via Military technology: Magic bullets | The Economist
The XM25, as the new gun is known, weighs about 6kg (13lb) and fires a 25mm round. The trick is that instead of having to be aimed directly at the target, this round need only be aimed at a place in proximity to it. Once there, it explodes—just like Shrapnel’s original artillery shells—and the fragments kill the enemy. It knows when to explode because of a timed fuse. In Shrapnel’s shells this fuse was made of gunpowder. In the XM25 it is a small computer inside the bullet that monitors details of the projectile’s flight.With a computer in each rifle, and even one in each bullet a whole spectrum of technical possibilities emerge. Now we are definitely not talking about dumdums anymore… Rather the opposite.
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