjambox]

Basically, I treated it like everything else the government buys for me with my money: I googled it, found the highest price and then added about 100-200% for an estimate. Guess it doesn't transfer well to all military expenditures.

Your methods are quite sound, I work for a major company mostly (almost completely) fueled by the defense industry and I can say that I have no reason to believe our government gets any type of discount whatsoever, foreign governments do, but it's widely known that Uncle Sam doesn't mind paying MSRP.

Basically, look at the lowest price you can find on a reputable AR-15, then take 10-20% off of that to estimate what the government is paying.

Why? I'm not trying to be a smartass but why would the government get 10-20% off? I've never seen an instance where a government organisation got a "bulk discount"

Also there is simply a weight consideration

[Sycraft-fu]

If you study guns, you'll notice that the most reliable ones fire larger, heavier, rounds and themselves are larger and heavier. Good reasons for this:

1) The tolerances don't have to be as tight. When things are large, there's more room for play. A bit of dirt doesn't matter nearly so much.

2) More recoil force and/or gas. When there's more pushing back against the action, it cycles better. Also you can load up heavier springs, to push it back harder, again making it more reliable.

That's what the M2 is still one of the most reliable guns out there. Shoots a big heavy round and is built with some room for error in it.

Wonderful, but you have to consider carried weight. Troops have to slug a lot around, gun and ammo weight matters. While it might sound nice to say "Just give them bigger guns with bigger ammo!" that isn't necessarily so practical.

Accuracy also comes in to play. Part of the AK's reliability comes form the action. If you've ever watched it in slow motion it positively slams shut, even flexing and vibrating a little. Well enough but at what cost? The cost is accuracy. It is not a good gun at range. "Spray and pray," are very much the operative words. The M4/M16, however, are much better. They aren't quite rifle accurate, but they aren't bad.

It is a tradeoff, and it is easy to pull the "grass is greener" type thing, look at the other gun and say "Well clearly that is better!" However if you used that, well then you might have a different opinion.

Re:Also there is simply a weight consideration

[shutdown -p now]

The tolerances don't have to be as tight. When things are large, there's more room for play. A bit of dirt doesn't matter nearly so much.

Larger caliber helps with that, but it's not a requirement. The caliber of AK-74 is smaller than that of M16, but the latter has looser tolerances, and is generally more reliable as a result.

Part of the AK's reliability comes form the action. If you've ever watched it in slow motion it positively slams shut, even flexing and vibrating a little. Well enough but at what cost? The cost is accuracy. It is not a good gun at range. "Spray and pray," are very much the operative words.

It's accurate enough at most realistic ranges of engagement, especially AK-74: you can reliably hit man-sized targets at 200-300m. E.g. Russian soldiers are most certainly not told to "spray and pray" at a distance, but rather drilled largely the same way as you see US troops with M16 - well-aimed single shots.

This isn't to say that accuracy can't be better, or that this isn't useful. Most NATO weapons are more accurate than AKs. Thing is, most of them are also more reliable than M16, if not to AK standard - and that is largely due to looser tolerances (again, not as much as AK, but still), and overall different design (gas piston vs direct impingement).

Re:Also there is simply a weight consideration

[GooberToo]

It's accurate enough at most realistic ranges of engagement, especially AK-74: you can reliably hit man-sized targets at 200-300m. E.g. Russian soldiers are most certainly not told to "spray and pray" at a distance, but rather drilled largely the same way as you see US troops with M16 - well-aimed single shots.

The difference is, its really, really hard to hit a target beyond 300m to maybe 400m with an AK-74 whereas with an M-16, its still shooting true out to 600+ (550m) yards. In Vietnam, the weapons were extremely well matched because of the extremely short engagement ranges. Whereas, on a more traditional, non-urban battlefield, the upper hand easily goes to the M-16.

As for reliability, assuming the US continues to stay with the M-16 (they are looking at options and have been for the last several years), expect the reliability of the M-16 (or whatever variant it turns into; assuming they stay) to go through the roof. Newer designs are easily as reliable as AK's while maintaining much tighter tolerances. Having said that, a properly maintained M-16 is an extremely reliable weapon.

