Posted on 12/15/2014 11:41:47 AM PST by Citizen Zed
New .50-caliber bullets that can change direction after they have been fired could soon make U.S. military snipers more deadly.
The EXACTO program or Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance is being developed by California's Teledyne Scientific & Imaging, LLC at the behest of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, according to a DARPA video posted on Youtube.
"The objective of the EXACTO program is to revolutionize rifle accuracy and range by developing the first ever guided small-caliber bullet," DARPA officials said in a July statement accompanying the video. "The EXACTO .50-caliber round and optical sighting technology expects to greatly extend the day and nighttime range over current state-of-the-art sniper systems."
The specially designed ammunition can change direction in midair.
How that is done remains a tightly held secret. The Defense Department and its related agencies declined to comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
Arlen Spectre would know about that.
It isnt by a small arms caliber standard. OTOH is tiny compared to all other guided projectiles, fired from artillery. Its hard to imagine how a guidance system could be shoe horned into the thing still using barrels w/ a standard twist rate. Perhaps its so secret not even the designers know it. ;)
Picture a swarm of quadrotor drones, each with a 1 inch barrel and a .22 short cartridge, descending en-masse to kill a soldier or civilian.
LOL - I was going to suggest they contact Warner Brothers for assistance...
When they gonna invent a voter that votes Right after saying they voted Leftie to the pollster? Oygenics..
And after it is designed, it will only cost $500,000 per cartridge.
It's like the overdesigned/underperforming Shillelagh wire-guided missiles fired from the aluminum-"armored" M551 Sheridan light tank with its 155-mm main gun (the 18-ton tank jumped backwards every time the main gun fired a round of ammunition with its problemmatic semi-combustible cartridge). Designed to allow the gunner to changed the course of the fired missile to stay on a moving target, the Shillelagh missiles, no longer produced, ended up only being fired in combat at immovable bunkers in Desert Storm.
It’s called a “missile”.
I heard they were going to call it 'The JFK'.
I know very little about weaponry, but yes, the example you gave clearly sounds like Style over Substance or Functionality. And this is the result after years of R&D.
It’s like producing a movie so expensive it could never turn a profit. The same thing happens when the government or the EPA makes certain corporations use ethanol or ‘green based’ fuels that cost many times what easily available fuels would cost.
I hope to take a pistol training course next year as one of my New Years Resolutions.
Interesting perspective! The Age Of The Gun Is Over! We have drones now.
I use to say that everytime I missed a deer (or duck, or tweetie bird).
Alas the poor Sheridan. I always had a soft spot for it. I didn’t know those missiles were ever used except for some training.
There was a demo film of Sheridan on YouTube that was good.
True. I had envisioned a sabot type round: outer case to handle the rifled barrel then little winglets popping out when the casing falls away. A 50 would be about the smallest calibre that I cn see being suitable. I’d think for the sake of cost, and flexibility, you’d want to still have a rifled barrel to handle regular ball ammo.
I’m stuck on guidance though. Electronics to be sure, but IR/LASER, RF slaved to the scope?
Oh a thought. What about a hollow point type design only with tunnels running to four ports at the back and a little mechanism of some sort to open and close the ports to affect the desired trajectory.
Seems more like a small guided missile.
It’s been done before.
Angelina Jolie perfected it in the movie Wanted.
Before that we used to call them ricochets!
Two days ago I shot a button buck on the last day of PA deer season with a Mossberg 464 Zombie Edition 30-30 at 165 yards. The only guidance system I had was a 3-9 power scope and a steady aim.
Deer sausage and deer sticks in 2 to 3 weeks yummy........
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