PEO Soldier Unveils More Lethal Weapons

May 22, 2009
Army News Service

Two weapons in development are expected to be more precision-oriented, lighter and lethal: the laser-sighted XM-25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System and the Lightweight .50-Caliber Machine Gun.

The XM-25 will undergo field-testing this summer while the LW50MG is already being tested by Soldiers.

Program Executive Office Soldier at Fort Belvoir, Va., opened its doors earlier this month to give the media a look at the two weapons and other new gear in development that will lighten a Soldier’s load yet improve survivability, lethality and comfort.

These are some fairly impressive systems that could truly improve survivablity!

XM25: First shoulder-fired ‘smart’ weapon

The semi-automatic, shoulder-fired XM-25 with a five-round magazine of 25mm dual-warhead ammunition weighs in at about 14 pounds (about the same as an M-16 with a 203 grenade launcher) yet it’s only a few inches longer than an M-4 Carbine with the shoulder stock extended. Decked out in Army Combat Uniform camouflage, its toy weapon appearance belies its expected lethality.

Richard Audette, deputy program manager for Soldier weapons, said the technology behind the XM-25 is a leap ahead because it’s the first smart weapon system with a smart round in small weapons.

“The way a Soldier operates this is you basically find your target, then laze to it, which gives the range, then you get an adjusted aim point, adjust fire and pull the trigger,” he said. “Say you’ve lazed out to 543 meters… when you pull the trigger it arms the round and fires it 543 meters plus or minus a one-, two- or three-meter increment, then it explodes over the target.” That, he added, makes it a full-solution fire control weapon.

Audette said the evaluations this summer will test accuracy and effectiveness, and because it’s a completely different type of weapon system its use will call for different tactics.

“For example, in Iraq we had many instances where there was a sniper firing from a rooftop and you have a squad trying to engage that target, but the Soldiers couldn’t get to him with the weapons they had, so they’d call in the Air Force to drop a JDAM (joint direct attack munition),” he said. “We can take out the target at $25 per XM round as opposed to a $20,000 to $50,000 JDAM.”

That's a pretty hefty savings in dollars! I hope the people who manufacture the JDAM don't mind! Sounds like a deal for strapped tax payers though!

According to Audette, ranges in Afghanistan are longer than in Iraq. He said the XM-25 has an effective range of 750 meters, which is longer than an M-16 and M-4 and outperforms the 40mm M-203 grenade-launcher range by more than double.

Sounds like a pretty versatile weapon!

Military.com

More weapons like these that could save more soldier's and civilian lives and save money to boot are something I would definately like to see more of!

LW50MG: Less weight, better accuracy

The MK-25 doesn’t offer a Soldier any weight-savings, but the Lightweight .50-Caliber Machine Gun definitely will coming in with tripod at 64 pounds – half what the M-2 .50- caliber heavy machine gun weighs.

With the addition of a modified M-145 machine-gun optic, the LW50MG will be more accurate and quicker to reach its target because it will also have 60-percent less recoil than the M-2, which has been an Army staple in some form or another since 1921.

Col. Doug Tamilio, program manager for Soldier weapons for Soldier lethality and weight reduction, said the Army has more than 34,000 of the M-2s, each weighing in at 128 pounds with 256 moving parts, but the prototype LW50MG has not only half the weight, it also has only 128 moving parts.

“The M-2 is a great weapons system, but before you fire it, you have to set the head space and timing and if you want to change a barrel out, you have to unscrew it, pull it out, then insert and screw in a new barrel; then you have to open the feed tray cover… if you fail to check it or do something improperly, you could have an issue with a round going off because it doesn’t have a safety on it,” he said.

Heavy stopping power lighter weight easier to maintenance, tell me more!

To fix that problem, PEO Soldier developed a quick-change barrel kit which allows Soldiers to simply pull out the barrel without having to screw in a new one. They simply insert a new barrel, lock it in place and start firing – the barrel moves but not the carriage which allows the LW50MG to carry the M-145 machine-gun optic, which is the one used on the 7.62-caliber M-240 medium machine gun.

“It has a lower cyclic rate, but because it has much less recoil and can fit a sight, it allows a Soldier to get a hit on a target much quicker and to hold that target with the sight,” Tamilio said. “It’s still in the development stage, but it has proven out to be very, very durable and accurate firing the same .50-caliber rounds the same distance.”

Another plus to the lightweight machine gun low recoil is that the tripod spade grips won’t have to be slammed into the ground and sandbagged to hold the weapon in place.

That last bit sure is a convenience!

It would be great to see these weapons out in the field sooner rather than later.

Many times I prayed for a weapon system like the XM-25, as you only had choices between indirect fire such as mortars which are area weapons, or direct fire, and then of course, an air strike.

Anytime you can =/- three meters all the way out past 700 meters, then you have one deadly combination.

