“The Army’s XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement system has been removed from service after a training accident injured a soldier in Afghanistan early last month,” militarytimes.com reports. “A soldier was injured during a Feb. 2 live-fire training event during which the primer of a 25mm high-explosive air burst round ignited as a result of a double feed, according to Army spokesman Matthew Bourke. Although the primer and propellant were initiated, safety mechanisms prevented the round’s warhead from detonating. The gun was inoperable after the explosion.” Ya think? It’s not the first time the XM25 has fed two rounds into the same chamber . . .
This is the second XM25 malfunction resulting in primer and propellant initiation prior to the round being fully chambered and locked. The first involved an earlier prototype and resulted in no injuries. This latest XM25 design prototype features design revisions that addressed the cause of the prior malfunction.
Or not. Anyway, the soldier’s OK and it’s all part of the learning curve for what’s becoming extremely popular weapon (in video games as well as RL). In other words, it’s down but not out. Not by a long chalk . . .
“Based on preliminary findings, the most recent malfunction occurred differently than the previous one,” said Bourke, “It’s also important to note that there were nearly 5,900 rounds fired between incidents.” . . .
Prior to the accident, the XM25 was very popular among soldiers who dubbed it “the Punisher.” The head of PEO Soldier at the time, Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, called it “a revolutionary weapon … a game changer.”
A game changer deployed in a war where the game never ends. Go figure.
It’s basic physics. Two solid objects cannot simultaneously occupy the same space…
With the possible exception of Quantum Physics!
Quantum superposition FTW!
That’s more about being in two places at once…
So if this is no longer going to be a military weapon in the hands of soldiers on the battlefield, can we make it civillian legal?
Only if its less than 7 rounds, wouldn’t want to scare the women & horses, Randy
7 rounds for the more reliably feeding pump version? Why get a pump when a double barrel XM25 will do? Two warning thermobaric shots through the door will scare off a “bad guy”.
You could hunt the shit out of some duck with that thing.
Pretty sure you could hunt the shit out of any shit-producing organism with those HE rounds. The XM25 would make one hell of a moose gun.
Messy, though.
Pre-processed moose pâte perhaps?
After the wasteful XM8 project, it’s no surprise that the Army dropped another project that wasted millions of our tax money
It’s not being dropped, they’re figuring out how to prevent a novel form of double-feed on a new weapon. It’s like grounding a class of aircraft after an accident while they figure out exactly what went wrong. Nor is the development cost wasted on the XM25. It performed so well in field trials that when told to send the prototypes back, the testing units told them to go pound sand – they were keeping the weapons and would continue using “the Punisher”.
This one I wouldn’t consider a waste. The XM8, yes. The F-22, yes. The F-35, yes. The commanche, yes. The XM25, no. This is something that has been a long time coming and we’re finally to the point its feasible. This will change urban warfare.
Of course it shouldn’t be this damn expensive, but that’s one of the many things we got for not listening to Eisenhower’s warning.
Some guy in his garage machine shop could produce a flawlessly functional model in a third the time, and at a tenth the cost.
Astonishing. Please, tell us more about how home-shop inventors are going to revolutionize the field of computer-controlled, sensor-integrated high precision fuzing.
I get what you’re saying, and I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I would just offer…
I have a bench full of electronic measuring equipment whose accuracy would have set me back a very high 6-figure sum purchased new less than 10 years ago. I keep current (not bleeding edge, but current) in a low 4-figure range. A couple of spare desktop computers running open source CFD software that NASA would have traded a shuttle for 20 years ago. There is nothing about the operation of that firearm that is remotely beyond the resolution of the tools available off-the-shelf to a dedicated hobbyist. Let alone a small company with some resources to throw at it.
I guess my meta is just that while it may take a small team to finalize details, the Lambo Muira was designed by half a dozen early 20-somethings in their spare time. McClaren’s street cars are also the product of a very small group. Edison’s lies aside, most of the brilliant stuff of this last 100+ years can be traced to one man, or at most a tiny group lead by one man, with a vision.
Case in point: Ronnie Barrett.
You can put a man on the moon with the computing power in a first gen iPhone. (pretty sure you have to Jailbreak it to get the app though)
Hmmm… the projectiles might present a problem, as most FPGAs are a tidge unsuited to such service. A MOSIS accountis still a must.
I’d hate to try to duplicate my HP 34420A or 34401A in my own shop…
As for the misfeeds, why is this beast semi-auto? It’s not rapid fire, and with such large projectiles, some sort of manual feed makes sense. It would be safer, and would not slow things down one whit.
Where’s Fedor Tokarev when we need him…?
How do you figure it was a waste? I’m sure lots of defense contractors’ children got to go to Ivy League schools because of that weapons system, so in the end it was worth it.
“We’ll have the feeding sorted in five to ten years. NBD.” Welcome to government contracting.
OK… I’ll state right off that this is off-topic. However, I’ve been on the computer all day doing my taxes, with occasional breaks to check the ever-changing landscape of the civilian disarmament struggle. Not once in all that landscape did I spot a single Swedish model
This appears to be the last post of the day and, as yet, no sultry, northern European equestrienne has appeared. Has some horrible fate befallen our intrepid & higly-skilled staff of bloggers at TTAG? Is this just an oversight?
We’re onto the UK now.
Man, this site’s just goin’ straight to hell…
This is a boondoggle of a weapons system, along with all the other nonsense the DOD is engaged in now.
The weapons our guys have in the field would work fine… if they were allowed to fire them.
Get back to me on requests for funding new weapons systems when our men have ROE’s that allow them to actually kill the enemy to the point where the enemy gives up (or we run out of targets). Until the grunt in the streets is given the ability to shoot someone without making a radio call, (or two), all new weapons are useless.
First there were muskets, then pump shotguns, semi-auto shotguns, full-auto shotguns, and now air-burst shotguns. But the last two are too dangerous for hunters and sportsmen.