Re:Also there is simply a weight consideration

[GooberToo]

That is true, but it is unclear how useful it is to give a weapon with such range to every single infantryman.

Its actually not questionable at all. Ask any infantryman who served before the M16 was issued. The M1 was accurate out to 1000 yards and was commonly used at those extended ranges in every war before Vietnam.

You also need some decent optics to shoot at such distances accurately, while hitting a man at 200-300m is perfectly possible with iron sights.

Actually, you don't. Its common for rifles to be issued with ladder sights which allow you to select your target's distance and it compensates in barrel rise. They also used a larger, more powerful bullet (.30-06/7.62), which made those distances even more practical than attempting to do so with a 5.56.

You need to keep in mind, most battle tactics include covering fire while you close the gap to more accurate ranges. If I can accurate engage you at 600-700 meters while you need to close to 300-400 meters to obtain the same accuracy, I have a huge advantage for 200-300 meters. That means I stand a good chance of completely stopping your force while receiving minimal causalities on my side.

In Russian army, and those modeled after it, the role of reaching out to those distances is delegated to what's called "designated marksmen" in US armed forces, armed with SVD.

Not really - but close. Their role is to provide suppression fire, allowing the rest of the squad to close the gap. Many mistakenly believe their role is that of a sniper. Its not. They are not trained as a sniper and their weapon comes nowhere near NATO sniper rifle specs (though with the right ammo you can certainly get 1 MOA accuracy with most rifles - SVDs anyways, out to around 600 meters). So which is more likely to move? A squad with an SVD/PSL in support or an entire squad with almost the same accuracy and a squad level weapon which typically meets or beats the SVD/PSL. Exactly.

That exact phrase and its variants often come up when discussing the reliability of AR platform. It's perfectly true, but also very misleading. As one of American troops who saw action in recent conflicts has put it, "It shoots very well when clean; but sometimes, it also needs to shoot when dirty, too". It's a good thing when your troops have enough time and no other worries to spend enough time on weapon maintenance, but war is war, and it's not always feasible. A front-line service rifle should be able to cope with that.

I was very careful to include that phraseology. ;) But, tactics have also been adapted to avoid extended, unsupported battles. I'm not saying the weapon never jams. I know it does. But, largely the worst case scenarios are avoided by a combination of mixed tactics; primarily including rapid deployment and extraction.

Re:Also there is simply a weight consideration

[Moofie]

This is the statement you replied to:

"The caliber of AK-74 is smaller than that of M16"

You missed the part about the numbers, and therefore, you were wrong. Own it. Learn and get better. Or continue to be a doorknob. Your call.

Re:Also there is simply a weight consideration

[GooberToo]

The whole reason why everyone eventually opted for smaller calibers (such as 7.62x39 or 5.56) post WW2 was because it turned out that the theoretical large range of large-caliber infantry rifles of the day was almost never really exercised.

Different theaters of operation had different experiences. Remember, in the Pacific, they made do with the M1 Carbine, which was basically a .30 pistol round. In other places, 600-800 yards were common ranges. The biggest motivator was that they learned most people missed beyond 300-400 meters and as such, wasted a lot of heavy ammo. The solution was to create a smaller, lighter cartridge which allows for much more ammo to be carried and for its effective range to be more in line with what the typical soldier can actually hit.

As for the optics part, mostly Russians and Germans had optics. The US was extremely slow to make any use of optics and generally speaks, those that did use them were detested by their own; at least in US ranks. As such, for extended ranges, for the US, you're mostly looking at iron sites. Worse, what little lessons were learned with optics following WWII were all but forgotten until Vietnam.

So far the US has been lucky enough to fight wars with significantly underpowered opponents where such doctrine is viable - and even then there has been no shortage of complaints about situations where reliability was an issue, anyway. When it comes to something more serious, do you think it is sustainable? I'm not even talking about some hypothetical engagement with China, but how about, say, a distinctly probable ground invasion of Iran? Or a prolonged engagement with DPRK to defend ROK?