If you're getting fire behind a building corner, behind a wall, behind a window, behind a bunker, fire from a trench, or even a sandbagged bed of a truck, then we can now own it.

Anyone who's fired the M2 .50 knows that thing kicks pretty good on automatic. The brilliance in the replacement is in the angle of the recoil management.

And the M2 is heavy, heavy, heavy. More suited for vehicle mounting.

Now. If the Army will just sell me one of those surplus M2's . . .

Originally posted by dooper
Many times I prayed for a weapon system like the XM-25, as you only had choices between indirect fire such as mortars which are area weapons, or direct fire, and then of course, an air strike.

Anytime you can =/- three meters all the way out past 700 meters, then you have one deadly combination.

If you're getting fire behind a building corner, behind a wall, behind a window, behind a bunker, fire from a trench, or even a sandbagged bed of a truck, then we can now own it.

Anyone who's fired the M2 .50 knows that thing kicks pretty good on automatic. The brilliance in the replacement is in the angle of the recoil management.

And the M2 is heavy, heavy, heavy. More suited for vehicle mounting.

Now. If the Army will just sell me one of those surplus M2's . . .

I would settle just for the fun of taking them out on the range sometimes. That 25.00 per round sounds like it would be a lot more fun than dropping them on Phantom Fireworks!

Our soldiers sure could mop the real trouble spots and badguys with a widely deployed weapon like that.

How many of each would you put in a squad Dooper? What else do you think each squad or basic smallest unit detachment should have?

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Ideally, you'd want one per squad. Each squad can be broken up into two fire teams, one to cover and one to maneuver.

It may cost $25 per round, but hell, we're burning up hundreds of dollars of ammo just trying to reach some of these people right now.

Keep in mind, it isn't the price per round. You can shoot up a couple thousand rounds and not hit anything.

The cost per round isn't a factor.

It's the cost per KILL.

My only concern is about the downsizing of the nade. 40mm down to a 25mm? Is there some new type of fragmentation on these new nades that make them better than the larger ones? More powerful explosive to send the shrapnel out farther?

Figured they could make 80mm shoulder fired mortar/nade weapon to really wreck fools day.

What is with the downsizing in the round?

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers


The ballistics of the 40mm is kinda like a potato. The ballistic coefficient isn't very efficient. Remember, it isn't the size of the explosion, if it is accurate.

The 40mm automatic weapon is itself a bit heavy, and I can tell you first hand that the ammo is really heavy. Plus, the 40mm can't explode where you want it to in relation to whatever you laser.

A 25mm weapon that is accurate is deadly. So you may need two or three rounds . . . that's much superior than banging at a concrete wall all day with anything else that a platoon or squad can carry with them.

Cost per kill.

Shots per kill.

Total kills per weapon and weapon load.

This is why snipers are so combat effective. Low costs per kill.

It was my understanding that the XM25 project was cancelled years ago, due to weight necessity and cost, etc and found not to be too effective... have they revived it?

And a lighter .50 cal would be better, theoretically, but since theyre only vehicle mounted or emplacement(ie. anti-armour or anti-aircraft) it is kind of a waste... I dont know any soldiers who have used .50 machine guns in field.

Originally posted by dooper
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

Ideally, you'd want one per squad. Each squad can be broken up into two fire teams, one to cover and one to maneuver.

It may cost $25 per round, but hell, we're burning up hundreds of dollars of ammo just trying to reach some of these people right now.

Keep in mind, it isn't the price per round. You can shoot up a couple thousand rounds and not hit anything.

The cost per round isn't a factor.

It's the cost per KILL.

Excellent point, it is the cost per kill you really want to look at. It's not just the dollars but the time. The quicker you can engage and take the target out, the more of a force multiplier it becomes as you can deploy those soliders in to another hot zone quicker.

The more often you can do that the harder it becomes for the enemy to concentrate troops and firepower.

I wonder how long it will take the Senators and Congressmen to get this out in to the field or if they will?

Originally posted by Ridhya
It was my understanding that the XM25 project was cancelled years ago, due to weight necessity and cost, etc and found not to be too effective... have they revived it?

And a lighter .50 cal would be better, theoretically, but since theyre only vehicle mounted or emplacement(ie. anti-armour or anti-aircraft) it is kind of a waste... I dont know any soldiers who have used .50 machine guns in field.

According to the article they have done some serious modifications and are in the process of representing it.

The info on that is 4 days old.

Thought you might find this interesting - New Laser Burns Hot as the Sun with Potential to Blast a Nation off the Map... or Power it Indefinitely! it's a new mega laser device being developped at the Livermore lab.

A new laser currently being tested at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has caught the imagination of many scientists and critics. For one, it is one of the largest lasers ever to be developed. It takes up the space of a standard-sized stadium, housing 192 individual beams, each combining into one ultimate beam that is said to have the equivalent intensity and heat energy as the sun itself.