The Pentagon has gutted its XM-25 “supergun” program that was supposed to make the strategy of hiding behind cover obsolete by shooting grenades that burst in the air near the target.
The XM-25 “Punisher” met its final punishment after the US Department of Defense learned that nobody wanted to bring the weapon into combat, according to a Popular Mechanics report published Monday. It didn't help the program's cause that it wounded a soldier using the “supergun” in 2013.
The XM-25 program is a quintessential nightmare for Defense Department budget observers. Ballooning costs, a maze-like development schedule and outstanding questions about whether the weapon was useful at all led to the program's demise, the Popular Mechanics report notes.
The XM-25 “Punisher” evolved from another failed US Army program, the XM-29, which was very heavy and 20 times as expensive as a single M-16 assault rifle, leading officials to question whether one XM-29 “Objective Individual Combat Weapon” was really worth 20 time-tested M-16s, War is Boring reported in 2014.
The XM-29 was also supposed to make “taking cover” useless, but the weapon itself underwent an “identity crisis,” since its developers could not decide whether the weapon was a rifle or a grenade-launcher, War is Boring observed. The gun shot 5.56-millimeter rounds and had a 20-millimeter computer controlled grenade launcher attached, according to War is Boring.
Warfighters evidently could not suss…
