Home Defence & Homeland Security US Navy targets GPS-guided bullets

US Navy targets GPS-guided bullets

US: The US Navy is working on a project to develop GPS-guided bullets which could fire at enemies miles and miles away. The US Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Hyper Velocity Projectile programme, aims to develop equipment that would allow high-velocity weapons to accurately strike far-away targets – without having to depend on rocket propulsion.

The Hyper Velocity Projectile programme aims to develop naval rounds that work with both conventional ship-based artillery and proposed future combat systems like the electromagnetic rail gun. These rounds would be GPS-guided and navigable in flight, more like cruise missiles. In fact, the idea is to eventually make naval surface gun rounds more like rockets, a Navy source recently told PopSci, increasing their accuracy and lethality many times over and ending such strong reliance on the missile for pinpoint strikes.

The Navy hopes the supersonic ammunition, with a potential “in-flight retargeting” capability, will be compatible with both its conventional guns, like the Mk 45 155-millimeter gun systems, as well as its experimental 20–32MJ railgun systems, which fire projectiles using electrical energy instead of chemical propellants.

The bullets are slated to be two feet long, weigh somewhere between 20 and 30 pounds, and have a range of 30 to even 200 miles depending on the system deploying them.

Source: PopSci