Shooting Straight Is Sooo Yesterday

"The Punisher" arrives in Afghanistan:

The XM25 has changed the battlefield with only 55 rounds, and earned a new name among soldiers. They call it “the Punisher.”

Since its first contact Dec. 3, the XM25 has been in nine engagements with two units at different locations, officials said. Specifically, it has disrupted two insurgent attacks on observation posts, taken out two PKM machine gun positions and destroyed four ambush sites.

In one engagement, an enemy machine gunner was “so badly wounded or so freaking scared that he dropped [his] weapon” and ran, said Lt. Col. Christopher Lehner, Program Manager Individual Weapons.

The trick?  This is a very high-tech grenade launcher:

The XM25 has a target acquisition system that calculates range with the push of a button. The data is transferred to an electronic fuse, enabling the 25mm round to explode over the target and rain shell fragments on the enemy.

More here:

At first glance, the XM-25 looks like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. It features an array of sights, sensors and lasers housed in a Target Acquisition Fire Control unit on top, an oversized magazine behind the trigger mechanism, and a short, ominous barrel wrapped by a recoil dampening sleeve.

Unlike a Hollywood prop, however, this weapon is very real and designed to accurately deliver an explosive round that neutralizes targets at distances of up to 700 meters - well past the range of the rifles and carbines that most Soldiers carry today.

"What makes this weapon system truly revolutionary is the ability to target the enemy, pass on this information to the sensors and microchips of its 25mm HEAB round, and have that round detonate over the target," explained Maj. Shawn Murray, a Soldier Weapons assistant product manager in PEO Soldier, the organization responsible for developing the XM-25.

"When the HEAB round explodes, the target is peppered with fragmentation," Murray said. "Our studies indicate that the XM-25 with HEAB is 300 percent more effective at incapacitating the enemy than current weapons at the squad level."

Because of the XM-25's unique TAFC and HEAB round, Soldiers will be able to engage enemy forces located in the open and "in defilade" -behind cover, such as walls, rocks, trenches, or inside buildings. The semi-automatic weapon's magazine holds four 25mm rounds and can be employed at night or during inclement weather thanks to the XM25's built-in thermal sight.

Very cool.  More details here.

 

Comments

[MarkO]

I so need one of these.

[MarkO]

Why does this message show up all the time? Is it a not so subtle hint that my comments read as if they had come from an automated program?

"As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments."

[Army of Davids]

Time to dust of the old "misery index"

Misery Index = inflation + unemployment

Welcome Back Carter

[NK]

Death from above-- excellent.

The last thing we want with the pre-historic Jihadis is a fair fight.

[Frau Nasevoll]

I know the left will insist on the use of these instead of the ZM-25.

[Danube of Thought]

Nothing like the air burst to eliminate their fighting spirit.

[Frau Nasevoll]

MarkO, I had that message, too. I figured it was a comment on my frivolous response.

[sean connery]

reach out, reach out and touch someone.....

[Frau Nasevoll]

How long until an Assange-type leaks the plans in order to "level the playing field"?

[Frau Nasevoll]

matt, good going on your SCOTUS post.

[Captain Hate]

Mark, I've only gotten that message a couple of times and both involved posting a link. I figured there was some tie-in but haven't figured out what it was.

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

How many are we sending to Iran?

[Dave (in MA)]

We're using disproportionate force? That's so unfair.

[MayBee]

There is nothing Michelle Obama will not insert herself into (LUN)

Robin Schepper, executive director of "Let's Move," told Politics Daily, Mrs. Obama wants to increase breastfeeding rates but "is not telling women to breastfeed ... but wants to make it easier for moms by encouraging hospitals to change practices so after a baby is born, the baby is in the room with them."

Toward that goal, Mrs. Obama is going to push more hospitals to be certified as "Baby Friendly" by Baby Friendly USA, a non-governmental organization that works with the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, to increase breastfeeding opportunities. Only 3 percent of births occur at U.S. hospitals with the "Baby Friendly" designation."

In a "Let's Move" policy report issued last May, one of the problems mothers may have with breastfeeding starts in the hospital where after birth, "many babies are unnecessarily given formula and separated from their mothers, making it harder to start and practice breastfeeding."

Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service announced Thursday that the costs for "breast pumps and supplies that assist lactation are medical care" are now, under the IRS code eligible for tax breaks. That means that breastfeeding supplies could be treated as deductible medical expenses and/or be reimbursed under flexible spending plans.

[lyle]

Ooooh, gun porn, I like it!

[matt]

the Left's attempt to delegitimize the Supreme Court. LUN

[Janet]

There is nothing Michelle Obama will not insert herself into

She's gonna oppose that marshmallow ammunition.

[peter]

OT, Happy Birth Anniversary to Harold Arlen. Let's Fall in Love
LUN

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

Nice job Matt - as always.

[bgates]

Mrs. Obama is going to push more hospitals to be certified as "Baby Friendly"

They could have little workplace safety-type signs up in the maternity ward:

"This facility has not left an infant in a closet to die alone in 15 days"

"6 Days since anyone severed a tiny little spinal cord with gardening shears"

[lyle]

They could have little workplace safety-type signs up in the maternity ward:

"17 days since last Dilation and Extraction"

[Extraneus]

That only happens to me when I post a link, MarkO. Maybe it happens with LUNs, too?

[clarice]

It happens to me whenever I am in a hurry and need to get away from the computer.

Matt's work is always good.
bgates has a criminal mind. I said it and I am glad I got that off my chest..and where better than on the breastfeeding thread?

[DebinNC]

What are the odds that MO breastfed her babies? Slim to none. How many decades have U.S. mothers been able to have their babies in their room if they wished? At least 3.

[DebinNC]

I was wrong..Michelle did breastfeed her girls.

CDC: Breastfeed first six months: 40% Hispanic women, 35% white women, 20% black women.

[maryrose]

I breastfed both of my children. Is that too much information?

[MayBee]

I think one of them, Deb. Sasha.

Bgates, hilarious (and sad!)

[Captain Hate]

TMI!!

[matt]

The Iraqi defector who got the Bush administration to believe there were bioweapons in Iraq admitted he lied in order to topple the Saddam regime. LUN in the Telly

[Captain Hate]

O/T Why is Lurch going to Pakistan to secure the release of the person who had diplomatic immunity? Isn't that the HMS Pantsuit's job?

[PaulV]

Matt, the CIA when W took office was incompetenet. Now it seems to be again.

[bgates]

From matt's link:

The defector told The Guardian that he watched in horror as his claims were lapped up by the Bush administration and used to justify the invasion of the country in 2003. "Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," Mr al-Janabi said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

But it's a horrified sort of pride.

[Melinda Romanoff]

CH-

On the job, situational interview/field test.

And that poor schlub is so screwed.

[PaulV]

Did Lurch want to invade Pakistan? Maybe he thinks they fear him?

[clarice]

matt, that's baloney--just like the claim that Chalabi put him up to it. The German's relied on him; we had lots of independent information and did not rely solely on Curveball.

There's no end to this crap.

Today the Wash Po reports that independent scientists looking at the evidence believe that charge that Dr Ivens was responsible for the anthrax attack is nonsense. Again--who was it?

Why is there such a determined push to suggest there was nothing at all behind the decision to invade when every single western and ME intelligence agency we consulted agreed with our assessment?

[Ranger]

Matt, the CIA when W took office was incompetenet. Now it seems to be again.

Posted by: PaulV | February 15, 2011 at 03:43 PM

Objection. Facts not in evidence. That implies a period of competence at some time between then and now.

[bgates]

Sure, the Democrats voted for the war, but they were lied to by someone who told them lies. And even if Bush wasn't the source of the lies, he's still equally morally culpable because he should never have invested so much trust in somebody who turned out to be a liar.

[Captain Hate]

That's right Ranger; I think Not-very-much-funbags Plame and her obese husband are as good as it gets.

[jimmyk]

In one engagement, an enemy machine gunner was “so badly wounded or so freaking scared that he dropped [his] weapon” and ran

Seems to me there's a problem if the guy can still run away.

[Extraneus]

"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."

-- Bill Clinton, 1998

[Chubby]

I haven't watched this because I am having a few tech problems, but a lot of people on a thread elsewhere are enjoying it.

BUNNY ON TANK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMlmEFIxdb4&feature=player_embedded#at=435

[Chubby]

I'll try this.

BUNNY ON TANK --- LUN

[Ignatz]

Excellent piece at AmSpec linking Mohammad Atta to those secular dudes, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and pointing out the nexus between the western left and the socialist ideas of Islamists.

