I preferred the M4 Custom in MGS.

jhilla

RAPE.

Blinklink11

All them coloured bullets remind me of the movie xXx, with the bullets that fake a kill shot and ones that knock the guy out.

Emiat

I think a more cost effective way would be for Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie to teach our soldiers that really neat bullet bending trick...

ttaber

Is this the only weapon that's really become finalized out of the OICWS project? It's the only one that I can see. Totally f'ng cool.

I imagine that it won't be a replacement for a soldier's regular rifle, maybe a one per squad type of weapon?

Derrick

don't get me wrong, I'm all for new tech though.

jkr's bold comment

ohhh, have we not learned anything. All soldiers know that a weapon that is unreliable is an instant trip back home, toe tag included. All engineers know that the more complicated a design, the greater the failure rate, especially on new designs (LHC anybody). Now we are going to this. Any guesses if this will be our next new big weapon. Maybe 100 iterations down the road, but not this, and not in this form.

jkr's bold comment

@jhilla:
I was more of a M14 EBR guy myself..

I would like to see more military tech on this site.. this sort of thing gets me all excited in the morning

Thanks for the article!

Mith

Watch the troopers ditch these for AK 47's lying around. Think green and recycle guys!

Arvin Bautista

It would be a b*tch to confuse the Non-Lethal (Blunt) bullets with the High Explosive ones.. Could they not find a 7th distinguishable color?

jelthi

Oh my God. That would make an awesome Nerf gun.

Novenus

mmm, finally the gun from the movie "Runaway" with Tom "Magnum P.I." Selleck (which for years I have incorrectly called "Lassiter" also with Tom Selleck and also released in 1984).

In that movie, the bad guy had a gun that took your thermal signature and then fired a missile (bullet) that tracked you, as you ran, and hit only you.

Forgettable movie aside from that, which has stuck with me for years.

ahbi

looks like it can frag some Aliens and Predators.

pyrokotik

Nice...but can I check my email during a gun fight?

Straynger

America....Fuck Yeah!!!

Prey521

Like magenta, perfect color for high explosive rounds.

bnutz

AMMO-Chromatic.

mangochutney

The XM25... incredible piece of tech. But will it blend???

P.S. XM Channel 25 is "The Blend." ;)

scarbrtj

@jelthi: Also consider that the the armor piercing/door breaching are in the red spectrum, while the non-lethals are green.

Isn't Red-Green color blindness the most common type of color blindness in men? I hope there's additional cues to tell them apart... you know, other than shooting them.

SuppleMonkey

A lot of people see the development of weapons as a negative impact on the world community. In this case, America is being targeted as "mongols" for developing this new rifle. Many users on this site disagree with weapons development, the improvement of technology, and the effects it may have.

Firstly, weapons do not kill. The person who pulls the trigger is the ultimate factor. A gun does not decide to kill someone. It is a tool for defense, not offense, used to protect soldiers who risk their lives - no matter the cause (good or bad).

America isn't the only countries developing new weapons. You have to realize that yes, America must be the bad guy because we're rearming our troops, but then you have to look at Britain, France, Russia, China, etc., and you can't tell me their not developing new weapons as well? As every nation modernizes, so does the technology around it.

Secondly, I've seen some comments about the more complicated weapons become, the higher the fail rate. Lets look at the M4 Carbine. It is a relatively simple weapon. It's fail rate is extremely high, especially in the conditions it is subject to in environments like Iraq. We need to design something that doesn't fail. More bits and bolts doesn't mean it's going to break easier. It simply means - we have tested this thing for a decade, now we're ready field test it because we have improved on an inferior design that clearly isn't working as well as it should be.

People don't get dumber, they get smarter. And this is true. We went from building brick houses no less than a story tall to building skyscrapers that touch the clouds. Same goes for weapons technology - we went from a simple cannon to warheads that penetrate concrete bunkers.

The XM25 itself is derived from the XM29 and XM8 series, both of which have been discontinued. I was hoping the XM8 carbine would survive testing, but the culmination of these two projects has left the Army with a redesigned product which greatly enhance combat firepower on the field.

evangelistc01

@Derrick: Looks to be a replacement for grenade launchers and shotguns, not rifles.

Canthros

It is not hardcore unless you can overclock it. Also needs some windows on the side and green lights.

Oroka

Ugly piece of... TAR-21 Tavor FTW.

Prosumerist

@Prey521: Coming again, to save the mother fuckin' day.

Diskoboy

@ahbi: And the acid-spitting robot spiders. You can't forget those.

alowishus

@Prey521: It was inevitable.

SgtToastie

@Novenus:

You sir have won the internets!

That would be awesome, with color coded nerf pellets or whatever they're called.

