Mr. Taliban, meet Mr. Punisher
Picked this up at Ace of Spades; apparently the XM-25 has been used in Afghanistan to some success since November and the Army wants more;
“We disrupted two insurgents on an OP (observation point) and we silenced two machine-gun positions — two PKM positions,” said Lt. Col. Chris Lehner, Product Manager Individual Weapons for Project Manager Soldier Weapons at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., describing some of the scenarios he witnessed in theater where the XM25 had been used. “We destroyed four ambush locations, where the survivors fled.”
“And when we launched it at a longer range target, who was carrying a machine gun and it exploded near his target — it either badly wounded him or scared him good enough that he dropped his machine gun and ran away,” Lehner recounted.
Overall in Afghanistan, the five XM25s have been with two separate units. The first unit used the weapon on four engagements and fired 28 rounds in combat. The second unit was able to use the XM25 on five engagements and fired 27 rounds in combat.
“The troops are very excited to carry it,” Conley said. “We’ve limited who can carry it based on the number of folks that we’ve trained. But within that group of Soldiers that are trained on the operation of the XM25, I heard a Soldier say ‘hey, he carried it yesterday, so I get it today.'”
Kit Up records a conversation;
There’s certainly some posturing and whatnot between the Soldiers to try to get to carry it. We trained a guy on Christmas and he was literally thanking me saying “Wow, this is the best Christmas ever!”
Like I said in my first post about it, every soldier can be a Bradley.
Category: Military issues
I want one!
I’d love to have one, too; but honestly, where would you shoot that thing??
And honestly, Jacobite, do you REALLY want every BATF agent in the country as one of your Friends on Facebook? 😉
Regardless of the system’s weight (25 or so pounds), the weight of the basic load of 25mm grenades Joe has to carry, If these reports are accurate, then it’s a good thing.
When guys are competing to carry that much weight…it must be something special.
That said, you have to consider the system’s complexity; I mean, how well does it work after exposure to 3 days of steady rain, when it’s O-Dark-30, and Joe has had no sleep for 24 hours, AND the batteries are getting low/go tits up)…THAT is the test…how well does/has/will it perform then?
I don’t want to get carried away with things, but MAN! the ability to burst inside a room, and the distances that you can shoot with this thing. . . Its enough to make an 11 Bang bang j*zz in his pants.
Me personally I’m just glad Hadji’s getting his due. I’m sick and tired of having our guys walking into ambushes.
I’m reading a lot of “survivors” “disrupted” and “ran away”.
I’m not reading “dead bodies piled high”.
Were all these situations impossible to conclude without the M25, or could normal 40mm or 120mm mortar have been fired with the same or better results?
I’m not sold on an expensive smaller bomb that, so far, is not killing very well.
If anyone has seen the flick ‘Expendables’ with Stallone, well, you’ll know what *I* want…
The AA12 auto shotgun, like the one used in the flick.
yeah baby, explosive head rounds, big noise, big bangs in something that spits 200 rds/min.
Fallujah would have been over in an hour with a few units outfitted with THAT little toy…