Showing 5 results for Munitions
+ History
01/01/1965
The M16 Assault Rifle is the standard-issue shoulder weapon in the U.S. military. Designed to fire small, high-velocity rounds (5.56 mm caliber vs. 7.62 mm), the weapon is relatively small and light, thereby significantly decreasing combat load. The M16 is based on a design (the Colt AR-15) that had already been rejected by the Chief of Staff of the Army in favor of the heavier 7.62 mm M14. Colt brought the weapon to DARPA in 1962. Through Project AGILE, DARPA purchased 1,000 AR-15s and issued them to combat troops in Southeast Asia for field trials, to prove that the high-velocity 5.56 mm round had satisfactory performance.
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01/01/1965
Building on the momentum of jet engine research, ARPA joined with the Army to fund development by Williams Research of a compact turbofan engine whose progeny would power the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile ship- or submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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05/01/2014
DARPA’s Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program conducted the first successful live-fire tests demonstrating in-flight guidance of .50-caliber bullets. EXACTO rounds maneuvered in flight to hit targets that were offset from where the sniper rifle was aimed.
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05/06/2015
Early GPS receivers were bulky, heavy devices. In 1983, DARPA set out to miniaturize them, leading to a much broader adoption of GPS capability.
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01/01/1987
Beginning in the 1970s, DARPA began the “Tank Breaker” program in response to deficiencies identified by the Army and Marine Corps in their existing infantry anti-tank weapon. The Army evaluated two Tank Breaker designs by industry participants against alternatives in a shoot-off conducted in 1987-1988.
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