XM25 from PEO Soldier on Vimeo.
If the field trials in Afghanistan go well, this could be a very useful addition to the US Army’s armament collection. As the video shows, however, firing a 25mm round means there’s quite a kick to the soldier firing the weapon. The capability the weapon provides, however, isn’t available at the squad level any other way, so just hand it to your biggest trooper . . .
I’ve updated the earlier report.
Lewis Page has some information on the first field use of the XM-25:
First reports are emerging on the performance of the futuristic, Judge Dredd style XM-25 computer smartgun, which went into combat with frontline US troops in Afghanistan in December. The hi-tech rifle — almost a portable artillery piece — is said to have been dubbed “the Punisher” by soldiers who have used it.
The US Army news service reports that the existing five custom-made prototype XM-25 weapons, which have long been trialled and tested in the States, arrived in Afghanistan in November and were first used in combat on 3 December. Since then, as of the army report, some 55 explosive smartshells have been fired in combat and hundreds more in practice.
“We silenced two machine-gun positions — two PKM positions,” said Major Christopher Conley, describing some of the firefights in which the XM-25 has been used. “We destroyed four ambush locations, where the survivors fled.”
Earlier post on the XM-25 here.
Update, 1 April: The XM-25 program is now under contract:
The US Army’s futuristic Judge Dredd style computer smart-rifle project, the XM-25, is moving ahead. Developer ATK, which has so far made just five prototype weapons, inked a $65.8m deal this week to move the weapon into manufacturing.
[. . .]
US troops in Afghanistan, who are trying out the initial five prototype weapons, apparently don’t favour Judge Dredd references. They have reportedly chosen to dub the new smartgun “the Punisher” instead.
Feedback from these users has apparently been positive, with the AM-25’s ability to strike out accurately and speedily at Taliban snipers or machine-gun teams lurking in cover at long range highly prized. The soldiers don’t much care for the gun’s battery system, however, which reportedly has the same flaws as an iPhone’s: it can’t be swapped for a new one and must be plugged in to charge up. ATK are apparently to sort this out as the design develops.
The new engineering and manufacturing development deal is to run for 30 months.
I’m not sure what the change from XM-25 to AM-25 in that report means . . . that is, if the weapon’s designation has changed with the switch to production, or if it’s just a typo in the write-up.
Strategy Page talks about the weapons being found in Afghanistan:
Back before the Russians showed up, in the 1980s, the best an Afghan could hope to have was a World War II, or World War I, era bolt action rifle. These weapons were eclipsed in the 1980s by full automatic AK-47s and the RPG rocket launcher. The young guys took to the AK, and the thrill of emptying a 30 round magazine on full automatic. Not bad for a brief firefight, and suddenly hardly anyone, except a few old timers, wanted to use the old bolt action rifle.
What was not noticed much outside of Afghanistan, was that this shift in weaponry brought to an end a long Afghan tradition of precision, long range shooting.
[. . .]
The Lee-Enfield is one of the oldest, and still widely used, rifles on the planet. Over 17 million were manufactured between 1895 and the 1980s. While there are more AK-47s out there (over 20 million in private hands), these are looked down on by those who use their rifles for hunting, or killing with a minimum expenditure of ammunition. The 4 kg (8.8 pound) Lee-Enfield is a bolt-action rifle (with a ten round magazine) noted for its accuracy and sturdiness. The inaccurate AK-47 has a hard time hitting anything (with a single shot) more than a hundred meters away, while the Lee-Enfield can drop an animal, or a man, at over 400 meters.
[. . .]
One place where the Lee-Enfield found lots of fans was Afghanistan. There, the Afghans had been introduced to rifles in the 19th century, and they treasured these weapons. This was particularly true with the introduction of smokeless powder rifles in the late 19th century. Many Afghans were still using black powder rifles well into the 20th century. But once Lee-Enfields began show up in large numbers after World War I (1914-18), no one wanted the larger, heavier and less accurate black powder rifles (which always gave off your position, with all that smoke, after you fired a round.) Now, wealthy drug lords are buying expensive hunting and sniper rifles for their militias, but so far, many Taliban snipers appear to prefer using grandpa’s old Lee-Enfield.
Lee-Enfield ammunition is still manufactured, with the high quality stuff going for a dollar a round, and lesser quality for 25 cents a round. The rifles sell in the West for $500-1,000, but the hand-made copies, made new, go for more than twice that. The Lee-Enfield, both originals and copies, will carry on well into the 21st century.
Update, 9 February: Speaking of the 21st century, Australian International Arms is still producing new Lee-Enfield rifles:
Australian International Arms have manufactured the 5th generation of Lee-Enfield, for target shooting, military match and sporting markets. However, unlike the 4th generation, this is not a ‘converted’ Lee-Enfield. The AIA rifles are redesigned with modern techniques, but referencing more than a century of Lee-Enfield improvements and development… from Britain, North America and Australia.
