40mm grenade
The 40mm grenade is based off of the
standard 40mm grenade, although it is caseless and designed for use with the
3GL. The primer is electrically active and can be focused on individual rounds, to allow them to be fired in rapid succession, even if from the same barrel. Given the low pressures of the round, and it's difficulty being loaded in a semi-automatic fashion, this style melds perfectly with the 40mm grenade.
Despite being incredibly similiar to the 40mm grenade, it has a number of differences. The grenade is operated off of an electronic detonation system, instead of a purely chemical one, which both increases reliability and decreases the weight. Despite this mechanism being similiar to the
25mm x 40mm XM25 variant, the round is not designed for air bursting.
The entire round is approximately 115 grams, instead of 220, and since the round is caseless, as a result it is approximately half the weight of an ordinary 40mm cased grenade, although around the same size.
Due to it being lighter weight, the round is also somewhat faster; this does little to increase the range, but it does reduce the required barrel length for the same velocity. Only roughly 6 inches are required to stabilize the round, allowing for incredibly short barrels to be utilized without much issue.
Otherwise, the rounds are identical in function to the 40mm grenades, including both the armor piercing and high explosive variants, the difference being weight and electronic detonation that counts the rotation of the earth, rather than having a few second delay (therefore making it difficult to accidentally set off).
Various door breaching, flares, smoke rounds, and 12 gauge shot are available in the 40mm. The round uses standard 12 gauge shot to replace it's 32 grams of standard composition explosive, at roughly 1.25 ounces of shot, although it utilizes more propellant.
