DARPA, the Pentagon's research and development arm, wants to make U.S. military snipers more deadly. They've looked at next-generation sniper scopes, and now they're thinking about guided bullets that will be incredibly accurate over long distances.
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The EXACTO Program is an exploratory development program with the overall objective to develop a 50-caliber bullet capable of high accuracy at long distances against moving targets. The EXACTO system will address the fundamental limitation of accuracy, i.e. the uncontrolled variability in the environment and the round. *
There's been talk of laser-guided bullets, and one company has patented the idea of a radar-directed bullets. The Exacto project, however, focuses on developing a guidance system that will allow the bullet to travel accurately to its target regardless of the surrounding environment. In other words, it would be the ultimate sniper round.
