XM307 ACSW Advanced Crew-Served Weapon / automatic grenade launcher

The XM307 Advanced Crew Served Weapon (ACSW) is a developmental 25 mm belt-fed Grenade Machine Gun with smart shell capability. It is the result of the OCSW or Objective Crew Served Weapon project. It is lightweight and designed to be two-man portable, as well as vehicle mounted. The XM307 can incapacitate or suppress enemy soldiers out to 2000 m or 2200 yards, and destroy lightly armored vehicles, watercraft, and helicopters at 1000 m or 1100 yards. There is currently no projected IOC for the XM307 and it is unlikely it will ever enter service with the U.S. Military.

The system is under development by General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products for the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM). As a part of the Small Arms Master Plan (SAMP) program, it is intended to either replace or supplement the Mk19 automatic grenade launcher and the M2 heavy machine gun. It fires 25 mm point-detonating and air burst style ammunition, including HE, HEAT, and thermobaric grenades at a cyclic rate of 260 rounds per minute and has an effective range up to 2 kilometers.

The primary advantage of the XM307 is its attenuated recoil system. The weapon controls recoil to a degree that a large tripod and heavy sandbags are not required to effectively employ this weapon. Because of this reduced recoil impulse and light weight, other mounting options are also possible such as small unmanned vehicles and aircraft. Its airburst rounds also make it much easier to hit enemies behind walls that could cause collateral damage if thoroughly shot through. They do not have to shoot through the wall, just through a window or over the top and kill the people behind the cover, leaving the structure of the building intact. Also, in under 2 minutes, it can be converted into the XM312, a .50 cal version for infantry and light anti-armor support.

XM307 Advanced Crew Served Weapon is gas operated, rotating bolt locked weapon that uses differential recoil system for decreased peak recoil. XM307 is belt fed weapon that fires from open bolt. The differential recoil system means that barrel and bolt group are allowed to recoil within the receiver casing together, against the recoil springs. When weapon is cocked for first shot, bolt is locked open and the entire barrel/bolt group is carried rearwards and also locked there. Upon the pull of the trigger both barrel group and the bolt inside it are released, and the bolt loads the round and locks it in chamber while barrel still moves forward; firing pin is then released immediately, and the recoil from the discharge first has to arrest the forward movement of the barrel group, and then throws it backward with less force than it would in the traditional system with fixed barrel. The belt feed and bolt cycling are operated by conventional gas action. The fire control unit includes zoomable day and night vision channels that output the sight picture to the small display at the rear of the sight. Integral laser range-finder allows for precise range measurement, necessary for automatic point of aim correction and for programming of the air-bursting fuzes. XM307 weapon is fitted with dual, ergonomically shaped spade grips with triggers and fire and sight control buttons. Additional buttons are located at the rear of the sight / fire control unit, below the eyepiece. In standard applications, XM307 can be used either on lightweight infantry tripod, or on vehicle mounts, manually or remotely controlled. For vehicular applications, GDATP will develop the dual feed option, which will allow to select the type of ammunition (anti-personnel HEAB or armour-piercing) at the instant before firing.

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Weapons of The Ancient TImes

The basic tasks a weapon must perform have not changed since ancient times. Most weapons do one or more of the following:

1. Austrate pressure: the sharp end of a broken stone or pointed stick will apply more force per unit area, and do more harm, than the blunt end. A material's hardness determines its ability to apply or resist pressure.
2. Store energy: an object accumulates kinetic energy as a person accelerates it, and releases this energy in a much shorter time frame upon impact, thus magnifying a person's power.
3. Project force: a thrown rock or long stick allows a person to affect an adversary from a distance.
4. Position or Placement: can utilize any of the following three main tasks; Concentrate pressure, Store energy or Project force. A positioned or placed weapon can inflict injury or death without being physically handled by a user. A Caltrop is an example of such a weapon, where pressure is applied at a concentrated point if it is stepped on or fallen upon. There are also a variety of mechanical traps that either project force or store energy via projectiles, such as crossbows or bows. For example, a trip wire may be used with a crossbow - when an object applies pressure to the trip wire, a signal is sent to the crossbow which releases the stored energy from the bowstring into a crossbow bolt, which in turn fires the projectile at the object.

As shown by the preceding examples, even simple items such as rocks and sticks often perform these functions better than the human body. The usefulness of such tools made their development of paramount importance for early small, sparse communities of hunter-gatherers. The first known traces of weapons are from the stone age with flint knives, handaxes and heads for large darts. There is no evidence for handaxes being thrown, but very good evidence for them having been used to butcher animals. Instead, darts seem to have been a powerful projectile weapon: anthropologists have thrown reconstructed darts through several inches of oak using atlatls. The broad, leaf-shaped heads penetrate deeply, and easily cut arteries.

Some weapons are probably much older than the dart, although little early evidence for them exists. These include the sling and the spear. Even though these weapons are quite simple, they were a major military weapon at least until Roman times; a unit of fast-moving skirmishers could be equipped with them at very little cost. Lack of early evidence is understandable, as slings are prone to decay, and it would be difficult to prove that a particular stone has been used as ammunition. Similarly, there is less incentive to put a Solid stone point onto a spear than a dart. A weighted spear point is a liability rather than an asset, and the greater momentum imparted by stabbing makes sharpness less critical than toughness, so that points of bone, antler, or even fire-hardened wood can make more effective spear points. Once metal became available, its toughness made spears and pikes the core of most infantry forces.

Some of the earliest evidence for arrows are from ca. 20,000 BC in the Levant (the so-called 'Geometric Kebaran' period), made with several very small sharp pieces of stone embedded in an arrowshaft. Here again, far earlier examples may have been subject to decay: for instance, some cultures make weighted arrow points by cutting a hollow reed diagonally and filling the end segment with clay.

Archery and swords have been crucial for warfare. Archery, because of the large amount of energy that can be easily stored and released using a bow, and short swords because of their lethality in close combat. Far greater energy can be stored in a composite bow than a wooden bow of the same weight due to clever mechanical design and choice of materials, but militarily such weapons were mostly limited to use in dry climates. Traditional designs are held together by animal glue (chemically similar to gelatin); moisture would weaken the glue and damage bows of this design. The long bow makes up for less exotic materials with its larger size. In another tradeoff, short swords can be optimized for either thrusting or cutting; the former focuses on pressure, the latter on energy. The gladius hispaniensis could slip through openings in armor, and Roman doctrine held that a stab wound as shallow as one inch could be lethal. The hatchet-like Greek kopis, by contrast, seems built to dismember, but its point-heavy balance might make it clumsy against comprehensive armor.

The most effective defense to traditional weapons was a fortress. The doctrines to support fortresses in the age of edged weapons may have greatly influenced medieval and noble history. Medieval siege weapons were used in countervailing doctrines, but the stave-sling and even the bow often had superior range, making them unsafe to use.

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