Army Looks to Turn Toy Into Next-Gen Rifle

It's not uncommon for weapons to be turned into toys, but it's unusual for a toy to be developed into a weapon – I report one such case in New Scientist this week:

"Lund and Company Invention, L.L.C., a toy design studio based near Chicago, makes toy rockets that are powered by burning hydrogen obtained by electrolyzing water. Now the company is being funded by the US army to adapt the technology to fire bullets instead.

The US Army are interested in arming soldiers with weapons that can be switched between lethal and non-lethal modes. They asked the company to make a rifle that can fire projectiles at various speeds."

The Lund Variable Velocity Weapon System will be able to fire lethal ammunition at high velocity, or non-lethal rounds at low velocity. Rather than standard cartridges, the weapon will use liquid or gaseous fuel*. "*A liquid or gaseous fuel is metered into a combustion chamber, manually varying the fuel air mix, or automatically," says CEO Bruce Lund. "Projectile velocity varies from non-lethal at ten meters, to lethal at 100 meters or more, as desired."

The original proposal was to use hydrogen, as with the toy rockets:

"The traditional cartridge and black powder propellant is eliminated. Advantages of the hydrogen-powered weapon include lower weight, increased long range effectiveness, reduced heat and visible flash, and the elimination gun powder combustion gases, burnt residue and smell."

A rifle that never needs cleaning would certainly have its supporters. The Army have selected an alternative fuel, which will preserve the benefits of a variable muzzle velocity even if it's not quite as clean.

A variety of projectiles may be used; Lund says any given projectile may be lethal or non-lethal, at a given distance/velocity combination.
The lethal rounds might closely resemble existing bullets; non-lethal ones are likely to be made of frangible material that disintegrates into dust on impact, or soft projectiles like the "laughing bullets"
I described last year. To prevent accidents, the weapon might be able to recognize the ammunition type loaded, preventing non-lethal being fired at dangerous speed.

The weapon need not be limited to simple high and low velocity.
During firefights, you might be able to "turn it up to 11" for very long range encounters .

The problem with non-lethal kinetic rounds such as rubber bullets and bean-bag rounds is that they tend to be deadly at very close range and useless beyond seventy meters. This was discussed last year at the European Symposium On Non-Lethal Weapons: "The problem is not so much to deliver an effect to a certain distance, but to maintain that effect from the muzzle out to that distance. It is possible to design a constant energy impact projectile by means of a launcher with a controllable muzzle velocity."

So a weapon with a laser rangefinder could calculate the required muzzle velocity and fire non-lethal rounds with just the right energy to incapacitate the target without undue harm. (Note that, there is always an element of risk, and that even a "non-lethal" launcher like the FN303 which has a very low muzzle energy can be deadly. Critics have pointed out that non-lethal rounds can be misused, as was shown in Israel this week.)

The design Lund is currently working on is a lightweight .50 caliber weapon, and he says that the technology is scalable "from handgun to howitzer." There have been attempts to develop similar weapons before, notably by Rusi Taleyarkhan who has since become bogged down in controversy over his Bubble Fusion claims. However, Lund's technology seems to have advanced further and the Army appear keen to pursue it.

Lund stresses the advantages of a weapon which can be used without killing innocents and stirring up opposition among the local population in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The company may be toymakers, but this gun is no toy.