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No reason why we can't develop smart ammo. I would be surprised if we didn't already have it. It would be the scale to which we can apply it. I would think a 50 cal would be doable with todays technology.
Smart ammunition
MILITARY snipers are compe ive types. There is an ongoing and grisly contest between them to see who can kill an enemy soldier from the farthest distance away. The present record is held by Craig Harrison, a corporal in the British Army's Household Cavalry, who managed to kill two Taliban soldiers from 2,475 metres in November 2009. That was a slight improvement on the previous record, held by Rob Furlong, a Canadian soldier also fighting in Afghanistan, who managed to shoot his enemy in the chest from a distance of 2,430 metres in 2002.
Such long-range killings are the exception rather than the norm, as long-distance shooting is extremely difficult. Snipers must guess at wind direction, atmospheric density, relative humidity and a host of other factors that affect a bullet's trajectory. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Corporal Harrison described the atmospheric conditions as perfect: "no wind, mild weather, clear visibility", but modestly neglected to mention the hundreds of hours of painstaking training that are required on top of that.
Now a protoype self-aiming bullet developed at Sandia National Laboratories, an American weapons-research lab in New Mexico, might allow any soldier to match such feats. Modern bullets gain their accuracy from a technique known as rifling, whereby the barrel of the gun that fires them has a series of spiralling grooves etched into it. These cause the bullets to spin, and that spins stabilises their flight path. Rifling offers a huge improvement over old-style smoothbore guns such as muskets, which were notoriously inaccurate at even comparatively short ranges.
Sandia's researchers, though, have plumped for an old-style smoothbore barrel. That is because, instead of spin, their bullet is stabilised by four steerable fins at its rear. Those fins are linked to a computer chip that is, in turn, linked to an optical sensor on the bullet's nose. A laser is shone at the intended target, the bullet is fired, and the chip uses the fins to adjust the bullet's trajectory in mid-flight, a system similar in principle to the one used on anti-aircraft missiles.
The researchers say that computer simulations suggest that, at a range of half a mile, a typical unguided bullet would miss a target by an average margin of nine metres or so, but that their guided bullet could cut that to just 20 centimetres. And a quirk of ballistics means that, at longer ranges, the system's accuracy should get better. As it flies, the bullet pitches and yaws through the air, and that natural rhythym limits the frequency with which its on-board computer can make course corrections. But the longer the bullet is in flight, the less violent those movements become, allowing increasingly precise tracking.
So far, the bullet is only a prototype, and Sandia (which is a government lab managed by Lockheed Martin, a giant American weapons firm) is looking to join forces with other firms to bring the bullet to market. If they are successful, Corporal Harrison's record may not stand for long.
(Clausewitz blog at the Economist)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/claus...art-ammunition
No reason why we can't develop smart ammo. I would be surprised if we didn't already have it. It would be the scale to which we can apply it. I would think a 50 cal would be doable with todays technology.
That's pretty cool. Man, I can't imagine hitting a target at 2475 meters.
Depends on the size of the target.
We have a ton of guided bombs and missiles now but the man on the ground often has no access to these. It wouldn't be any different with guided ammo, as only select forces would use them and Congress wouldn't spend money to arm every soldier in the field with guided ammo.
Regardless, the sniper does much more than just pull a trigger and aim. They have to get to a firing position and get out undetected.
Snipers won't be obsolete before humans in battles are obsolete.
EMP would destroy any computer guiding system.
grooves onto bullets...just like grooves on ur tyres...nothing to see here...
There's also a lot of misinformation in that post. "typical unguided bullets" might indeed miss a target at a half a mile by 9 meters, but a Marine scout sniper does not shoot a typical bullet because he's not a typical shooter. Typical shooters would never receive guided ammo.
one thing is certain that these mini-missiles would be very expensive and it'd kill the fun of killing. science can't do everything for you i think, e.g. in vitro fertilization enables humans to have kids w/o having sex but most couples still prefer to do sex themselves and have kids in the natural way
If "we" already had it, those long kill record would be held by AMERICANS, not a got dam Brit and a Canuck. What do we have all the damn guns in this country fer if we get outshot by some damn pansies?
I kind of doubt such a weapon would be advertised. Besides, a sniper wouldn't be given credit for such a weapon.
Snipers are awesome!
smart bullets would kill the fun of killing like how automatic transmission killed the fun of driving, was originally designed for housewives who could never operate both the gearshift and clutch at the same time tbh
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