[. . .]
Our production is limited in quantity as we
build the rifles, they are not mass-produced items. We only construct about 1,000-1,200 units each year because of all the hand-work required for metal, wood, fitting & tuning of each rifle.
H/T to Small Dead Animals for the link.
This would be a pretty good safety video, to show just how not to handle firearms. H/T to Robert Farago for the link.
Lorne Gunter wants our government to recognize that Canadians have a right to self-defence:
Canadian officialdom is conducting an all-out assault against self-defence. Quite simply, few politicians, Crown prosecutors, judges, law professors and police commanders believe ordinary Canadians have any business using force to defend themselves, their loved ones, homes, farms or businesses.
The latest example of the campaign against self-defence comes from southern Ontario. In August, retired crane operator Ian Thomson, who lives near Port Colborne, awoke early in the morning to find masked men attempting to burn his house down with him in it. When he fired at them with a licensed handgun he had stored in a safe, he was charged.
How out-of-touch are police and prosecutors when you are not even allowed to defend yourself and your property from thugs attempting to incinerate you? Their attitude seems to be that it is better to die waiting for police to respond than to take matters into your own hands.
[. . .]
When Canada became independent at Confederation in 1867, Canadians retained the rights they had at the time as British subjects. These included three “absolute rights”: the right to personal liberty, the right to private property and the right to self-defence, up to and including the right to kill an attacker or burglar.
William Blackstone, Britain’s famous constitutional expert, argued the right to self-defence included the right to kill even an agent of the king found on one’s property after dark, uninvited. He also traced the right to armed self-defence back to the time of King Canute (995–1035) when subjects could be fined for failing to keep weapons for their own protection.
The Russian Defense Minister just stirred up a controversy that could only be equalled here if the Prime Minister called hockey a pansy frou-frou game:
Apparently, Russia’s Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, opined publically that the Kalashnikov and Dragunov SVDs sniper rifles, are “morally outdated.” To add insult to injury, he intimated that he’s considering replacing the weapons with something else. Let’s just say this didn’t play well in the Russian equivalent of the Borscht Belt. In fact, “firestorm of controversy” would be a pretty accurate depiction of the ensuing fireworks.
Evidently, Russians are a prideful people. And they take a lot of pride in Kalishnikov’s Greatest Hit of 1947. The AK-47 has withstood the test of time, doing exactly what it’s designer set out for it to do — function as a rugged, all-purpose weapon that was cheap to build, easy to use, and would run even if you filled it full of mud. Accuracy was not really high on the list of objectives, but I understand from people that know far more about the AKs than I, that they are far more accurate than most people believe.
[. . .]
So for Mother Russia, their very own Defense Minister dissin’ the AK would be like Jeff Cooper bitch-slappin’ the 1911, and throwin’ in a little trash talk against John Moses Browning, to boot. But the times they are a-changin,’ and I’m not so sure Anatolovich doesn’t have a valid pointsky.
The venerable 1911 and AK-47 bear more than a passing comparison. They are both well-established, respected designs. They are both manufactured by multiple armories. And they both have several features that are seen in a modern context as design flaws at worst, and in desperate need of an update, at best.
I’ve posted on the reputation of the AK-47 before.
Not the prettiest site in the world, but certainly one of interest to movie firearm fans — the Internet Movie Firearms Database. Brad Kozak at The Truth About Guns raves about imfdb.com:
Here is the website I’ve been wondering about, wondering as in “why in the HELL doesn’t this kind of resource exist?” One that would tell me exactly what kinds of guns are in a given movie. How were they used? Modified? Abused? What’s real and what’s fantasy? (Hey Jared . . . ever seen what Hollywood thinks about your pansy-assed 33 round mags? THEY’VE got magazines that never need reloading!)
This site may have all the visual charm of the Drudge Report, but for hard-core data on films and firearms, this site is all that and a side o’ fries. And it’s not just text either. Movie stills, frame grabs — this site done got the goods, homey. And not only do they cover movie firearms, in depth, they also cover the tech specs on the firearms themselves. My first visit, and I felt like I was a kid again, on my first visit to Toys ‘R’ Us. I mean, talk about a one-stop shop for getting all my burning questions answered. Waaaay cool.
[. . .]
If you were to ask me about how I enjoy movies, you’d see a clear and distinct division between the time that I was largely clueless about guns, and the time that began learning about them. Call it “B.E. and A.E.” (Before Enlightenment and After Enlightenment.) Before my education began, I had some inkling that movies regularly exaggerated the number of rounds that could be fired without reloading, the accuracy of a gun at a long distance, and the effects of guns in the wild (acoustics, ear protection, et cetera). But I had that “willing suspension of disbelief” thing going on, and it just didn’t matter to me. After my education began, I was filled with questions — is that a Springfield XD? Where do you find a 50-round magazine that fits within the grip for a 1911? (Or my fave:) How can you shoot a bullet and force it to make a 360º trajectory (in the movie WANTED.) Thanks to imfdb.com, now I know.
