The Franco-German Saint-Louis Research Institute (ISL) is working on a 12.7 mm guided bullet that should improve sniper accuracy. At a distance of 2 kilometers, such a bullet can deviate from its initial trajectory by 50 meters.
The Franco-German Saint-Louis Research Institute (ISL) is working on a 12.7 mm guided bullet that should improve sniper accuracy. At a distance of 2 kilometers, such a bullet can deviate from its initial trajectory by 50 meters.
The 12.7 mm I-SMART (ISL Sniper Munition Actuated to Reach Target) bullet consists of five different elements. It has an optic on the tip, which is used in the final guidance stage, reports the European Defense Review. Then there are navigation electronics, a power supply, an activator and communications.
Installing the amount of electronics needed to control a projectile that is about 54 mm long and has a maximum diameter of 12.7 mm is a real challenge. In addition, these elements must withstand the acceleration during firing.
An optical sensor in the bullet provides guidance before hitting the target, but for now, for testing, trajectory correction is calculated in the ground unit. Therefore, during the flight, the sniper bullet exchanges information with the ground station. In the future, the developers want to remove this communication and make the calculations carried out by the bullet itself.
The aerodynamic actuators have reportedly been tested in the lab and wind tunnel, but have yet to be tested in real-world firing conditions. ISL wants to provide significant lateral correction of 50 meters at a range of 2,000 meters.
With a flight time of about three seconds, this will not only increase the probability of a hit, but will also allow the sniper to hit a target moving even at a lateral speed of 60 km/h. In addition, this technology will allow less experienced personnel to hit the target, increasing shooting accuracy with less training.
ISL aims to make the cartridge compatible with 12,7×99 mm sniper rifles. After the upcoming final tests, ISL will seek an industrial partner to bring the prototype to the product level.
Previously, only the United States and Russia had launched programs aimed at equipping their snipers with guided bullets. One of the American projects, known as EXACTO (Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance), launched by DARPA, received several demonstrations in 2015, but it seems that it did not reach the state of a finished product. Almost nothing is known about the Russian development of a guided cartridge 12,7×108 mm, designed to improve the characteristics of Russian long-range rifles.
We will remind you that at the conference «European Defense Industry: Prospects for Cooperation with the Ukrainian Defense Industry», the Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, Vadym Sukharevsky, presented a Ukrainian laser complex that can destroy enemy strike bombs, cruise and ballistic missiles at a distance of up to 3 km.