RED TEAM RULES.

-Scrixx-

what if the soldier is colorblind?

entropyman

I would love to see that bad boy in action. Video?

DyingBlade

@dave the wet sprocket: Ha, you so called art dealer!!

Pwnieboy

i hate warriors, too narrow-minded. i'll tell you what i do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. now a real killer, when he picked up the weapon, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.

...bring me the priest.

dave the wet sprocket

@ahbi:

Gene Simmons made a bad ass villian.

[www.cyberpunkreview.com]

soundguru

it takes .. uh.. say.. 2 to 4 AK-47s from the other side and this weapon is in their hands.. and how much are AK-47s? 10bucks for 1kg of it?

pipichua

Heat-seeking shoulder fired. It's fuckin' disposable! You could take out a jet with one of these monkeys.

dingus

This is like mentioned, going to be in the hands of a squad sniper or some other designated person to use it's abilities. At $25k we can't afford to put it or it's ammo into the hands of every soldier. It's a special purpose until prices come down. There's just air bursting rounds, and that's ok but we already have hand grenades and M203 grenade launchers which are a lot cheaper.

Nick_Bentley

$25 a round? if they hafe the same hitrate a standard rounds, thats gonna be expensive!

swartz

normally at a time like this, i would ask when does the civilian version come out so i can get one. but at 25 bucks a round... that's not something i want to go target shooting with hehe.

if this is one more thing to help our guys do their jobs, with out having to send a body home to either family, that's well worth the price.

i just hope that they double check the color coding for the bullets for guys who are color blind.

spider2544

Take it from an old dog of war, this thing is goanna fall part on the battlefield, fast than yea can say, don't use a cannon to kill a fly.

MadCrazy

Thaht pucking bastard is using CHEATS!!! AIMBOT + Granade launcher! :DD

Originalas

Just waiting for game devs to include this. Would be a sweet FPS!

MrThunderfield

@mangochutney: I gotta give ya that one. Good game.

Ginsu

One fucking awesome feature is the AP Bullets
taking out tanks and other armoured vehicles and infantry
then swith over to AP to take out the infantry
which does me remind of the upcoming game Tiberium
one weapon with different load options

TBM-Fan

@Arvin Bautista: Being one of those "troopers" currently serving in Iraq, I can tell you I'd rather fight to the death with my KA-BAR in one hand and my E-tool in the other than pick up one of those piece of shit AK-47's.

Ginsu

A battery?? whose ****ing idea was that?

mricyfire

can we get osama bin laden now? pierce thru some caves?

kpm

Uhoh, not wireless. For heavens sake, have they learned nothing from RDIF? I'm waiting for the day when someone can wirelessly trigger those rounds inside the gun.

ara

Looks like it outta say Hasbro on the side

klamerus

@entropyman:
Well then it doesn't matter what weapon you give him because he'll still teamkill.

Elliuotatar

that is a Wicked Water Gun with amazing Water Pellets!

hindsight2020

"standard M41-A pulse rifle..."

etmthree

@Pwnieboy: so many robots and helping hands but none can help you now, (Man choking in the back)

Felix26591

@mangochutney: jajajajajajajajja hit it right on the spot man laughed liked hell when i read it. ammo-chromatic jajajajajaja

Felix26591

Very interesting future weapon.

Jitty

Looks bleh, I wouldn't want to shoot that thing. Looks like a "neat" paintball gun though.

Dradik27

@evangelistc01: I don't think that this gun is going to replace all soldiers rifles anytime soon anyway. They might carry one or two within a group, and if they need its special features to take out a particularly difficult target, they will use it. So failure rate isn't too big of a deal right now anyway.

Stang70Fastback

Dare i say? Does it play crysis?

aeroworks

@Ginsu: Hooah! though Id rather my Gerber LMF II A.S.E.K.

im_back

@dave the wet sprocket: Big bada boom. Big bada boom.

Bloodboiler

@ttaber: Chubs said it best "its all in the hips"

im_back

"Double Whammy"

00000000

This seems really familiar to me.... I remember reading several years ago about a 5.56mm rifle that would have an attached airburst round launcher that could be programmed to explode right after it was fired through a window or door or over around a corner. There were a few different working versions. I really liked the one that was a machine gun emplacement. Any chance that will get into production?

Solaricide

jeez. look out 3rd world. highly unnecessary IMO.

dedalus987

this gun is insanely powerful/destructive that i laughed when i read the article about the gun yesterday.

jrghoull

@Prey521: gotta kill those motherfuckin' terrorists.

jrghoull

@Blinklink11: the hell....

jrghoull

@Solaricide:

this was possibly the weapon that you heard about, as apparently it has been in the makings since the early 90s

also, it'll come in 2014.

jrghoull

@dave the wet sprocket: hahah good quote!

jrghoull

so from now on opposing armies will be able to disarm US soldiers by using EMP?

