25mm is the same size as the Bradley's main gun. Those rounds are heavy.

This is developed by Heckler & Koch; German company (albeit their US arm). So it is unlikely that the technology developed for this will remain solely with the US military.

OMG, that is awesome.
It's that Tom Selleck / pre-dirigible Kirstie Alley movie come to life.

So what happens when the enemy breaks the encryption and starts sending radio signals to explode the bullets when they're still in the guns? Even if the gun is shielded, they could just pound the area with the explode signal until a round is fired to blow it up in the face of the shooter. Makes a standard-issue infantry weapon way more complicated and failure prone.

Quaoar you are an idot.

"happens when the enemy breaks the encryption and starts sending radio signals" <-yeah right

Hey moderator, why is this guy being allowed to use that handle? It's insulting and offensive.

it was being developed by federal arms years ago and is actually quite light. it cant be jammed because once its fired there is no signal to jam it merely knows the distance it is supposed to travel measuring this by how many rotations it makes and explodes at the predetermined set point.

No quaoar is not an "idot" It's a perfectly legitimate engineering concern; and it was certainly considered by the design team. The solution is probably two-fold: program the bullets by some form of electrical induction that requires the bullet to be in physical contact with the programming device, thus no need for encryption. Then add a spinning fuse lock. This is already used in rifle grenades to prevent them from detonating too close to the weapon. It counts the number of times the bullet spins before unlocking the fuse. This is necessary for any automatic weapon that uses explosive bullets. Otherwise you could get muzzlecrash, which occurs when a bullet detonates prematurely and sets off the stream of bullets behind it all the way back to the one emerging from the muzzle.

This is nothing but half of the old OICW rifle. See OICW on Wikipedia for more info.

I find the little graphic a bit misleading. Unless these bullets are moving very slowly, I don't see how they could explode with shrapnel straight down. Also I find it hard to believe they could specifically direct the shrapnel down. Taking this idea to it's physics approved logical end, I can see the effect being a bullet, traveling in a straight line, until detonation, at which point an even cone of shrapnel eminates from detonation point along the original trajectory of the bullet. The width, and thus effectiveness of the cone would would be a function of the speed of the bullet before detonation. I guess I would need more specifics to believe this works as advertised in the graphic.

@ tracerbulletnpi

Muzzle velocity: < 1000m/s
High-Explosive Velocity: 3000m/s to 9000m/s

'nuff said

circuit boards inside the bullet count rotations which are constant, since the detonation is electronic theres no need for a fuse lock. hopefully whoever programmed the software would have placed restrictions against explosions that are too close.

Any device with electronics can easily be disabled with EMP. This makes a expensive piece of HW a simple gun. All electronics have a typical 10% failure rate. All exploding ammo has been banned by the UN. The only army that still uses cluster type bombs is Israel, so this is not made for US consumption.

@Dlstephenson...EMP can be sheilded against, electronic circuits hardened to resist damage from it and most countries/militaries do not have EMP devices outside of nuclear devices for battlefield use, so the likelyhood of EMP being used on these is unlikely. The UN also banned DU rounds, had 17 resolutions against Saddam and 6 against NKorea, I don't think the UN counts for much these days. As well, this is considered a grenade launcher, not an exploding bullet. Cluster bombs are in use by many nations other than Israel and the US did not ratify any anti-cluster bomb conventions. Seeing how this will be undergoing field tests in Afghanistan soon it I think your assertions are inaccurate.

nfo u r an idot by the way it is spelled idiot

The US does military does not follow restrictions imposed
by outside bodies such as the UN, that includes cluster bombs. This new exploding bullet will work just fine without worries about EMP's & enemy radio interference..

Just speaking from experience, when I was in Falujah, we weren't too worried bout haji having EMP. In a professional oppinion we need to stop worrying about how better to kill people and start developing IED/ VBIED detection devices. My M240B works just fine, through walls, vehicles, etc... but when you watch a squad wiped out by a bomb dug into the asphault, you think that maybe they need to focus on how to keep us safer...

loose lips sink ships, idiots!!

This is a pathetic article. Killage? That is not a word, lethality is the word. As for this weapon, how long will it be before a us soldier drops one in battle to give to Al Queda, great terrorist weapon. Perhaps the US should spend more money investing in how to not get into wars in the first place, and why it need them to fell good about itself.

Great. I can't wait until the SWAT cops get this and begin using it on the us civilians. All in the name of our safety.

Found this :
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/12/25/sanchez.army.future.weapon.cnn