Assault Rifles and XM29 - The Future Weapons

Many interesting and remarkable weapons were developed during World War Two. Most of these weapons come under machine gun and pistol categories. Several countries came up with their own models of weapons.

There was a change in era prior to World War one when countries started adapting rifled muskets. This has lead to increase in the range and power of guns and thus made battle a mere bloody affair. All this is clearly evident from the enormous rise in level of casualties in American Civil War.

The word "assault rifle" is derived from a German word "Sturmgewehr" which means storm rifle. Firearm was considered to be the first assault rifle that gain huge popularity. A typical assault rifle must meet at least one of the following characteristics mentioned. It should be an individual weapon that can be used to fire from the shoulder, capable of doing selective firing, should include an intermediate power cartridge or you should be able to supply ammunition from a detachable source. In order to be an assault rifle, the weapon should meet all these criteria and technicality involved.

Assault Rifles and XM29 - The Future Weapons

However, the word assault rifle is most often used in a very loose sense referring to several other types of arms and more particularly battle rifle or AR-15s a semi automatic variant of military rifle. According to US army an assault rifle is a short, compact, selective fire weapon that releases a cartridge which is moderate in power. Ever since the use of assault rifles, army always had an objective of developing individual combat weapon. Thus XM8 was introduced to replace the present assault weapons in US military, the M16 and M4.

XM29 which was a combination of 5.6mm assault rifle and a 20mm "smart grenade" launcher. These grenade launchers was capable of firing explosive rounds up to half a mile and thus track enemy troops under cover or around corners. Apart from this the most commonly used version of XM29 is a semi automatic 20mm smart grenade launcher with firing ability of 5.56*45mm NATO round and a top mounted computer assisted sighting system with integrated laser range finder, thermal vision, night vision capabilities and a 6x optical telescopic sight.

The launcher part of this weapon includes a light semi automatic 20mm cannon, a grenade launcher or an airburst weapon. The problem with this weapon is that it does not fit into any one particular category and secondly it uses very small shells and most importantly the trajectory of the grenade launcher is very flat. All these problems have eventually resulted in ending up the entire program.

Post cancellation in 2004, it was split in to three related programs. The first program dealt with development of a series of light kinetic energy weapons. While program two aimed at development of airburst grenade launcher as a standalone component and program three would try and reintegrate the first two programs.

Irrespective of the outcome, one thing is for sure. XM29 has created a unique identity for itself in the world of artillery and is sure to give a tough competition to many weapons.

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