XM-25: You’d Better be Hiding Around Two Corners These Days
October 8th, 2008Via: Register:
What you put in your big fat .98-calibre** slugs is a small HE-frag warhead – but that’s not the clever bit. The clever bit is the electronic precision time fuse, which is set wirelessly by the gun’s systems at the moment of firing. This means that the slug will explode at exactly the distance from the muzzle you want.
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You can combine this with a laser rangefinder, digital three-axis inclination sensors and computer gunsights to achieve some almost Judge Dredd-style results. For instance your enemy is hiding unsportingly in a trench or behind a wall. You can ping his hide with the rangefinder, select an extra metre or two of distance on the fuze, and shoot slightly high. The grenade-slug will explode just above the target’s head, spraying him with shrapnel despite his frontal hard cover. You could use the same trick to make your rounds explode right next to an enemy hiding around a corner.
Likewise, you can dial up slightly increased distance shooting at windows, thin walls, shrubbery or whatever. The projectiles will punch through to explode where you want them to, where impact-fused rounds would tend to go off too soon or too late.
