Moral of the Story: The client isn’t always right.
The OICW – Objective Individual Combat Weapon – was part of a program in the 1980s and 1990s to replace the whole lineup of US small arms with a consolidated group of new high-tech ones.
The XM29 (as it was designated) was a 15-pound clumsy and awkward boat anchor of a weapon. While the many capabilities may have looked good on paper, the XM29 was pretty awful for regular soldiering – heavy to carry and slow to use.
The OICW was basically [supposed to be] a mashup of a 5.56mm carbine with a semiautomatic 20mm grenade launchers.
The grenades could be programmed with a laser rangefinder to detonate at any desired range. Just past walls, just inside windows, that sort of thing. The weapon had a big multi-function optical sight that would allow both day and night vision and a bunch of other features.
[12:21] https://youtu.be/Ez4DPz-Eo88?si=
Edit: Turns out Daewoo made their own version the k11 (see below)
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Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would’ve immediately asked about the little red button on the top of the gun.
“Could you also make it possible to load shotgun shells into it?”
“Dude, this is an assault rifle. How will that even work?”
“I fail to see how this is a problem! Just shoot the shotgun pellets out of the barrel. Individually.”For those of us casually considering clicking through to linked article but not wanting to read through in depth articles to find out- what was the rationale literally joining two quite different weapons together rather than leaving them separate?
Tldr: They basically wanted the Swiss army knife approach for supply chain reasons. Plus they hoped to get better rifles and to shoot grenades at people behind walls out of the program.
Thx VM!
The program didn’t want to leave a soldier without a rifle, and having somebody carry a separate launcher and rifle would have been more total bulk and weight. By having one weapon, it shared an optic and a stock for example, rather than having separate ones.
A magazine feed smart launcher and assault rifle in one package was never able to be turned into a practical design, which is why the US never fielded any OICWs in combat. When the US finally admitted the combo weapon idea was unworkable, they ended up turning the grenade launcher into its own weapon, the XM25. The XM25 was a lot sleeker, used more modern electronics, and fired slightly bigger grenades (25mm opposed to the XM29 OICW’s 20mm).
The XM25 did actually see some limited combat use. Reported opinions were mixed, some conventional units really liked it, Rangers reportedly thought it was dead weight.
From the few pictures avalible it looks like the XM25 was either carried with no alternative weapon, or just a pistol issued.
The XM25 was eventually canceled for lack of interest, and officially because of safety concerns about the grenades.
Other countries have tried different versions of the idea. The French PAPOP being one of a number of examples
China tried with their QTS-11, which removed the magazine and semi auto function entirely from the launcher and made it a single shot bolt action. It is apparently still in Chinese service.
Thanks, this is great!
The issues with such a combo weapon do seem kind of obvious however.
I suppose the goal would have been to iterate and try to get it small enough. The XM29 weighed about 17 pounds loaded, an M16A4 with an M203 and say an LPVO weighs in the ballpark of 13 or 14 pounds. Obviously the XM29 is heavier, but I think that weight was just close enough to practical to keep interest in it alive given the allure of semi-auto smart grenade capability.
They really missed an opportunity to have the bottom detach as a separate pistol.
I believe almost all iterations of the XM29 style OICW could detach the rifle from the launcher.
That’s so cool.
They did separate the 2 components into the XM8 and XM25 program, so kinda?
Only now that I realise that the 2 numbers don’t add up to 29 and how deeply unsatisfying it is…
I spy a bayonet mounting socket below the second barrel.
A possibility to mount an aftermarket 40mm single shot grenade launcher?
This was originally going to be the SMG in Half Life 2. They changed the model but kept the grenade launcher (despite the new model having nowhere for the grenades to come from).
Surpassed only by the Annihilator 2000
Does it bake cookies too?
Yes, but they are not very good.
Reminds me of the annihilator 2000
It doesn’t look that bad until you see someone actually holding it.