Raidah

@jelthi: Can you be in the Army if you're colorblind?

macserv

This is like a high priced hooker: Sexy, expensive as shit, potentially deadly (use a condom, ALWAYS, boyo!)

banmojo

Judge Dredd, eat your heart out....

thewarm

@Derrick: The OICW program is dead. This is certainly the airburst component of it, and I think they broke off the carbine ('kinetic')component for separate development too, as the XM8 rifle.

jackbrown

@entropyman: The colorblind soldier will have a kill bonus because camouflage doesn't work all that well on red-green colorblinds, and besides, the bullets will be covered in Braille so that the soldier can blind-load.

I'm not kidding about the camo thing.

kanon

Its small, packs a punch, but we dont have rocket scientists on the battle field and im sure this will take atleast 2-3 weeks training to get the proper training...
I swear 11trillion dollars into debt and look at the type of shxt we're spending money on. I guess whoever is in charge of the weap's stood up watching wanted and thought it'd be cool if we could curve bullets around corners....

SneakerFiend

By the time a soldier had this thing programmed to explode above a trench, he'd have a bullet going though his face.

Cool, but wouldn't a normal gun & grenade launcher be faster?

photophile

More ways to improve this Gun is to:
Through in a 5MP Camera and I can Capture my K1LL scenes and upload them to YouTube.... Awesome.
+Bullets with GPS to find on google later... but seriously

+ An all New specially designed camouflage Digital Print all over
+ The ability to carry multiple kinds of bullets in separate magazine chambers/dividers
+ Satellite Imagery to go with that compass
+ A bellow to add range to those shots.... wait a minute that photography...

Ah here i go again thinking about multitasking products...hmm

OneObuyan

Are these things running Vista ?

elvindeath

@macserv:

Being partially colorblind I passed the color test well enough to get in, yet I get stumped quite easily sometimes. If I had loose ammo of HE airburst and non-lethal (blunt) - given the image above (yes crappy web graphic), it'd be a toss-up.

dnono

The battery only lasts about 2 hours, like your laptop. So get your kills early!

Spotz

AHBI,

Don't forget that Runaway ALSO had Gene Simmons in it. And it had cool mechanical bugs too.

The_Bronze

@entropyman:

I believe one cannot attain a combat MOS due to color blindness, but there may be certain exceptions. If you're interested, talk to an Army/Marine recruiter.

shooter

I like how the high-explosive burst rounds and the non-lethal blunts are color coded in such a way that you couldn't tell them apart in dim light.

Jafro

@jelthi:

I doubt anyone would be carrying both bullets at the same time. Chances are if you're there to blow something up you're not too concerned with knocking someone down.

RVCA

@Blinklink11: @Ginsu: Amen! Besides, hasn't the military switched to the new "Greener" rounds?

FatJack

@evangelistc01: I agree. With the face of the battlefield changing this weapon will become an asset to the troops fighting in alleys and on roof tops.
We develop these weapons for several reasons one of which is to insure that more our brothers and sisters come home, and another is because of it's effectiveness in combat, it means we have to fewer troops to war.
As far as a pacifists hatered for new weapons, so be it, that is what it means to be a pacifist.

FatJack

These are NOT 25 mm bullets, but 25mm grenades. And the color scheme is a standard that has been around for years with no issues.

BambiCragus

This is an airburst grenade launcher, not a carbine, which is generally a rifle with a shorter barrel. The rounds can be programmed to explode in midair at a certain distance from the gun, which is how you can fire it over a wall and hit the people directly behind said wall.

FarfallaEarthworm

I agree that technology is coming along in the weapons department But give me the 62 inch BAR anytime .I carried a 50 cal. snipe rifle for years along with a 20 ga.shotgun and a 357 magnum (personal weapon) and I'm here to talk about it. I don't believe in taking prisoners ,If they are shooting at me I'm gonna kill the sob..

BelindaKolemerit

At $25/round we'll need new theories on the Economics of War. Here's one I'll call the VERSUS theory. Steep learning curve and extensive, expensive time at firing range VS drafting 12 year olds Cost containment -- open platform VS closed platform The more bullets used, the less they'll cost, but economy of scale won't work when a single war could bankrupt the country. Our only hope for cheap bullets is to supply these guns to allies and enemies and let them help drive down the cost by shooting at each other, and at us. VS We got it but can't afford to use it scenario will eventually impose either requisition forms on a per/magazine basis or military think tanks will have to decide who's killworthy.

HeathAlbus