25mm Anti-Material Payload Rifle Barrett XM109

[AN/AWW-14(V)]

Pair ppt from 2005

seems like today this weapon is completely unnecessary, because SOCOM can buy loitering munitions and Guided Carl Gustav missiles https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/guided-carl-gustaf.32580/

 

[riggerrob]

John Browning originally designed the .50 caliber ammo as an anti-tank round .. towards the end of WW1.
The Barret .50 caliber rifle was originally introduced to Explosive Ordinance Demolition teams to allow them to detonate IEDs from a distance.
The sniping role came later.
Since then .50 caliber has largely been replaced by .338 Lapua ammo in the sniping role.

 

[TomS]

John Browning originally designed the .50 caliber ammo as an anti-tank round .. towards the end of WW1.
The Barret .50 caliber rifle was originally introduced to Explosive Ordinance Demolition teams to allow them to detonate IEDs from a distance.
The sniping role came later.
Since then .50 caliber has largely been replaced by .338 Lapua ammo in the sniping role.

Yes, but the 25mm Payload Rifle was something else entirely. It fired something like the XM25 grenade (except without the programmable counter-defilade features). The closest thing I ever found to a mission for it was shooting at aircraft on a runway (the Panama SEAL mission) but overall it's just a kinda pointless weapon.

 

[Ravinoff]

John Browning originally designed the .50 caliber ammo as an anti-tank round .. towards the end of WW1.
The Barret .50 caliber rifle was originally introduced to Explosive Ordinance Demolition teams to allow them to detonate IEDs from a distance.
The sniping role came later.
Since then .50 caliber has largely been replaced by .338 Lapua ammo in the sniping role.

Yes, but the 25mm Payload Rifle was something else entirely. It fired something like the XM25 grenade (except without the programmable counter-defilade features). The closest thing I ever found to a mission for it was shooting at aircraft on a runway (the Panama SEAL mission) but overall it's just a kinda pointless weapon.

Nope, it would've had airburst functionality too. The XM109 used the same high-velocity 25x59mm shell as the XM307 Advanced Crew-Served Weapon (not the slower 25x40mm fired by the XM25), which was another strange early-'00s development halfway between an M2 Browning and a Mark 19. In theory at least, I'm not sure how the XM109 would handle fuzing for airburst rounds, and one page I've seen suggests the XM109 would have been used only with the XM1049 armour-piercing shell.

 

[publiusr]

Now, with full frame cars gone, I would want police SUVs to have a version of this hidden behind a rear hatch to put a round in the engine block of a car behind me instead to trying the PITT

 

[TomS]

Nope, it would've had airburst functionality too. The XM109 used the same high-velocity 25x59mm shell as the XM307 Advanced Crew-Served Weapon (not the slower 25x40mm fired by the XM25), which was another strange early-'00s development halfway between an M2 Browning and a Mark 19. In theory at least, I'm not sure how the XM109 would handle fuzing for airburst rounds, and one page I've seen suggests the XM109 would have been used only with the XM1049 armour-piercing shell.

I had forgotten that the round was derived from the crew-served version. Makes sense given the parallel to the .59-cal rifle.

But of course it only used the point-detonating round. How could it have used the airburst function without the laser rangefinder/computerized sight or a fuze setter?

 

[Ravinoff]

Nope, it would've had airburst functionality too. The XM109 used the same high-velocity 25x59mm shell as the XM307 Advanced Crew-Served Weapon (not the slower 25x40mm fired by the XM25), which was another strange early-'00s development halfway between an M2 Browning and a Mark 19. In theory at least, I'm not sure how the XM109 would handle fuzing for airburst rounds, and one page I've seen suggests the XM109 would have been used only with the XM1049 armour-piercing shell.

I had forgotten that the round was derived from the crew-served version. Makes sense given the parallel to the .59-cal rifle.

But of course it only used the point-detonating round. How could it have used the airburst function without the laser rangefinder/computerized sight or a fuze setter?

It'd need that, yeah. But I don't know how huge a retrofit that would be, especially considering they (apparently?) intended to use the Barrett Optical Ranging System ballistic computer already. Using the tech developed at the time would probably have been a bulky thing (the XM25 sure was), but we're already talking a 33lb weapon.

Now, how useful the airburst system would be on a heavy sniper/anti-materiel rifle, that's a different question entirely.

 

[Orionblamblam]

seems like today this weapon is completely unnecessary,

Sez you. I might one day go to Australia, and have you *seen* the spiders they have down there? This gun might be just the thing to deal with them.