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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