[PaulV]

RANGER, someone did good work getting intel from AQ and finding targets in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Jimmyk, the guy who had his back took it for him. Taliban is like that.

[Janet]

Here is that great video of Dems. speaking about Saddam & WMDs...set to the music of High Heeled Boys.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

My sentiments exactly:

[Bruce]

If its in the Guardian, its a lie.

[Chubby]

terrible headline on Drudge right now

[anduril]

Even the Neocons are starting to see the light--from BOTW:

Even if post-Mubarak Egypt turns out to be worse than the status quo ante, à la Iran in 1979, this will hardly be a vindication of American leaders who relied on a "stable" Egypt under Mubarak as a linchpin of regional stability. The U.S. could not have propped Mubarak up forever, and his rule created the conditions that led to his overthrow. U.S. strategy will look better in retrospect if Egypt ends up peaceful and democratic than if it doesn't. The horror that has been postrevolutionary Iran is in no sense a vindication of U.S. policy toward prerevolutionary Iran.

...

Other than a few kooks, no one in America is nostalgic for the Soviet Union. Some are nostalgic for the shah of Iran, whose rule was far preferable to that of the successor regime, and it's not impossible the same will eventually be true of Mubarak. But nostalgia is not a policy, and if the worst comes to pass in Egypt, it will only prove that the approach of supporting dictatorship was strategically as well as morally defective.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

So the NYSE has been sold to Germany. Great. Not so much.

PS TO JANE: Trump is ballistic over this, but you did say you liked those Wharton guys, maybe you need to give him another look. ::ducking::

[Rob Crawford]

RANGER, someone did good work getting intel from AQ and finding targets in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

You realize the Pentagon set up its own in-house intelligence service, right? Specifically because they could not rely on timely and unpoliticized information from the CIA.

Caught a lot of flak for it, too, AFAICR.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Too funny:

Patrick Rodgers, an independent music promoter in Philadelphia, has won a judgment against his mortgage lender, Wells Fargo, which Wells hasn't paid, and so he's foreclosed on them and arranged for a sheriff's sale of the contents of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, 1341 N. Delaware Ave to pay the legal bill.

[Neo]

Speaking of air-bursts ...
From the Star: Chelsea Clinton’s marriage on the rocks .. Marc moves out.

It's in the newspaper .. so it's got to be true

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Why does this message show up all the time? Is it a not so subtle hint that my comments read as if they had come from an automated program?

Yes.

There are two things that I've noticed seem to set it off: very short comments, and comments with links. Comments with links that talk about diets seem to be especially likely.

This is almost certainly a Bayesian filter. Paul Graham wrote about them ">http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html"> here but the gist is that you construct a statistical model of words and HTML likely to be in spam. This thing clearly has to levels of "hot": on the first level, you get asked for a captcha (the random-looking string in an image -- the theory is that computer programs have trouble reading gifs), on the second level it just trashes your message. You can pretty well guarantee hitting the second level by having more than about 4 links.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Seems to me there's a problem if the guy can still run away.

Not as much as capturing him would cause.

Dead or alive, no messing about in the middle.

[Lord Whorfin says Murphy was an optimist]

RoboCop-"Dead or alive, you're coming with me!"

[Pagar]

Wells Fargo is gaining a reputation for corruption.

"Wachovia (Wells Fargo) Sued, Could Owe $Millions$ for Role in Loan Modifier’s Scam"

LUN

The stench from the fraudsters and their cooperating banks trying to rip off homeowners seems to finally be gaining the attention of at least a few legal types.

[Ranger]

RANGER, someone did good work getting intel from AQ and finding targets in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
...
Posted by: PaulV | February 15, 2011 at 04:38 PM

Yeah, well the CIA also managed to get the head of that program blown up by escorting a suicide bomber in to the same room with her. So, I'd call it a mixed performance at best.

[narciso]

The Shah lasted 25 years from Ajax, about 30 from the time of his replacing his father, in retrospect, it isn't all clear that he had to fall in that interval, say if Ford had been in office, or Reagan for that matter. Would they have dispatched the Huyser mission, to prevent the kind of transition, we see with Tantaqi.The White Revolution land reforms, in retrospect
were a mistake, as it alienated the Bazaaris, who along with the mullahs, had helped oust Mossadeq, and we saw how viable his faction held out, after February of '79.

