Those of you old enough… remember when parents just *had* to procure a Cabbage Patch Doll, or a Furby, or a Tickle Me Elmo? Well, just in time for Christmas 2015, Raytheon presents the “Pike.”
Miniaturized, Laser-Guided Munition
Pike™ is a 17-inch-long, semi-active laser-guided precision weapon, measuring 40 mm in diameter and weighing two pounds. It’s the world’s only hand-launched precision-guided munition. Fired from a rifle-mounted grenade launcher, the miniaturized munition can travel one and a half miles and hit within five yards or less of a target, minimizing collateral damage.
The laser-guided munition is nearly as narrow as some large-caliber ammunition and can fit in the palm of a hand. A lightweight precision weapon, the Pike munition doesn’t tether ground troops to a vehicle launcher. Using a laser designator that resembles a pistol, one soldier points at a target, while another fires the munition.
Powered by a rocket motor, the Pike munition can be fired from the new family of Enhanced Grenade Launcher Modules (EGLM), specifically the H&K M320 and the FNH Mk13. The munition travels to its target using a high-tech guidance system that brings the same pinpoint accuracy once found only in mammoth missiles and hulking bombs.
The Pike munition can be mounted on multiple platforms, including Class 1 and II, unmanned aircraft systems, all-terrain vehicles, ground mobility vehicles, Common Remotely-Operated Weapons Station and small boats.
I know *I* want a twelve pack.
A mile and a half is pretty good range, but the within-five-yards-of-the-target accuracy seems like it could be better. The size of the warhead doesn’t seem to be given, but it looks like it can’t be much bigger than that of a standard 40mm grenade. I wonder if it would have the ability to nail something like an attack chopper.
It also seems like it might be possible to make a variant that trades the solid rocket motor with more explosive, or even just dead weight. Dropped from an aircraft (a drone, say), if the system is accurate enough it could be used to bullseye womprats from your T-16 take out individual targets with either minimal or maximal collateral damage.