No hiding place from new U.S. Army rifles that use radio-controlled smart bullets

(Story from Daily Mail Online (UK) 30 Nov 2010)

* Weapon hailed as a game-changer that can fire up and over barriers and down into trenches
* Soldiers will start using them in Afghanistan later this month


The U.S. army is to begin using a futuristic rifle that fires radio-controlled 'smart' bullets in Afghanistan for the first time, it has emerged.

The XM25 rifle uses bullets that are programmed to explode when they have travelled a set distance, allowing enemies to be targeted no matter where they are hiding.

The rifle also has a range of 2,300 feet making it possible to hit targets which are well out of the reach of conventional rifles.

The XM25 is being developed specially for the U.S. army and will be deployed with troops from later this month, it was revealed today.

The rifle's gunsight uses a laser rangefinder to determine the exact distance to the obstruction, after which the soldier can add or subtract up to 3 metres from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target.

Soldiers will be able to use them to target snipers hidden in trenches rather than calling in air strikes.

The 25-millimetre round contains a chip that receives a radio signal from the gunsight as to the precise distance to the target.

Lt. Col. Christopher Lehner, project manager for the system, described the weapon as a ‘game-changer’ that other nations will try and copy.

He expects the Army to buy 12,500 of the XM25 rifles this year, enough for every member of the infantry and special forces.

Lehner told FoxNews: ‘With this weapon system, we take away cover from [enemy targets] forever.

‘Tactics are going to have to be rewritten. The only thing we can see [enemies] being able to do is run away.’

The XM25 appears the perfect weapon for street-to-street fighting that troops in Afghanistan have to engage in, with enemy fighters hiding behind walls and only breaking cover to fire occasionally.

The weapon's laser finder would work out how far away the enemy was and then the U.S. soldier would add one metre using a button near the trigger. When fired, the explosive round would carry exactly one metre past the wall and explode with the force of a hand grenade above the Taliban fighter.

The army's project manager for new weapons, Douglas Tamilio, said: ''This is the first leap-ahead technology for troops that we've been able to develop and deploy.'

A patent granted to the bullet's maker, Alliant Techsystems, reveals that the chip can calculate how far it has travelled.

Mr Tamilio said: 'You could shoot a Javelin missile, and it would cost £43,000. These rounds will end up costing £15.50 apiece. They're relatively cheap.

Lehner added: ‘This is a game-changer. The enemy has learned to get cover, for hundreds if not thousands of years.

‘Well, they can't do that anymore. We're taking that cover from them and there's only two outcomes: We're going to get you behind that cover or force you to flee.’

The rifle will initially use high-explosive rounds, but its makers say that it might later use versions with smaller explosive charges that aim to stun rather than kill.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1334114/New-US-Army-rifles-use-radio-controlled-smart-bullets-used-Afghanistan.html

Troops in Afghanistan Will See Through Walls in 2010

Soldiers can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, yet. Seeing through walls — that’s a different story. Later this year, American troops fighting in Afghanistan will begin to get gadgets designed to peer inside buildings and detect the heartbeat of people buried under rubble. It’s not exactly Superman’s x-ray vision. But it’s not that far way from it, either.

These Eagle handheld scanners, which look “like a cross between a video game controller and an oversized cell phone,” according to Defense News, work by sending out low-power, wideband radio-frequency signals toward a target, and measuring how the signals bounce back. A signal coming from a person will return differently than one from dirt or concrete, which will return differently than a signal bouncing off of concrete a few feet further away.

The handheld receiver decodes these signals, and displays the image it saw on the screen of the device, creating a picture of what’s happening on the other side of the wall, or 10 feet underground. The device also has a wireless connection to a computer, so it can immediately send the image for processing and analysis.

TiaLinx, the company behind the Eagle sensors, told Defense News that the scanners can detect a person or animal 20 feet behind an 8-inch thick slab of concrete. That technology has piqued the interest of the military, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and other organizations from police bureaus to utility companies.

The technology is a lot like the ground-penetrating radar already being used by the military, but with a few notable improvements. The Eagle imagers use an ultra-wideband signal, which means it sends out signals over a variety of frequencies, creating a more exact and detailed picture. The ultra-wideband scanners also use a great deal less power, which means the sensors are smaller, lighter, and longer-lasting: the Eagles supposedly last up to four hours on a single battery charge.

That wireless connection creates a number of new possibilities for the Eagle’s use. They can be sent on a small robot or drone into places not safe for people, and can immediately and wirelessly transmit whatever they see, even more than would be visible to the naked eye. Danger zones or hostage situations, where human presence might only worsen the situation, can be monitored from outside.

One immediate use for the Eagle technology in Afghanistan is avoiding the Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, that are responsible for a huge number of the casualties in the war so far. The British military is considering buying a technology similar to the Eagle that would allow them to locate immediately where bombs are buried, speeding up the time it takes to clear a convoy route and lowering casualty rates for soldiers. The United States already uses this technology, the NIITEK Visor, on its convoy-clearing vehicles.

They’re not a bird, or a plane, but the Eagle sensors could be critical in hostage or disaster relief situations, in locating leaks and tunnels underground, or in gaining a tactical advantage through a previously impenetrable wall. The sensors will be rolled out to soldiers sometime this year, and may be wider-used shortly after that.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/troops-in-astan-will-see-through-walls-in-2010/?intcid=inform_relatedContent