H/T to Kathy Shaidle for the link.
You’ve probably heard about the US Navy’s recent successful railgun test, but it’s not the only game in town:
It’s all go in the world of hypervelocity railguns this week. Following Friday’s 33-megajoule test shot carried out at a US Navy laboratory, it has also been announced that a different railgun known as “Blitzer” has recently carried out firings which suggest that it is almost combat ready.
The Blitzer comes to us courtesy of famous radical-tech company General Atomics, well known to Reg readers for its development of robot warplanes and electromagnetic mass-driver catapults for aircraft carriers among other things.
Now, in a statement which is dated 7 December (but which didn’t appear on the firm’s website until yesterday*) General Atomics would like to inform the world that the Blitzer was carrying out highly interesting and “tactically relevant” shoots back in September, actually, while the johnny-come-lately test job at Naval Surface Warfare Centre Dahlgren hadn’t even got its boots on.
Railguns have been one of the preferred technologies of near-future SF writers for years, but the necessary real-world technology has not been easy to develop. SF versions are often postulated as replacements for rifles and machine guns, but the current technology will only be suitable for fixed installations or shipboard use (and not just any ship: the electrical requirements are huge).
This may be the most attractive facet for the remaining “big gun” advocates in the Navy:
In the nearish future, depending how accurate GA’s “tactically relevant” puffery turns out to be, warships equipped with Blitzer-type railgun turrets might offer far better air defences than Type 45 or Aegis vessels can today. Such defences might only be penetrable by bigger, heavier railguns firing from beyond the horizon — along the lines of the Dahlgren boffins’ desired 64-megajoule weapon. It would, of course, require a massive capital ship to carry such guns and power them for any serious rate of fire — such a future might see the big-gun (railgun) dreadnought battleship return to its lost dominion over the seas, ousting the parvenu aircraft carrier, missile cruiser etc.
The XM-25, which The Register refers to as a Judge Dredd smartgun will be provided to front-line troops by 2014:
The US Army has confirmed plans to equip every infantry squad and special-forces team by 2014 with an XM-25 Judge Dredd style computer smartgun able to hit enemies hiding around corners or behind rocks etc.
The XM-25 has been widely covered in the media recently, despite the fact that the last piece of actual news regarding the futuristic weapon — that it would at long last be put in the hands of US combat troops, in Afghanistan — came back in October, as we here on the Reg crazy-guns desk reported at the time (getting the tip from the Soldier Systems blog). However we also mentioned it about six weeks later in our widely-read Thanksgiving crazy-guns-o-the-future feature — and shortly thereafter the XM-25’s Afghan deployment decision was in all the mainstream outlets as “news”.
John Oates has a bit of fun at the expense of the Metropolitan Police:
Police appeal for missing Taser
Shocking loss, but stunning Christmas presentThe Metropolitan Police ia appealing for the return of a Taser and four cartridges that were left on the roof of a police car, which was then driven away…
A Met firearms officer attended an early morning briefing at Norfolk Row, Lambeth. After the briefing, possibly focussed on coffee and a bacon sandwich, the copper put the Taser on the roof of the marked police car and drove off.
An hour and a half later it dawned on the unfortunate officer what had happened, by which time the Taser was no longer on the roof.
Strategy Page looks at the continuing evolution of sniper detection devices:
The U.S. Army has ordered another 13,500 SWATS (Soldier Worn Acoustic Targeting Systems) sniper detectors. These 183 g (6.4 ounce) devices come in two pieces. One is the sensor, that is worn on the shoulder, while the controller, with small LCD display, is worn in front, where it can be quickly glanced at. SWATS calculates (from the of the sound weapon fired) direction of fire in a tenth of a second. SWATS has been very popular with troops, and costs about $5,000 each. SWATS can also be mounted on vehicles, and work when the vehicle is moving at speeds of 80 kilometers an hour or more.
Acoustic gunfire (sniper) detectors, which have been in the field for a decade, have had increasing success. Over 50,000 sniper detectors have been shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they have been increasingly useful. Sniper detection systems provide directional information about where the snipers are. Several generations of these systems have showed up over the last decade. The usefulness of these anti-sniper systems has increased as the manufacturers have decreased the number of false alarms, and improved the user interface. There are other reasons for all this progress, including major advances in computing power, sensor quality and software development. One of the latest, and most useful, improvements is providing nearly instant, and easy to comprehend, location info on the sniper.
