A smart gun for old wars
Prototype Canadian Rifle
Jocelyn Tessier, DRDC
Maybe Canada’s Armed Forces are fighting a Wendigo
infestation no one knows about. Perhaps they’re engaged in a secret war
against Bigfoot and his moose army for control of the Northwest
Passage. There's also the reality that Canada is a NATO partner and
fights regular wars overseas; Canadian troops fought alongside American
ones in Afghanistan from 2001 until March 2014. Well, to make Canada
ready to take on their next foe, Colt Canada just released a video
demonstration of a new prototype gun for the Canadian military. And it
looks ridiculous.
The gun is a “bullpup,” meaning the magazine is fed into the gun
behind the trigger rather than in front. The main effect of the bullpup
design is that rifles can be shorter without losing any effectiveness.
The gun can install either a three-round grenade launcher or a shotgun.
Shotguns are useful in close quarters, while grenade launchers give more
range than just hand-tossing a small explosive. The main gun fires 5.56
ammo, a standard NATO round. Future plans for the gun include smart
targeting systems, like those found in TrackingPoint rifles.
Made for Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC, or RDDC in
French), the rifle has been in development since 2009, designed to give
Canadian troops a lighter, better weapon. From appearances, it doesn't
really look lighter, and even the DRDC's write-up only offers the cautious and polite caveat
that it "could weigh less than" the Colt C7 Rifle Canada currently
uses. The rifle’s planned data integration means that it will collect
information and also receive it from command. In battles this could be
useful to troops, and afterwards that data can better inform Canadian
gunmakers as they plan for guns beyond this one
Watch it test fire three types of ammunition below:
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