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What would be the fate of XM25?


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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/05/06/army-kills-contract-for-shoulder-fired-airburst-weapon.html

No one knows the future of this program, but personally, I think the project is 99% downed. Not sure who is lying, ATK orbital or H&K. But anyway, it might be safe to remove XM25 from next module. Well, but if CMBS continued on 'artificial history' time line, then it would be OK.  

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Hmmm...

Seems likely that there'll be a fuzed 40mm round, fired from an M320 UGL type of launcher tied in to the firing system. 

The 25mm seems to be a bit small for good HE. I also don't see the semi-auto feature being very useful. 40mm, single-shot, on 2-4 weapons in the squad, may bring enough. (As well as the Pike.)

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The problem with many of these systems is that nobody thinks about the grunts that have to carry them. We had some contractors working from DND come by the unit to show us the new Automatic Grenade Launcher they were planning on issuing for battery defense. It had thermal and night vision sights, a ballistic computer, laser rangefinder, the whole shebang. It also weighed a tonne, was complicated as hell and had to be stowed somewhere. I don't think they ever left the weapons locker. Better to take out the ancient C6s that weigh a fraction as much as the new wondergun. Maintenance is brushing dirt off the sights and coating everything in CLP vs. well, who knows!

 

Just my $0.02CAD

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11 hours ago, c3k said:

The 25mm seems to be a bit small for good HE.

That was always a question in my mind. Forty mm grenades are known to work, so why not stick with them? I know that smaller caliber usually translates to more ammo carried and that can be a consideration, but if it doesn't do the job on the battlefield, what's the use however many you can carry?

Michael

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but with all that "auto aiming" I'd think it doesnt matter much how fast it goes.  the barrel points up more but either way for the operator his is just putting the cross hair on target after lasing something right next to it or I guess just lazing the dudes face.  In fact the steeper incoming angle of a slower shell should decrease not increase the vertical dispersion, no? 

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Yeah but those are like musket balls which were also inaccurate.  Plus they are light relative to size so they blow around extra.  The 40 mm round spins in a stabilized way like a modern rifled bullet, vs the muskets of old.  And its heavy so I suspect it has relatively constant ballistics.

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In layman terms the requirements for HE part of OICW were the range and ability to shoot through windows - hence CD part of the CDTE name. It dictated the velocity and that taken together with recoil limit gave the projectile weight. This reads as caliber :)

40*46mm at natural engagement ranges goes through windows by a sheer chance. You can judge accuracy by training videos or combat footage where you may see lots of 40mm spent cartridges lying around.

25mm is not much of a problem as you mainly rely on frag effect rather than pure HE blast wave. And there's enough weight to dispense with and create certain frag field.

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IMHO I think we might have been talking past each other a bit.  When the grenades don't have any auto ranging feature, for sure its easier to aim with a faster projectile.  I was writing strictly about the grenade launchers that include an auto ranging mechanism.

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I'm really not trying to argue and not even sure I want to respond to this, but I wasn't talking about guided projectiles either, as I think you know.  you brought up paintballs to compare with the 40mm grenade accuracy, I think thats obviously not a good analogy as the paint balls are curveball destabalized rather than spin stabilized, and they arnt heavy enough to not be blown around like crazy, unlike the 40mm.  Slower bullets mean you have to aim up more, not that the bullet wont go on target because its not fast enough.  I've seen a pistol hit at a mile (on youtube)

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@cool breeze, cannot quite get your point. Certainly I don't claim a paint ball and 40*46mm grenade have the same parameters of ballistics. I used paintball to support the idea that it's quite hard to make an accurate shot with this grenade. According to standards accurate for 40*46 means hitting a window facade practice target at 100m once every three times. The target is really large and the level of difficulty for 40*46 and a paintball gun are more or less the same whatever the ballistics. Surely "the level of difficulty" is a very subjective thing and hard to discuss :)

PS BTW 40mm TP round is quite a paintball :D

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I thought we were talking about the grenade launching systems that integrate a computerized firecontrol thing of some kind with a integrated sight and range finder, and potentially airbursting grenades, so that the operator doesn't have to do any guess work on how much to aim above the target. 

Edit to add: also I guess its hard to go exactly vertical vs a little diagonal while you are aiming up above the target, but the computer and sight combo can fix that. 

Edited by cool breeze
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18 hours ago, IMHO said:

According to standards accurate for 40*46 means hitting a window facade practice target at 100m once every three times.

7 hours ago, cool breeze said:

I thought we were talking about the grenade launching systems that integrate a computerized firecontrol thing of some kind with a integrated sight and range finder...

  1. Is there some hidden logic in how range finder will change the dispersion pattern observed during standard GL exercise? It's really standard exercise so no one needs to measure the distance - it's written right in the manual and dug into the training range layout :)
  2. M79/M203/M320 is considered zeroed - including windage - when it lobs grenades within 5 meters at 200m. May be the weapon just wasn't designed for precision? :)
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The standard grenade launcher training on a range seems like it would still include a fair amount of operator error.  But I guess I have been skipping the fact that the grenade launcher might not shoot straight to begin with, but that seems to me like its own problem and not a result of the low muzzle velocity.  Mortars are relatively low velocity weapons too but are also relatively high precision.

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On 5/11/2017 at 8:55 PM, cool breeze said:

But I guess I have been skipping the fact that the grenade launcher might not shoot straight to begin with, but that seems to me like its own problem and not a result of the low muzzle velocity.

You somehow want to find a way around the laws of the physics - you won't :D Longer flight time, lower energy projectiles, less spin - the projectile is more affected by environment factors. You can download a good ballistic calculator and see for yourself what affects a projectile.

Edited by IMHO
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Footballs are also rather slow but accurate when well thrown.  The idea that you cant send an object a couple hundred meters meters accurately without also sending it really quickly seems strange for me.  People have been doing that for many hundreds of years with arrows.  I mean obviously arrows and footballs aren't particularly accurate, and its a lot harder to hit something at range with them than a gun,  my point is just that variables can be put against each other until the thing gets on target.  Adjusting for wind and having a stable projectile and such.

Edited by cool breeze
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