The XM25 (now the MXT135), designed by Minnesota's Alliant Techsystems, has been in development for several years. The U.S. Army's new rifle was first field tested between 2010 - 2013 by soldiers in Afghanistan. Deemed as extremely effective it has been Nicknamed ‘The Punisher’!

How it works

The XM25 is a next-generation, semi-automatic weapon designed for effectiveness against enemies protected by walls, dug into foxholes or hidden in hard-to-reach places. The rifle's gun sight uses a laser range finder to determine the exact distance to the obstruction, after which the soldier can add or subtract up to 10 meters from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target. Soldiers will be able to use them to target snipers hidden in trenches rather than calling in air strikes.

Field testing

Early prototypes of the XM25 completed 14-months of Forward Operational Assessments. Colonel Scott Armstrong the former XM25 program manager said "The Army has learned many valuable lessons from these deployments regarding how the weapon can be deployed and how tactics can be changed to better refine the design of the weapon. Based on feedback from Soldiers and contractor testing, we have already incorporated more than 100 improvements to the systems related to ergonomics, performance and fire control,"

Army officials also said that during its initial Assessment, the XM 25 provided a decisive advantage to Soldiers in combat in Afghanistan.

End of the line?

Since field trials were conducted there have been several set backs for the XM25 rifle. However teams of weapon experts supporting the XM25 are still to this day focused on analysing the system's performance with a mind to making further improvements. Unfortunately, a dispute between the designers and manufactures of this weapon has halted any further progress which may spell the end of the road for this futuristic looking weapon system…