Last October, the US company Raytheon announced that it had successfully fired a small laser-guided missile from a 40mm hand-held grenade launcher for the first time, hitting targets more than two kilometers away. The weapon could thus significantly change the approach to infantry operations in urban environments. “The new guided munition offers the infantryman a precision capability over distances previously unknown from a hand-held small arms weapon,” said Raytheon’s Land Warfare Systems Director J.R. Smith. The so-called System Pike uses a programmable, semi-active laser seeker against both stationary and moving targets. The projectile weighs less than one kilogram and is 42.5 centimetres long. Fired from a single-shot M320 grenade launcher, the smokeless propellant ignites 2.4 to 3 meters after firing.
