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New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

Posted June 10, 2009 12:37 PM

From Gizmodo:

Here's something you don't want fired in your direction: a "smart" gun that fires bullets that can travel through walls, exploding once they're inside. It's the accuracy of a rifle with the explosiveness of a grenade launcher. The XM25 rifle is about to begin testing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it sounds pretty nuts. As the 25-millimetre round is fired, the gunsight sends a radio signal to a chip inside the bullet, telling it the precise distance to the target. A spiral groove inside the barrel makes the bullet rotate as it travels, and as it also contains a magnetic transducer, this rotation through the Earth's magnetic field generates an alternating current. A patent granted to the bullet's maker, Alliant Techsystems, reveals that the chip uses fluctuations in this current to count each revolution and, as it knows the distance covered in one spin, it can calculate how far it has traveled. And this, my friends, is why I stay on the good side of the US Military. All this technology comes at a price, however. The US Army will have to pay $25,000 for each weapon, plus $25 for each programmable 25mm round. The rounds, however, will be absolutely free of charge for terrorists or anyone at the other side of the battlefield.

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#1

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/10/2009 12:48 PM

More on this high tech rifle / bullets here: http://gizmodo.com/5055602/first-look-and-full-details-of-the-xm25-the-most-lethal-army-gun-ever

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#2

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/10/2009 3:01 PM

I guess it would really suck to get one of those bullets lodged inside of you, but then again it wouldn't be in there for long.

For some reason I keep picturing this being used to hunt large game.

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#3

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/10/2009 3:24 PM

That strikes me as an iffy way for the bullet to determine how far it has travelled. The current variations must be tiny, and they will vary in strength depending on which direction the bullet is fired relative to the Earth's magnetic field. In fact, if fired at precisely the right (wrong) direction, there might be no induced current at all.

And what if the bullet, for whatever reason, doesn't rotate as many times as expected? Perhaps it hits an an intervening obstacle like a truck that drives in front of the target. Does the bullet just sit there, waiting for the proper number of rotations? Or does the bullet explode eventually? If so, when?

And what if the bullet doesn't travel at the speed it is supposed to? Apparently it doesn't measure its actual speed, it is just operating from an assumption. If the bullet is slowed down somehow but is still spinning, it will explode before it hits the target.

And what if there is some kind of anomaly in the local magnetic field? Say it travels over a magnetic mine. The bullets must have some kind of signal processing, to count only pulses in the induced current of the correct strength and timing, and not single spikes. Actually, since it knows (or really, assumes) its own rotation rate, it would look only for pulses that occur with particular frequency. Actually, maybe that takes care of the delayed explosion issue above. You can't just spin a fired bullet and make it go off. It has to spin at the right rate.

And why doesn't the bullet just use a timer? Supposedly it knows how fast it travels. Why can't it explode x number of milliseconds after it is fired? Clocks are tiny and reliable. But they need batteries that can self-drain in storage, eventually. But why couldn't the clock be operated by a capacitor that is charged by the gun right before firing? The clock only needs to operate for a tenth of a second.

Also, the bullet is about 1 inch in diameter (to us Yanks). How much of an explosive blast could it muster? Besides the warhead, it has to have space for inductive coils and chips. If it throws fragments, it needs a thick casing or something to create those fragments, so even less room inside.

Not criticizing, just asking questions.

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#4
In reply to #3

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/10/2009 5:45 PM

And good questions they are, in fact it's really to bad you beat me to them .

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#5
In reply to #4

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/10/2009 5:52 PM

Thank you, sir!

Actually, I had another thought. Would the gun operate at the magnetic poles? There are some very valuable properties way up north.

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#6
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Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/10/2009 8:20 PM

Actually, now that I think about it more, the bullet can't just count revolutions to determine when to explode. The bullet has to know to explode 105 ft away and not 110 ft. I haven't done the math, but my feeling is the bullet doesn't spin fast enough. Revolutions are too coarse a unit, like measuring people's height in feet or meters.

So the bullet must use fractions of a revolution. The "alarm" isn't set for 5 revolutions, it is set for something like 5.23 revolutions. That means it must have a really, really good picture of the induced current as it swings up and down (in a sine wave, yes?) It isn't just counting peaks in the wave, it is measuring the amplitude almost continuously. That's kind of impressive, given that the current must be really tiny. Does it sample the current digitally?

Also, the bullet begins spinning inside the barrel, the instant it is fired. What if I move a magnet past the barrel as I fire the gun? A moving magnet would create a current in the bullet before it has been fired, meaning the current wouldn't be at zero when the clock started "ticking". Would that throw off the bullet's timing?

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#7

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/10/2009 11:15 PM

If the "through the walls" is the big deal, then what if it goes thru a window or a masonary mud or stone wall ?

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#8

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/11/2009 3:34 AM

Why don't they just use a time delay fuse, set for a couple of milliseconds & triggered by the impact with the wall? Another timer, set for a couple of seconds and triggered by firing the bullet, could help reduce the amount of unexploded ordnance lying around.

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#9

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/11/2009 4:24 AM

Shhhhhhhhhhh! Don't tell Del.

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#10
In reply to #9

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/11/2009 4:48 AM

Del dont need dat junk, he can jus shootem wiff dat beautiful crossbow! Hey Del>>>

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#11

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/11/2009 6:49 AM

zzzzzz.Eh? wot?
Oh, yup, you guys have said it all.
Well nearly...I bet the guys in the field will soon find that it's more unreliable hi-tech junk which is overcomplicated to the point of uselessness.

My fave quote from the Falklands conflict.
'When the shit hits the fan you can't get a f***ing message across the bay' they ended up using runners to communicate!
zzzzzzzzz..

Del

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#12
In reply to #11

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/11/2009 10:24 PM

Del,

Perhaps you can modify your crossbow to fire wall piercing bolts that explode once thru the wall. If anyone can do it, you can.

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#13
In reply to #12

Re: New Rifle Can Fire Bullets Through Walls, Explode Them Once Inside

06/12/2009 3:13 AM

Nah..MrsCat draws the line at me having explosives, she says I will only go and singe my fur .
Del

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