XM-25

Developer: Alliance Techsystems (USA)
Caliber: 25mm
Features: A computer-aided targeting system that allows the user to quickly aim at a target and to adjust the range of the air-bursting round.
Progress: The XM-25 is still in development, but in this industry—and particularly for a system that survived the OICW debacle—that amounts to very good news.

As the Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW) program withered on the vine, the system's most revolutionary element—microchip-embedded explosive rounds that could be detonated at precise ranges, raining fragmentation down on enemies hiding in foxholes or behind barricades—has managed to put down roots. Once envisioned as an under-the-barrel weapon attached to an assault rifle, the self-contained XM-25 is an entirely new take on the grenade launcher. Using the onboard ballistic computer and laser rangefinder, the firer can quick set the exact range at which the 25mm round will explode.

This is precision-guided munitions for infantry, with the goal of negating nearly any kind of cover a target could find, particularly in urban environments. Rounds could be set to go off, in midair, just past the corner of building, just inside a sniper's window, or directly above a group of hostiles hunched behind a concrete barrier. Alliance Techsystems, which is developing the XM-25, credits overhead airbursts with the potential for five times greater lethality, compared with the current M203 grenade launcher, because shrapnel will be more likely to drop onto the target's head. It's a ghoulish point of pride, but, as with other precision munitions, a more precise grenadier could also mean fewer civilian casualties.