More serious? You means different people with basically the same weapons and tactics? It is largely sustainable so long as those giving the orders actually understand the tactics and why they exist. That's why the US has embraced mixed forces (foot + air + arty + armor). So long as people follow doctrine, things tend to work out very well for US forces. If you look at encounters like "Black Hawk Down", the higher up idiots knowingly departed from doctrine; despite a direct request. Had that not happened, it would have largely been a non-event and certainly not been the protracted engagement that it was. Not to mention, the copters were specifically ordered to do slow, low orbits, which is contrary to basic training and tactics given to those pilots. Basically they were told to be ideal targets and make sure you have absolutely no contingency plan available. But I digress... But hopefully you get the point...

The US is designed around rapid, reactionary forces. That's basically why the Marines exist at all. That's their sole purpose - and why they don't have M1's (tanks). The notion is, move in, take your objective, move out - or converge and re-enforce. Its not like the old days where you march for weeks and months, praying for an air drop (which might actually be in your area) or supply line. These days, extended operations where you can not reload, refit, resupply, clean, eat, etc., is purposely, by design, rare. And generally speaking, the situations where this does happen is for snipers and special ops.

I feel like you're also ignoring and/or forgetting the force multipliers available. You need to keep in mind, one man with a radio and a laser can literally take out an entire brigade of tanks with one airplane and one or two pass.

As for DPRK and ROK, it most certainly isn't what you think. Most of both side's major cities and factories are within arty range of each other. Should something happen, most everything is going to be flattened. Next, a couple of US planes will gain air superiority. Likely afterwards, we'll see massive surrenders. Most people in the North have no food. They've literally stripped the bark off of trees for soups. With the exception of some specialized brigades, most have Vietnam era weapons. What advanced tech they do have is in limited number

Re:Does it Jam in Hot Dusty Conditions?

[shutdown -p now]

Once this design flaw was identified, the powder was changed, the barrel was lined with chrome, and troops were given instructions and tools to clean the weapons. Afterward, they became much more reliable in jungle conditions.

Yep, except that they aren't being used in jungle conditions today - and guess what?..

Maybe, before they make more new shiny $25K toys for the infantry, they should take care of the basics first. The only countries using AR family of guns other than US are those which are able to purchase it from US for cheap or free. And no other infantry rifle in military use around the world uses direct impingement gas system.

Re:Half a billion dollars

[phantomfive]

$400 million is nothing. If it keeps US soldiers alive and healthy, it might even save costs in medical care over a lifetime. One of the biggest military expenses is people, active and retired.

Re:Hope It Helps End the Fighting

[RsG]

Why? I'm not trying to be a smartass but why would the government get 10-20% off? I've never seen an instance where a government organisation got a "bulk discount"

What do you mean you've never seen a government bulk discount? Happens all the time. For any item where the number needed by the government is in the thousands or more, you can bet they're paying less per unit than you would be if you wanted to purchase just one of the same item from a store. It's no different than when big companies buy in bulk.

Besides which, for certain firearms, the cost is driven up by the strong regulations in place. For anything fully automatic, the only option if you want to legally buy one is to get it from an existing owner whose gun was grandfathered in before the law changed, which obviously drives the price up. Hell, there are a few fully functional miniguns in the hands of private owners in the US, any one of which would cost at least as much as most people make in a year to purchase, even assuming you could find an owner willing to part with theirs.

They likely won't use it.

[orphiuchus]

I know some of the guys who tested and rejected the SCAR, they said it was just too easy to break. I expect this to get to units who can afford it and be rejected as unreliable, or to be treated more like a mortar or heavy MG. I would be shocked to see this rifle get much use.

Re:Killing people who hid behind a wall...

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the following re: those soldiers and/or Marines who were called up on charges for possibly killing civilians:

Remember, we are not seeing what the soldiers see here. We can watch the video fifty times on slow-mo, squinting to see if that dude's carrying an RPG or a camera: the soldiers are making snap decisions on half-second glimpses. Contrariwise, the soldiers have a much wider perspective on the entire battlefront, and see things we can't. Our hindsight second-guessing is pointless.

