The Army is moving ahead smartly with its XM25 shoulder
fired, semi-automatic 25mm grenade launcher with plans to spend $34 million on
further development in 2011 and a production start slated for 2012, according
to service budget documents. The Army plans to buy at least 12,500 of the
weapons beginning in 2012, enough to put one in each infantry squad and special
forces team, according to PEO Soldier.
The futuristic looking XM25 fires a "smart" High Explosive
Airburst round out to around 600 meters. The smart round is a "counter
defilade" round, designed to blast enemy infantry taking cover behind walls,
cars, in trenches as well as enemy fighters dumb enough to be standing out in
the open. The Army calls the weapon a "leap ahead" technology.
The XM25 uses a laser rangefinder to target the enemy, then
the weapon's micro-computer accounts for air pressure, temperature and the 25mm
round's ballistics, feeds that information to a microchip in the round itself
programming it to detonate directly over the target. With a 600 meter effective
range, it would provide small teams greatly enhanced lethality well beyond that
of rifles and machine guns. The Army claims that tests showed the XM25 with the
high-explosive round is 300 percent more lethal than current squad level
weapons.
The XM25 could prove enormously useful to troops in Afghanistan
battling Taliban insurgents that typically fire from the cover of tree lines
and from behind mud walls. This is the first weapon, at least that I have seen,
that could provide infantry with a lethal, accurate and effective grenade
launcher that exceeds that of the ubiquitous RPGs carried by insurgent groups
around the world.
One potential weakness I've noticed is that the XM25 only has a four round magazine. The Army believes the weapon's lethality will come from its pinpoint accuracy rather than rate of fire.
