The Economist‘s Clausewitz blog reports on a prototype bullet under development in the US:
MILITARY snipers are competitive types. There is an ongoing and grisly contest between them to see who can kill an enemy soldier from the farthest distance away. The present record is held by Craig Harrison, a corporal in the British Army’s Household Cavalry, who managed to kill two Taliban soldiers from 2,475 metres in November 2009…
Such long-range killings are the exception rather than the norm, as long-distance shooting is extremely difficult. Snipers must guess at wind direction, atmospheric density, relative humidity and a host of other factors that affect a bullet’s trajectory…
Now a protoype self-aiming bullet developed at Sandia National Laboratories, an American weapons-research lab in New Mexico, might allow any soldier to match such feats…
The researchers say that computer simulations suggest that, at a range of half a mile, a typical unguided bullet would miss a target by an average margin of nine metres or so, but that their guided bullet could cut that to just 20 centimetres. And a quirk of ballistics means that, at longer ranges, the system’s accuracy should get better.
Fascinating (if not very cheerful). Well worth a read.