The U.S Army has officially terminated
the punisher. The XM25 counter-defiled
target engagement system or punisher was
designed to engage enemy troops behind
cover. While successful the high-tech infantry
weapon was the victim of a lengthy
development period, ballooning costs, a
perceived lack of utility in a 2013
incident that wounded a soldier carrying it.
Since the dawn of the firearm age one of
the biggest obstacles to hitting people
with a bullet was the cover they could
hide behind. A soldier can hide inside a doorway or
windowsill or even a bunker, exposing
himself just long enough to shoot back, Getting at that soldier requires good
marksmanship and timing out maneuvering
him or simply blowing up the building.
The XM25 was designed to make cover
obsolete the punisher is a
semi-automatic 25 millimeter grenade
launcher that fires programmable
grenades. The user can program grenades to fly
inside the doorway and explode just
inside. peppering anyone there with
lethal shrapnel. It could also do the same with windows
and bunkers and can be programmed to
explode above trenches and box holes.
The XM25 saw limited active service but
among the troops it had a tepid
reception. The weapon was heavy with a basic load
of the weapon and 36 grenades weighing a
whopping 35 pounds, it was only useful under certain
circumstances and was not useful at all
in close combat. In 2013 a ranger unit in afghanistan
refused to take along the weapon and preferring to take an M4 instead.
The weapon was pulled in 2013 after an
incident in which a soldier was injured
when the weapon tried to load two
grenades at once. The weapon was redesigned and after
three years the forty one thousand
dollars weapon reemerged with a ninety
three thousand dollars price tag, that's ninety thousand dollars more than
a fully tricked out M4A1 carbine.
The U.S Army has terminated the contract
with orbital atk the manufacturer but
fortunately retained the intellectual
property rights and twenty of the
punisher guns. It's not clear what the future of the
tech is but at least the army can hold
onto it and use it for another project
whatever that ends up being. The capability to engage enemy troops
behind cover is useful but anything that
does that and nothing else is
impractical from an infantryman's
perspective in an expensive niche weapon
unaffordable even by the us army.
