{"id":7702,"date":"2011-02-10T09:17:21","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T13:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=7702"},"modified":"2011-04-01T09:52:53","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T13:52:53","slug":"xm-25-man-packable-artillery-piece-takes-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/xm-25-man-packable-artillery-piece-takes-the-field\/","title":{"rendered":"XM-25 man-packable artillery piece takes the field"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Page<\/a> has some information on the first field use of the XM-25:<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Earlier post on the XM-25 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update, 1 April<\/b>: The XM-25 program is now under contract<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The new engineering and manufacturing development deal is to run for 30 months.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,5,15,13,663],"tags":[218,31,49],"class_list":["post-7702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-military","category-technology","category-usa","category-weapons","tag-afghanistan","tag-army","tag-guns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-20e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7702"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8574,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7702\/revisions\/8574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}