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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
March 23, 2003 Sunday REGION EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL, Pg.A-8
LENGTH: 795 words
HEADLINE: LATEST TECHNOLOGY AIMS TO HELP SOLDIERS SHOOT STRAIGHTER
BYLINE: ANTONIO REGALADO, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BODY:
Tests conducted in 1990 at Fort Benning, Ga., found the U.S. Army had a problem. Its soldiers' aim was off.
Way off. On a normal shooting range, basic trainees can hit targets about 220 yards away 80 percent of the time. But under confusing conditions mimicking the "fog of war," Army researchers found the accuracy of infantrymen hefting M16s plummeted to just 20 percent.
Efforts to overcome such errors have led to a major advance in infantry weaponry -- an electronics-packed gun called the XM29 that fires both rifle bullets and grenade-like rounds programmed to explode at a precise distance. Six prototypes of the XM29 have been built, and the Army plans to field the gun in six years.
The XM29 is on the leading edge of research in so-called smart-weaponry poised to change ground warfare in fundamental ways. The Army has been exploring the possibility of guided bullets that can hunt down soldiers on the run. And military laboratories are already testing precision guidance for mortars and tank shells, resembling the smart-weaponry featured in air campaigns since the 1991 Gulf War.
Basic combat rifles, the M4 carbine and the M16, haven't changed much in recent years, and improving them remains a puzzle. "The problem is not the accuracy of the weapon, but the situation where the soldier has to engage quickly. He doesn't necessarily have time to line it up and shoot," says Vernon Shisler, the civilian who heads development of next-generation rifles at the Joint Service Small Arms Program, based at the Picatinny Arsenal, near Rockaway, N.J.
According to data from Vietnam and other conflicts, about 90 percent of rifle engagements occur within about 330 yards, often against enemies zig-zagging or hiding under cover. Shisler says the Fort Benning simulations, in which soldiers ran in place to raise their heart rates and then fired on pop-up and moving targets, helped persuade gun designers they needed a radically new approach to killing or wounding antagonists.
The Army concluded that rifles needed more electronics for targeting, and they needed exploding rounds that could compensate for large aiming errors.
The first smart-weapon to combine those concepts is the XM29. The Army is investing more than $130 million into the blocky, black gun, which fires both regular rifle bullets and air-bursting 20mm rounds that scatter metal fragments at a predetermined distance.
The gun, whose marketing tagline is "No Place To Hide," packs some $28,000 in electronic gear, including a laser range finder that measures the distance to an enemy in the cross hairs. A ballistic computer on the gun then programs an electronic fuse inside the round, which counts the number of rotations it makes as it hurtles through the air, exploding at a precise distance.
Alliant Techsystems, the Edina, Minn., aerospace and defense contractor that designed the gun, says it will let troops get at enemies hiding under cover, or behind walls in urban combat situations. The Army keeps details of the gun's lethal effects classified. But a 20mm shell detonated in a typical corner office would probably kill or wound everyone in the room.
The reliance on electronics can pose hazards. In 1999, a mistimed shell exploded inside a gun during testing, wounding two technicians, one badly enough to require surgery. Lt. Col. Matthew Clarke, who now leads the Army's XM29 program, says the accident prompted redesigns that slowed development by a year and a half. "Unlike a car manufacturer, we can't do a recall. A minor defect means a soldier gets killed. And that is unacceptable to us," he says.
Nevertheless, the new gun is a major upgrade over the M203, the single-shot grenade launcher that soldiers attached to their rifles in Somalia and Afghanistan. Lobbing grenades with the M203 still takes practice, and some guesswork.
As work started on the XM29, managers at the Picatinny Arsenal also began thinking about guided projectiles capable of tracking human targets on the fly.
Last May, for instance, the Army began funding military supplier Schafer Corp., Chelmsford, Mass., to develop a small missle with 200 tiny thrusters around the edge of the projectile to control its course. The Army funded other teams to figure out how to hunt down people by zeroing on their body heat.
Picatinny program manager Kori Spiegel who led the project concedes the idea of an individual "smart-missle" wasn't considered practical by some. "It got the bad name of a Buck Rogers wrist rocket," Spiegel says, and the project was canned by Army bosses in July.
Nevertheless, Spiegel is confident that bullets packed with electronic brains will ultimately find their mark. "It's just a huge leap forward for lethality," she says.