The Register looks at futuristic guns, including a coming-into-production sighting system:
As everyone who has read the Discworld books knows, million-to-one shots actually hit nine times out of ten. Pentagon weaponeers saw no reason why this should not also become true for US military snipers, leading them to begin work on the “One Shot” miracle sniper-scope project.
One Shot works by using a laser to measure not just the exact range to the target (this is already common practice among snipers) but also to measure the wind forces along the bullet’s line of flight. Wind is perhaps the marksman’s greatest bugbear in long-range shooting, so much so that snipers aren’t expected to achieve a first-shot kill any further off than 600m in normal circumstances.
The One Shot instrument, which will replace the telescope used by the sniper team’s spotter, will measure wind, range, inclination, air pressure and humidity. Linked to the scope on the sniper rifle, it will continually generate artificial crosshairs indicating where the bullet will actually strike: it will also indicate the likelihood of a wind shift during the projectile’s flight time, allowing the shooter to pick the best moment to fire. All the sniper has to do is move the crosshairs onto target, wait for the circle of uncertainty to stabilise, and shoot.
According to spec, the One Shot system isn’t quite as good as the Pratchett effect: it will deliver first-shot kills out to 1500m only six times out of ten rather than nine.
Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent me a link to this article about the Avtomat Kalashnikov 47:
In his new book, The Gun: The AK-47 and the Evolution of War, out Oct. 12, New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers traces the origins of modern assault rifles — particularly Avtomat Kalashnikov 47, or the AK-47 — and analyzes how they’ve changed warfare. Popular Mechanics spoke to the author about how and why the AK-47 was developed and why it has had even more of an impact than nuclear weapons.
[. . .]
Q During the course of your research, did you get to meet or talk to Mikhail Kalashnikov?
A I met General Kalashnikov several times. He was a fascinating man and a very complicated figure — a master of navigating the Soviet system and its aftermath. He is often portrayed as a poor and simple peasant who, through sheer inventive genius, designed the world’s most successful automatic arm. But this is an almost absurd distillation, the carefully spun fable of Soviet propaganda mills. He’s actually something much richer: a small part of an enormous machine and a most useful and interesting lens with which to look at decades of often dreary and sometimes terrifying Soviet life. He’s also charming, beguiling, clever, funny and both intensely proud and publicly humble at the same time. The legends around him are insufficient at best and grossly inaccurate at worst. He’s quite a man and a challenging character to render.
Q Why is so much about the development of the AK-47 still shrouded in secrecy?
A After the weapon was fielded, the Soviet Union invested heavily in an official version of its creation. This was not long after the purges, when many prominent Soviet citizens and public figures had been liquidated. A new crop of heroes was being put forward by the Kremlin and the Communist Party. Mikhail Kalashnikov fit this movement perfectly — he was, by the official telling, the quintessential proletariat success story, a wounded vet with limited education and almost no training who conceived of this weapon and relentlessly conjured it into existence. The truth was more complicated. But this party-approved version was endlessly repeated in official channels, and one result of the propaganda was that many other participants in the weapon’s design were sidelined and kept silent. One important figure was even arrested, charged with anti-revolutionary activity and sentenced to hard labor. After the Soviet Union collapsed, some of these other men and their accounts began to circulate. But the archives have never fully been opened, and the myths have hardened into something that can feel like fact. We do know much more than we used to, but the full story, in crisp detail, remains elusive, and the Communist version still stands in many circles. Propaganda is a pernicious thing, and the Kalashnikov tale is an example of just how effective it can be.
Strategypage reports on an indoor shooting simulator:
The U.S. Marine Corps has saved over half a billion dollars in the last four years, by using indoor electronic firing ranges. IMST (Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer) has cost over $200 million, but the savings in ammo, wear on weapons, and running outdoor ranges were much larger. Nearly 200,000 marines have undergone marksmanship training using IMST. Unlike the similar U.S. Army EST system, IMST is wireless. A special magazine contains gas that provides a realistic recoil and a wireless radio device connects the weapon to the targets displayed on the screen and records how accurate the electronic rounds were fired.
Devices like IMST and EST have boosted the shooting skills of troops, while reducing costs. This gives American riflemen a big battlefield advantage. In most armies, the troops rarely fire their rifles. Ammo is too expensive (given the meager military budget). When there is combat, the troops are issued bullets, which they fire very inaccurately. Against a better trained foe, this leads to quick defeat. Happens all the time. But now cash strapped armies can train their troops to be effective marksmen without spending a lot of money, by using simulators.
Sure beats the “simulation technology” we used in my militia days: we ran around yelling “Bang!” to simulate firing the bullets the military budget couldn’t afford to provide us with. Ah, the joys of Trudeau-era military experience.
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