Direct Action

As the contemporary operating environment continues to witness the growing emergence and influence of so-called ‘near peer’ adversaries, armed forces around the world continue to demand ever greater fire support to suppress enemy forces.

- Andrew White

There are few areas where this is as important as for dismounted and mounted infantry whose job it is to find, fix and close with adversaries who today have a greater chance of overmatch in regards to munitions and weapons: Witness the materiel which Russia deployed in support of its annexation of Crimea during the Ukrainian Civil War in March 2014. Direct fire support technology can range from automatic and underslung grenade launchers and anti-tank shoulder-fired munitions; through to machine guns, sniper and sharpshooter weapons. Definitions differ, but sharpshooters generally operate within a squad of troops, while snipers tend to operate independently.

One of the most novel direct fire support capabilities of recent years includes the US Army’s Heckler and Koch (HK) XM-25 Counter-Defilade Target Engagement (CDTE) weapon, also known as ‘The Punisher’ which saw Orbital ATK and HK designing a shoulder-fired 25mm airburst round. The XM-25 had been expected to provide a next-generation capability for dismounted squads seeking the firepower to target enemy combatants hiding behind cover. However, it appears infantry teams will not be benefiting from this technology in the foreseeable future with industry sources informing AMR that the programme was cancelled in late April 2017. However, there remains multiple direct fire support weapons currently on the market and expected to be made available in the near future, which could adequately fill similar capability gaps currently affecting many of the world’s leading armed forces.

Anti-Tank Munitions