An interesting sidelight, Riedel, who said we could do business with the IM, was the same person who predicted the Sadat assasination, back in 1981.

[Danube of Thought]

Saw the Drudge headline. Can't get to the article. Awful.

[Danube of Thought]

HotAir has a bit on the CBS story.

[DrJ]

Matt got an Instalauch. Congrats!

[centralcal]

Twitter reports say Gen. Petraeus is leaving Afghanistan by the end of the year.

From The Times

[Pagar]

More gun BS from the Administration that lies about everything.

"ATF agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives — a DOJ agency — allegedly smuggled U.S. guns into Mexico in order to bolster the Department's disputed contention that Mexican drug cartels are armed primarily with U.S. guns. Whistleblowers within the ATF contend that one of these guns was used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry in December of 2010."

LUN

If the facts are as reported I don't see any
way this can be covered up.

http://www.examiner.com/project-gunwalker-1-in-national

[centralcal]

This is the terse statement about Lara Logan that CBS put out:

On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS Correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy.

In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.

There will be no further comment from CBS News and Correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time.

[Chubby]

It will be interesting to see if any apology emits from Egypt. I wonder if the soldiers arrested anyone.

[matt]

And the Argentines confiscated a C-17 that was being used in a drug/weapons detection exercise for guess what, drug and gun violations.

The US has become the fall guy for every punk on the planet.

[Ignatz]

Holy smokes, Pagar. That story is a bombshell if true.
And if true Holder should be forced out immediately.

[centralcal]

Re: my comment at 6:37, Breaking News tweets that the Pentagon is denying the story of Petraeus leaving.

hhhmmmm, who to believe? It is already all over the web.

[Cecil Turner]

I caught a Discovery Channel special on this weapon a couple years ago (the crew-served variant is shown here). Looks pretty cool. Makes harassment fire from partial cover an iffy proposition . . . which is apparently one of the favored tactics of the Taliban lads.

[Rick Ballard]

"I wonder if the soldiers arrested anyone."

They probably won't charge her for inciting rape or indecent exposure because she's in the news biz. I'm surprised she wasn't a little more cautious around Mahometan aspirants to Jeffersonian democracy. I'd put them right next to pit vipers in a taxonomy of expected unpleasant outcomes.

[Rick Ballard]

"I wonder if the soldiers arrested anyone."

They probably won't charge her for inciting rape or indecent exposure because she's in the news biz. I'm surprised she wasn't a little more cautious around Mahometan aspirants to Jeffersonian democracy. I'd put them right next to pit vipers in a taxonomy of expected unpleasant outcomes.

[Thomas Collins]

The Reynolds XM25 blog has launched matt.

[Melinda Romanoff]

PL-

That trailer was the appetizer, here is the whole first episode.

[narciso]

Bastards, what else is there to be said on the matter. Meanwhile Ace,is having another burnt fur moment, noting that Obama is 'unexpectedly' voting present again, when it comes to the budget.

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for the matt launch.

[bgates]

surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy.

A tense but friendly mob, largely engaged in celebration, with just an element - an atom really, or a single subatomic particle - a tiny element which unfortunately proved dangerous, though it's important to stress that not all the Westerners present were the victims of beatings or brutal and sustained sexual assaults, and it can't be repeated too often that the vast overwhelming majority of the celebrants had absolutely nothing to do with the violence and certainly weren't joined at the ideological hip the way Tim McVeigh and Rush Limbaugh and Jared Loughner and Sarah Palin and Adolf Hitler are.

[Chubby]

((They probably won't charge her for inciting rape or indecent exposure because she's in the news biz.))

you're right, my imputing western values to the situation was a lapse

[Extraneus]

What non-Muslim woman would be confident of her safety in the middle of a pack of Muslim men? Seriously. I'm not saying she asked for it, or anything quite so crass, but come on. This isn't the Duke Lacrosse team, for heaven's sake.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Wow!

Remind me not to give you guys any bait for my own comeuppance.

[centralcal]

Senator Jeff Sessions continues to earn my admiration and approval. His disdain for Jack Lew's and Obama's lies know no bounds. The video, only a minute long, is well worth a watch.

[matt]

thanks all....

The criminals and the crazies are all still out on the streets, so Cairo is a lot more dangerous than it was 3 weeks ago.

