H
Herr Heckler Koch
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/clausewitz/2012/06/smart-ammunitionT.C. said:Now a protoype self-aiming bullet developed at Sandia National Laboratories, an American weapons-research lab in New Mexico, might allow any soldier to match such feats. Modern bullets gain their accuracy from a technique known as rifling, whereby the barrel of the gun that fires them has a series of spiralling grooves etched into it. These cause the bullets to spin, and that spins stabilises their flight path. Rifling offers a huge improvement over old-style smoothbore guns such as muskets, which were notoriously inaccurate at even comparatively short ranges.
Sandia's researchers, though, have plumped for an old-style smoothbore barrel. That is because, instead of spin, their bullet is stabilised by four steerable fins at its rear. Those fins are linked to a computer chip that is, in turn, linked to an optical sensor on the bullet's nose. A laser is shone at the intended target, the bullet is fired, and the chip uses the fins to adjust the bullet's trajectory in mid-flight, a system similar in principle to the one used on anti-aircraft missiles.