XM25 CDTE
It was fielded to soldiers serving in the War in Afghanistan in 2010,[6] after which malfunctions and 2013 program budget cuts[7] delayed official entry into service, planned for early 2017.
[13] In March 2013, elements of the 75th Ranger Regiment refused to take the 14 lb (6.4 kg) weapon on a raid because they found it too heavy and cumbersome.
They also felt its low basic ammunition load and magazine capacity of 25 mm grenades were not enough to justify the removal of an M4A1 carbine from the mission.
[15] A US soldier equipped with an M4 carbine (the US Armed Forces primary infantry weapon), attachments and ammunition has to carry a 16 lb (7.3 kg) load.
The XM25 had been utilized in Afghanistan with support from ARL personnel involved in training Soldiers, enabling and evaluating XM25 combat tactical integration, and collecting data for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase of the contract.
The XM25 design included hardware modifications to improve reliability, weight, and fire control lasers optimized to increase range performance against targets out to 2,000 meters away.
Additional modifications addressed weapon ergonomics including butt-plate configuration, rear bolt buffer housing and recoil optimization.
In August 2003, the XM29 roles were separated into specific weapons, with the rifle pursued as the XM8, and the OICW Increment 2 standalone airburst component as the XM25.
[16] In the summer of 2010, the United States Army began field testing the XM25 in Afghanistan, with an initial per-unit cost of the early models ranging from US$30,000 to $35,000.
The soldiers reported that the weapon was extremely effective at killing or neutralizing enemy combatants firing on US troops from covered positions.
[23] The misfiring caused the Army to delay the decision to move the XM25 into full-rate production, pending changes to the design of the weapon and ammunition, operating procedures, and training techniques.
[24] In June 2013, the Senate Armed Services Committee eliminated all funding for the 1,400 XM25 systems the Army wanted to purchase from the 2014 budget.
[8][27][28] On 29 August 2016, the Defense Department Inspector General's Office released a report recommending the Army determine whether to proceed with or cancel the XM25 program after reviewing the results of 2016 Governmental testing, scheduled to be completed in fall 2016.
[14] Army leaders maintain that the weapon provides revolutionary capabilities to the soldier, and that safety concerns have been addressed through engineering design changes and improvements over 30 additional months of testing.
The complaint stated that Heckler and Koch had wished legal clarification regarding potential violations of the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which bans "any projectile of a weight below 400 grams" containing explosives.
[29][30] In April 2017, the Army cancelled its contract with Orbital ATK after they failed to deliver 20 weapons as specified by the terms, putting the operational future of the XM25 in jeopardy.
[9] On 24 July 2018, the Army signed a memorandum officially terminating the program, after settling the lawsuit with Orbital ATK that gave the military intellectual property rights to the weapons and ammunition.