After the many incidents of reporter bashing, perhaps it would behoove them to have a couple of their own personal security people with them when outside of their hotels. The ME has never been the kind of place where people could walk safely at night except, oh yeah, the dictatorships and kingdoms.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

What non-Muslim woman would be confident of her safety in the middle of a pack of Muslim men?

There fixed it.

[Chubby]

((After the many incidents of reporter bashing, perhaps it would behoove them to have a couple of their own personal security people with them when outside of their hotels.))

she did have a security team, in addition to the rest of the crew. She somehow got separated from the security people when the mob of ~200 surrounded them

[Rick Ballard]

The fault (aside from the savages) lies with CBS. The proclamations of the end of multi-culturism by most Western European leaders are a result of the very high violent crime rates among muslims in major cities - from Malmo to Rome and London to Berlin. Muslims are going to be forced from Europe through refusal to renew visas. They should have worked a little harder on the nobility angle. They've got the savagery down pat.

CBS is supposed to follow current events and might be expected to have figured out what was going on and provide security accordingly.

[Jane (get off the couch - come save the country)]

Just so you know, February 19th is the 2 year anniversary of Santelli's rant and the beginning of the tea party.

And apparently republican leadership has caved to the tea party and agreed to cut entitlements in its budget. They may be playing into Obama's hands but from my perspective they have no choice. So it is really time to rally behind them.

[Chubby]

((CBS is supposed to follow current events and might be expected to have figured out what was going on and provide security accordingly.))

I felt the exactly the same way about the CSM when Jill Carroll was abducted.

[Chubby]

bgates, that was superlative

[Extraneus]

Speaking of Valentine's Day, Lara Logan and romance, the first time my Turkish college suite-mate and his Spanish future-wife got it on was rape.

[narciso]

This is CBS, we're talking about, they don't know much more than the menu in the Cafeteria
at Black Rock,

[jimmyk]

She somehow got separated from the security people when the mob of ~200 surrounded them

That's one crack security team. CBS must have gone all out on that budget. Keystone cops.

[clarice]

bgates, every time I think you couldn't possibly do better you prove me wrong.

As for cbs...very bright sending a small blonde woman lightly dressed into a Muslim mob. Sexual jealousy and deprivation is in my mind half the explanation for the degradation of women there and the demagogues' ability to whip young men into a frenzy over the slightest provocation.

[Rocco]

Well there's one undeniable fact concerning WMD, in 1999 a delegation of Iraqi's visited Niger seeking yellowcake uranium. And Mayaki admitted it!

You're the president, the whole world's intelligence community is telling you Hussein had them. What would you do? Can you place a dollar value on the lives of your loved ones? Bush did the right thing, those 16 words were truth.

[Chubby]

((That's one crack security team. CBS must have gone all out on that budget. Keystone cops))

exactly

[jimmyk]

No doubt the "security team" got lots of sensitivity training from the CBS legal staff. Like "Just because 200 Muslims surround you, it's important not to offend them by showing any diligence or alertness. In fact, as a gesture of goodwill, you might try separating yourself from the most vulnerable of your crew just to show them trust, and to make up for all the right wing anti-Muslim hate in middle America.

[daddy]

Ann Althouse has a good post about CNN Reporter Nick Robertson desperately trying to find any Egyptian Protester in Tahiri Saquare who will praise Obama, and after he can't find one, Robertson just makes it up and says they praised Obama even tho' they didn't. ">http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/02/state-run-media-beg-egyptian-citizens.html"> "State-Run Media Beg Egyptian Citizens to Praise Pharaoh Obama."

[jimmyk]

Sorry, forgot to close the quote. ["] But I've never forgotten to close italics!

[Extraneus]

Yeah, daddy, Rush has been flogging that for two days. Playing the same clips multiple times. Let's hear ol' Nick Robertson again!

[narciso]

I think Rush highlighted that segment, daddy, Yesterday, I don't know who has a greater ego, they or Obama. Which of course reminds
of that line from Zaphod Beeblebrox, in many
ways the model for dear leader

[Janet]

A comment at Althouse from the Rush transcript link -
by kent -

"SMITH: "President Obama came out several times during the revolution; had things to say. Did it help?"

GHONIM: "We don't really need him [...]"

Neither do we, Ghonim. Neither do we."

Hahahaha!