25mm airbursting round

Anyone familiar with the 25mm airbursting round?I believe its currently being tested for use w/ the militarys new "crewserve weapon.The round is designed so that it can be "set" or "programed"
to explode at the desired distance i.e. if the enemy is taking cover behind somthing or in a foxhole,ect. 125 yards away the round can be "set" to explode once it has traveled 125 yards,if aimed a few feet above the target the round will explode directly above the target so that shell fragments shower down on the target even behind cover or in a foxhole.Rather than manualy "setting" the shells themselves the crewserve weapon has a range setting and a numerical readout that shows the set distance (125 for example),I dont know if theres a computer chip in the round itself or what but it sounds badass to me.Anyone familiar with this round/weapons system? If so please give me the straight poop on it.Peace.

25mm? I know of the 20mm round, designed for the OICW program. Definately not crew served though.

The 20mm formed a nasty habit of detonating inside the barrel.

Overall, it fared no better than the current 40mm grenade, which can burn through most light to medium barrier materials.

The 25mm HEAB (High Explosive Air Burst) is a newer version of the original 20mm airburst grenade originally designed for the OICW/XM29 program. There will be two versions of it whose main difference is cartridge length (and thus velocity and recoil), but both work via the same system of having two explosive charges with a small computer between them. The distance is surprisingly accurately measured by the twist the grenade achieves through the rifled barrel.

The shorter 25mm HEAB is meant ot be shot from the XM25 semi-automatic grenade launcher. This one was developed after it became clear that with current knowledge the weight of the XM29 could not drop to the desired 6.8 kg, and subsequently the OICW program was split to develop the KE (kinetic enrgy - or simply the rifle) part and the GL seperately. The link also says that:

The 25mm HEAB (High Explosive Air Burst) programmable ammunition will have at least three times longer effective range against point target, when compared with current 40mm systems such as M203 single-shot or Milkor Mk.1 multi-shot grenade launchers.

The longer 25mm HEAB (called the XM1019) is meant to be shot from the new OCSW, which indeed is a crew-served weapon and intended to replace current GMGs and heavy machine guns.

Both programs seem to be near completion and introduction, so I would strongly believe that the 25mm grenades in all their forms can live up to their expected standards.

[edit on 2/10/2005 by Lonestar24]

Originally posted by Lonestar24
The 25mm HEAB (High Explosive Air Burst) is a newer version of the original 20mm airburst grenade originally designed for the OICW/XM29 program. There will be two versions of it whose main difference is cartridge length (and thus velocity and recoil), but both work via the same system of having two explosive charges with a small computer between them. The distance is surprisingly accurately measured by the twist the grenade achieves through the rifled barrel.

The shorter 25mm HEAB is meant ot be shot from the XM25 semi-automatic grenade launcher. This one was developed after it became clear that with current knowledge the weight of the XM29 could not drop to the desired 6.8 kg, and subsequently the OICW program was split to develop the KE (kinetic enrgy - or simply the rifle) part and the GL seperately. The link also says that:

The 25mm HEAB (High Explosive Air Burst) programmable ammunition will have at least three times longer effective range against point target, when compared with current 40mm systems such as M203 single-shot or Milkor Mk.1 multi-shot grenade launchers.

The longer 25mm HEAB (called the XM1019) is meant to be shot from the new OCSW, which indeed is a crew-served weapon and intended to replace current GMGs and heavy machine guns.

[edit on 2/10/2005 by Lonestar24]

So the 25mm airbursting round is basicly a smaller version of a 40mm grenade like shot out of a grenade launcher not a 25mm version of a 50 cal. rifle/machine gun bullet w/ an exploding bullet? Dont you generaly "lob" grenadees i.e. if you wanted to take out an enemy 100 yds away w/ a 40mm grenade launcher you would shoot slightly upward as if throwing a baseball 100 yds it would arc upward and fall on the target,right? they were talking about it as a replacement for a heavy machine gun and they were showing them firing it,aiming directly 10 ft above the terget and the rounds would explode 10 ft over the target (they aim it and the rounds travel in a straight line to the target like a regular bullet)
How big is the 25mm round itself minus the shell? How the hell do they fit a computer chip plus some physical/mechanical means of counting the revolutions of the spinning round plus a tiny detonator plus enough explosive to not only explode but send out lethel metal fragments like a grenade plus enough actual metal in the round itself to make it lethal as a fragmentation grenade into somthing about the size of a roll of quarters?

I searched for a while, but I couldnt find technical specifications on the 25mm grenades for XM307 or XM25, so I have to theorize/guess here.

Originally the 20mm grenade for the XM29 didnt seem to be lethal enough. But a higher caliber would mean even more increased weight of the weapon system. At the same time it allegedly was decided optimize the OCSW for 25mm grenades, which to have a decent fragmentation hull judging from this pic. These munitions are said to be effective up to 2000m, so lets reasonably assume an effective point range of 1000m (there is also a 25mm AP round in plan which was tested to penetrate 5cm of steel at about 950m). Well, more interesting is the shorter 25mm grenade for the XM25.

As I said, I could not find the actual weight of the explosive charge, but logic says that a smaller grenade which is more accurate is to be preferred over the 40mm grenades that do not reliably hit where aimed at. And it is said that the XM25 grenade has a wound/kill radius of 6m, so lets assume a 10m diameter effective zone. Pretty good I´d say for such a system.

The increased accuracy should be a result of various differences: I guess the projectile is lighter, so in turn it has a higher velocity while retaining comparable recoil. And the M203 and subsequently its ammuntion was developed in the late 60s. There has been much improvement in propellant chemicals since then, but as the sights are fixed to the ballistics of those late-60s grenades I dont think that the current 40mm grenades could be upgraded.

Another thing to consider would be the increased barrel length and aerodynamic ordnance shape. So all in all, with incresed effective range (allegedly beyond 500m), a more stable ballistic curve with higher velocity and accuracy, the capability for a quick follow-up shot due to the semi-automatic function and magazine, the considerably higher total ammuntion carried I´d guess that the overall lethality is much higher than that of the 40mm grenade regardless of its possibly higher payload.

PS: Something I completely neglected: The XM25 and the M203 (or rather the SM320, former XM320 new underbarrel launcher) weapons do not compete against each other! Both weapons are planned to work together in a squad.

And another note of particular interest I find is the four different firing modes the HEAB grenade can perform: Well the conventional airburst is popular. Aim the rifle, activate the laser range finder, squeeze the trigger.
The other modes are "PD" (point detonation, where the round explodes on
contact), PDD (point detonation delay, where the round detonates
immediately after it has gone through a door, window or thin wall) and
"Window", which is used for firing at enemy troops in a trench, behind a
stone wall or inside a room. The round detonates just beyond the aiming
point. For buildings, this would be a window or door frame or the corner of a building (to get enemy troops thought to be around the
corner.)



[edit on 6/10/2005 by Lonestar24]

ya i first heard about these bad boys with the OICW objective individual combat wepon you get to use them in SoF2 Solider of Fortue 2

SgtRock,
Intelgurl posted an article that says that the XM-25 is already in trials, that is apparently the same post that Lonestar got some of his information at.

Try looking at Intelgurl's post on this:
U.S. Army Testing New Weapons

Not that I feel insulted, but I am very well capable of finding my own sources