March 23, 2003 Sunday REGION EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL, Pg.A-8
LENGTH: 795 words
HEADLINE: LATEST TECHNOLOGY AIMS TO HELP SOLDIERS SHOOT STRAIGHTER
BYLINE: ANTONIO REGALADO, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BODY:
Tests conducted in 1990 at Fort Benning, Ga., found the U.S. Army had a problem. Its soldiers' aim was off.
Way off. On a normal shooting range, basic trainees can hit targets about 220 yards away 80 percent of the time. But under confusing conditions mimicking the "fog of war," Army researchers found the accuracy of infantrymen hefting M16s plummeted to just 20 percent.
Efforts to overcome such errors have led to a major advance in infantry weaponry -- an electronics-packed gun called the XM29 that fires both rifle bullets and grenade-like rounds programmed to explode at a precise distance. Six prototypes of the XM29 have been built, and the Army plans to field the gun in six years.
The XM29 is on the leading edge of research in so-called smart-weaponry poised to change ground warfare in fundamental ways. The Army has been exploring the possibility of guided bullets that can hunt down soldiers on the run. And military laboratories are already testing precision guidance for mortars and tank shells, resembling the smart-weaponry featured in air campaigns since the 1991 Gulf War.
Basic combat rifles, the M4 carbine and the M16, haven't changed much in recent years, and improving them remains a puzzle. "The problem is not the accuracy of the weapon, but the situation where the soldier has to engage quickly. He doesn't necessarily have time to line it up and shoot," says Vernon Shisler, the civilian who heads development of next-generation rifles at the Joint Service Small Arms Program, based at the Picatinny Arsenal, near Rockaway, N.J.
According to data from Vietnam and other conflicts, about 90 percent of rifle engagements occur within about 330 yards, often against enemies zig-zagging or hiding under cover. Shisler says the Fort Benning simulations, in which soldiers ran in place to raise their heart rates and then fired on pop-up and moving targets, helped persuade gun designers they needed a radically new approach to killing or wounding antagonists.
The Army concluded that rifles needed more electronics for targeting, and they needed exploding rounds that could compensate for large aiming errors.
The first smart-weapon to combine those concepts is the XM29. The Army is investing more than $130 million into the blocky, black gun, which fires both regular rifle bullets and air-bursting 20mm rounds that scatter metal fragments at a predetermined distance.
The gun, whose marketing tagline is "No Place To Hide," packs some $28,000 in electronic gear, including a laser range finder that measures the distance to an enemy in the cross hairs. A ballistic computer on the gun then programs an electronic fuse inside the round, which counts the number of rotations it makes as it hurtles through the air, exploding at a precise distance.
Alliant Techsystems, the Edina, Minn., aerospace and defense contractor that designed the gun, says it will let troops get at enemies hiding under cover, or behind walls in urban combat situations. The Army keeps details of the gun's lethal effects classified. But a 20mm shell detonated in a typical corner office would probably kill or wound everyone in the room.
The reliance on electronics can pose hazards. In 1999, a mistimed shell exploded inside a gun during testing, wounding two technicians, one badly enough to require surgery. Lt. Col. Matthew Clarke, who now leads the Army's XM29 program, says the accident prompted redesigns that slowed development by a year and a half. "Unlike a car manufacturer, we can't do a recall. A minor defect means a soldier gets killed. And that is unacceptable to us," he says.
Nevertheless, the new gun is a major upgrade over the M203, the single-shot grenade launcher that soldiers attached to their rifles in Somalia and Afghanistan. Lobbing grenades with the M203 still takes practice, and some guesswork.
As work started on the XM29, managers at the Picatinny Arsenal also began thinking about guided projectiles capable of tracking human targets on the fly.
Last May, for instance, the Army began funding military supplier Schafer Corp., Chelmsford, Mass., to develop a small missle with 200 tiny thrusters around the edge of the projectile to control its course. The Army funded other teams to figure out how to hunt down people by zeroing on their body heat.
Picatinny program manager Kori Spiegel who led the project concedes the idea of an individual "smart-missle" wasn't considered practical by some. "It got the bad name of a Buck Rogers wrist rocket," Spiegel says, and the project was canned by Army bosses in July.
Nevertheless, Spiegel is confident that bullets packed with electronic brains will ultimately find their mark. "It's just a huge leap forward for lethality," she says.
