Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?

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Subject: Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?
ilpars 6/14/2004 10:08:24 AM

Guided sniper bullets which can slightly change its course during flight to target. If this technology founded even an inexperienced soldier can kill an enemy several kilometers away. How far are we from this tech? What kind of guidance does this weapon need?

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ker 9/18/2008 5:26:54 PM

Anti-tank guided missiles have been used against infantry. Shrinking down the missile will be a cheaper and quicker to develop option. Wire guided or radio guided weapons will work better than shrinking the electronics into a bullet wile hardening them against the G forces they under go in the tube. The Copperhead was made to work but wasn't the best weapon for the job once it was available.

Building a UAV around a sniper rifle or light machine gun can also give the shooter the benefits of greater range w/o brake through in electronics.

If you are married to the idea of firing a seeking or remote controlled round out of a tube, work with a lower velocity grenade launcher might be more promising than high power rifles.

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doggtag 9/18/2008 8:37:16 PM

Building a UAV around a sniper rifle or light machine gun can also give the shooter the benefits of greater range w/o brake through in electronics.

I'm all open to the suggestions of just how we're going to go about stabilizing a hovering UAV with enough stability to utilize a sniper weapon (rifle) at any useful range (a useful range where the noise, and sight, of the UAV is beyond the immediate detection of the target and any nearby personnel or sensors), with the accuracy to stay on the intended target and not be nudged off by the slightest crosswind affecting the UAV.

It gets even more difficult when the UAV is one that can't hover (must continue moving in forward flight to stay airborne, like all fixed wing UAVs), but instead finds itself needing a turret to utilize a sniping rifle or light-to-medium caliber shell-firing cannon (12.7-30mm).

But still, even a turret will need stabilization to keep the barrel's aim on the target.

After incorporating all that extra expense of turrets and stabilization systems into a UAV, we're further off cost-wise just using miniature precision missiles.

Defense firms already have controllable systems (steerable thru flight) down to as small as 22mm in diameter and about 16 inches long: three of these just such projectiles compose the kill mechanism (or warheads, in simpler terms) of the Starstreak HVM MANPADS missile, and this tech has been around since the 1990s.

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ker 9/26/2008 5:47:04 PM

Building a UAV around a sniper rifle or light machine gun can also give the shooter the benefits of greater range w/o brake through in electronics.

But still, even a turret will need stabilization to keep the barrel's aim on the target.

After incorporating all that extra expense of turrets and stabilization systems into a UAV, we're further off cost-wise just using miniature precision missiles.

Your right. I had not thought about the Starstreak. I would say that it is a missile and not a bullet.

With the UAV I was thinking about compromise solution. Diversionary and supresive fire have their uses but as you imply they are not intercangable with prisision shooting.

Useful range- If the enemy can see or hear the UAV comming it still causes them a problem. Also enemy who are firing their own weapons at one threat may not see or hear the UAV even when it fires. Just because you can't count on the enemy making mistakes dosn't mean you shouldn't give them the oportunitys.

Turret- Fixed wing air craft with out turrets can fire on ground targets . AC-47 fires to the side. P-47 Thunderbolt fires to the front. Other variations are posible. The amount of power and weight the UAV needs to reach a given amount of accurace in a given wind condition dose make it hard for the UAV to be man portable. Expesily if you need it to fire from stand off ranges. When I said give the "shooter the benefits of greater range" I meant that the man controling the UAV was farther away (and behind things) not that the UAV remained a 1000 meters or more from the target.

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Gman992 4/28/2009 4:28:37 AM

Did you ever see Runaway? with Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons? Simmons had a heat-seeking bullet...

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Jeff_F_F NLOS Sniper? 8/11/2009 3:51:59 PM

Traditionally snipers are LOS, but why? It seems to me this is because the available sensor and long range kill technologies were LOS. With advanced sensors such as UAVs and/or unattended ground sensors, why shouldn't the role of a sniper be performed by a soldier using NLOS weapons? This would be roughtly analogous to the changes being conceived for the FCS MCS light tank.

NLOS sensors and weapons could dramatically increase the range at which snipers can detect and attack targets. This would allow a single sniper to cover a much larger area for operations such as those in an environment like Afghanistan. It would also allow massing sniper fires against multiple targets the same way artillery does--bringing to bear "every gun within range."

NLOS sensors and weapons would provide the sniper much greater security. The sniper could attack from positions beyond LOS, which would greatly increase the area the enemy would have to cover in order to find the sniper. Also such technologies would likely be immune to sniper detection technologies. Since the sniper wouldn't be within LOS range of the target they would likely have many more options for eggress from the target are, including vehicles.

I'm reminded of the concept of an artillery raid... choppering artillery to a location, attacking a target, and then withdrawing. Such an attack would now be possible for sniping.

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ker 8/12/2009 4:40:23 PM

Very interesting Jeff_F_F . Would it be looking at the same thing from a different angle to think about artillery that could hit the correct person in a group w/o harming the others. Could a 155 shell function like a UAV with camera, controlled glide and a gun? The flare could be replaced with a device that produced no light but generated heat to slow the decent of the device like a hot air balloon?

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GLaw 8/14/2009 12:49:16 AM

I think that by the time we have guided sniper bullets beyond the range of sight, we will have tiny UAVs that can do the same kills.

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Jeff_F_F 8/14/2009 11:52:12 AM

Another way of putting it, is a high powered rifle the ideal "sniper's" weapon? What about a precision-guided 60mm mortar or an NLOS missile like spike with fiber-optic TV guidance?

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ker 9/7/2013 4:38:26 PM

Compare this thread with, "WEAPONS: Troops Demand More Swichblades" from this wed site. Guided infantry weapons are here and they may reduce the demand for a technical more complex and tacticaly less flexable "guided sniper bullet."

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