There's nothing more thriving than the weapon-making industry. Whether in times of peace, of war, of economic crisis or alien attack, there is an industry that will always thrive: the weapon-making one. New weapons to better kill our fellow humans keep on being invented at a very fast rate.

Take the fresh XM25 rifle, for example, a US army alternative to air strikes when the air strikes are not available. Good ol' US Army, huh? Leave it to them to research new weapons with which to get rid of the world's insurgents, whether the world wants it or not. Anyway, the XM 25 uses a laser rangefinder that calculates the distance between the soldier and his/her target, allowing him/her to subtract up to 3 meters in order to allow the bullets to explode above or next to the insurgent.

It seems there is a chip inside the bullet that can tell how long it is until the bullet reaches its target, thanks to a spiral groove that's inside the actual bullet and that makes it rotate. The rotation, together with a magnetic transducer, generates alternating current because of the Earth's natural magnetic field. The chip then uses the fluctuations of the current to determine the exact range to its target. This is bad news for snipers, since soldiers will be able to make the bullet explode... well... above their heads should they be entrenched, for example.

The rifle uses a 25mm round. Just so you know, calling a 25mm round a “bullet” is not very accurate since it is the same size as HE (high explosives) rounds. HE rounds are used in combination with grenade launchers. So, the XM25 uses an HE round with a different shape and function, but not an actual bullet. The weapons is going to be tested soon and it has all the pros (cheaper than Javelin missiles, very accurate and powerful) needed to be made a military standard issue pretty soon.

By the way, I saw this weapon a while back (one year ago, I'd say) on a Discovery program, Weapons of the Future, I think. Guess “the future is now.”


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