But my point here is not to defend the soldiers or the military: it's to say that since hindsight is useless, we should try foresight. BEFORE we send troops into a country, we should understand that shit like this WILL happen. Absolute precision in warfare is impossible: conflict WILL result in innocents getting slaughtered by terrified boys with heavy weapons.

So when the option of war starts being discussed, we should not ask, "is our cause righteous? Are we prepared to sacrifice our sons' lives for it?" but rather, "Is our cause righteous enough that we can watch the mass slaughter of innocents, and still say we did the right thing?"

Re:Hope It Helps End the Fighting

[bumptehjambox]

It's been a while, but unless things have changed, if you sell any product to the government, according to the law you are required to charge the government no more than what you charged under the best discount to any other party for the same quantity and product.

MIL-SPEC is the key here. Make a version that doesn't meet some sort of specification for the civilian market (cheap) and leave the properly spec'd item jacked up! (just to elaborate on what you said here:)

Sometimes the method is to have two different 'models' or configurations in the price list, that accomplish the purpose.

It gets even hairier when you deal with other suppliers who want to get in on the free-for-all. Oh, and the people who pitch needless services from those suppliers for huge premiums (profits all around!) and then when those services start causing the company more issues than they're worth they have to try and figure out a way to make that magic elixir look like snake oil without seeming crooked. God help me I love it so. I could write a book it gets so absurd.

What do you mean you've never seen a government bulk discount? Happens all the time. For any item where the number needed by the government is in the thousands or more, you can bet they're paying less per unit than you would be if you wanted to purchase just one of the same item from a store. It's no different than when big companies buy in bulk.

Oh yeah, what I said definitely reads wrong. Sorry. I mean not like a special for-gov't-only bulk discount. You are correct and I am uhhh sloppy :/ ...my bad!

Where is my powered armor?

[Requiem18th]

Want to carry lots of heavy rounds and have high mobility in an urban setting? It's almost 2011, where is my fucking POWERED ARMOR!?

Ok maybe they aren't as practical in the so called "real world" but the terrorists will be so shit scarred they'll give up immediately!

Re:Does it Jam in Hot Dusty Conditions?

[shutdown -p now]

Oh yes. I also love this technical note from ArmaLite, and specifically this bit:

Some of the worst cleaning practices are found among those expected to know best how
to maintain rifles: the military. Especially in peacetime and in garrison locations, military
procedures are too often focused not on cleaning properly, but on cleaning totally. That’s
because of tradition and the sad fact that it’s hard to make a judgement call that a rifle is
cleaned and preserved well enough for reliable service. It’s easier to say that there isn’t a
speck of dirt remaining on the rifle.
The fact is that Soldiers and Marines, in some situations, tend to vastly over-clean their
rifles, despite official guidance that “white glove” clean isn’t proper.

We have had...

[JockTroll]

... Rifle grenades for a loooooong time and cover is still as important as ever. The important new features for the XM-25 are range (800m is double the range of a typical 40mm grenade launcher) and its airburst capability, sustained fire and relative ease of use. Using smaller grenades also means reduced damage, a desirable feature in CQB. However, there are and there will be countermeasures deployed: the device needs its laser rangefinder, so expect the use of particulate smoke to make ranging difficult. Like in all warfare conditions, the best defence is offence so if I expect my forces to go against XM-25 armed troops I'll have snipers deployed to take out soldiers carrying it - hopefully eliminating the weapon as well. It's a nice advantage to have but only the Nazi elite believed in miracle weapons to win the war, and watch where it has led them. Aggressive tactics and adaptability trump any technological wonder. The Russian campaign in WW2 should have taught us that, but I guess the iWar generation has taken over and will need some blood by the megagallon to understand it. I'd like to have one of those in my arsenal, but to believe one weapon will change the face of warfare is naive. Not even nukes did that.

Re:Hope It Helps End the Fighting

[McKing]

Hear, hear! I was also an Infantryman in Iraq in 2004-2005 (central Baghdad and the re-invasion of Fallujah) and my weapon fired every time I pulled the trigger because I took care of it.

Also, everyone that I saw who was hit in the torso or head with a 5.56 went down, period. Varmint gun my ass.