Weapon Name- M32 Assault Rifle
Round Type- 6.2mm caseless, 25mm x 39mm Grenade
Over-all length- 30 inches
Barrel length- 20 inches, 14.5 inches
Weight- 6.2 lb, 10.6 pounds
Rate of Fire- 540 RPM
Feed Mechanism- Detachable box magazine, belt fed
Round Capacity- 6 - 30, 40, 100+
Effective Range- 600 meters
Range- 1200 meters
Accuracy- 1 MOA, 3 MOA
Accessories- Secondary grenade launcher, thermal vision optic
Quick switch firing mechanism- Extra trigger
Scope/Sights- Thermal vision optic, back-up iron sights and reflex sight
Muzzle Velocity- 850 m/s (6.8 grams), 2450 joules - 250 m/s (140 grams), 4375 joules
Firing System- Mini-14
Miscellaneous/electronic information- The weapon is essentially a bullpup mini-14 with a manually operated grenade launcher attached
Basic Information
The M32 assault rifle is based on the mini-14 design, but with several notable changes designed to keep the barrel, bolt and piston much more tightly held together, to increase accuracy, and the weapon is bullpup. The design is slightly longer, and utilizes a number of features from the M14 such as a gas cut off valve and rolling pin on the bolt to help keep the weapon stable. Essentially a bullpup mini-14, it also has a number of changes to improve reliability and accuracy, as well as general performance, and a few changes to decrease felt recoil such as increasing the length of travel and decreasing the cyclic rate. The weapon was chosen in part due to it's similarity to the M1 carbine and M14, and it's lightweight, being around just 6 pounds, lighter than even the AR-15 (generally 7 pounds). When used in conjunction with the 4.4 pound grenade launcher, the weapon is only approximately 10.6 pounds, well below the 17 pound weight of the XM29 or 13 pounds of a fully loaded M16 with a 40mm grenade launcher. When the thermal vision optic is added, the weapon's weight increases a further 2 pounds, which with a loaded KE magazine and 25mm grenade magazine increases the weight to approximately 13.5 pounds when fully loaded, putting it at slightly above a standard m16 with a grenade launcher. This allows the weapon to be utilized in replace of the standard grenadier weapon, by dropping both the weight of the assault rifle and grenade launcher. If the thermal vision optic is mounted on the backpack while utilizing a fiberoptic cable mounted on the gun instead, the weight drops even further.
The grenade launcher design is preoperatory, utilizing caseless 25mm grenades based on the XM29 and XM25 programs. The grenades are designed to be programmable to airburst, but are dual purpose and can also be used like regular grenades if not specifically programmed to be air-bursting. The grenades always air-burst, detonating a few inches from the target as a result of a relatively inexpensive electrooptical fuse, that bounces light and infrared off of the target like radar or sonar. Although they do not necessarily airburst in an ideal location like if programmed. The grenade launcher utilizes a reciprocating barrel, to help reduce felt recoil, which rotates in a spiral fashion to reduce it's length of travel, similar to the PX04 storm pistol. This helps to reduce felt recoil, as when the weapon fires the backwards recoil is absorbed by the barrel which serves as a countermass to slow the acceleration of the weapon down. Unlike a traditional semiautomatic weapon however, the bolt and barrel stay locked and do not unlock after the round is fired; instead, the user must manually unlock the bolt and chamber the next round. This is due to the broad variation in both length and recoil impulse of the rounds capable of being fired from the weapon. The mechanism is very similar to the M26 underbarrel 12 gauge shotgun accessory, in that it is manually operated, but it instead utilizes a reciprocating barrel to reduce felt recoil, similar to the PTRD-41 or metal storm grenade launcher. This design serves three purposes, the first of which is to significantly reduce felt recoil, as the 25mm grenades have approximately 8 times the energy of a standard 40mm grenade launcher and more energy than a .308, with felt recoil that is several times that of a 12 gauge shotgun. It is necessary when firing these grenades to reduce felt recoil substantially, and the reciprocating barrel and high to low pressure system both significantly reduce the felt recoil of the weapon, as well as the muzzle break. The action is manually operated to reduce both the weight and cost of the system, as prior programs with semiautomatic loading systems were excessively heavy, and this design helps to significantly lower the overall weight burden to the soldier. Third the manual loading significantly improves reliability, especially with a broad variety of different cartridges being available, which all have vastly different energy and recoil levels, making a semiautomatic weapon difficult to produce (akin to the difference of firing multiple loads of .300 black-out). The simplicity of the design greatly improves it's other areas of function, thus allowing it to be more practical for the average soldier.
Like the XM25 and XM29, the weapon comes with a thermal vision optic that has an integral laser range finder and has both auto-tracking capabilities that allows the weapon to automatically aim for the soldier, like the M7 XM157 Fire Control Optic, and also can be used to program the air-bursting grenades, as well as rifle grenades if mounted on the barrel. This thermal vision optic provides a x2.5 to 25 times magnification, and can see at night as well as day time as it relies on the heat outline of targets rather than visible light to see. The optic works even in the cold or heat and does not rely on the targets temperature but rather it's outline to give it's shape. The optic can see through smoke, fog, thin walls and certain types of barriers as infrared more easily passes through certain obstacles than visible light does, and does not need to adjust in a bright environment allowing seamless transition from day to night use or from a bright environment to dark one (such as moving from outside to inside a building). When used with a heads up display, it also allows a soldier to peek around corners without moving his entire body around an obstacle, but just the optic or weapon. Anything which gives off more heat than the background such as people, weapons, vehicles or animals will produce a characteristic glow, making identifying threats far easier as they literally glow from the background. Autotracking features that can recognize human or vehicle shapes are also easy to program, allowing it to quickly recognize vehicles by make and model and detect movement by humans on it's own. The weapon can not only allow the average soldier to much more easily hit moving targets at long range, as if the soldier was a trained sniper, but also allows these same features to be applied to the grenade portion as well, significantly improving accuracy. This same feature can also be used to aim and program rifle grenades, which often have equivalent power to an M72 LAW. As a result the weapon is not only an effective grenade launching platform, but also an effective marksmens rifle.
The weapon's primary KE or kinetic energy projectile is the 6.2mm caseless cartridge, which utilizes no case similar to the G11 allowing the cartridges to be lighter weight. The rounds are approximately 6.8 grams and travel at 850 m/s, generating approximately 2450 joules. The 6.2mm round was chosen given it's higher ballistic performance and better aerodynamics, having a G1 ballistic coefficient of 0.62, being significantly higher than the 5.56mm at 0.20 or the 7.62mm NATO at .35, and exceeding that even of 7.62mm Sniper rounds at 0.53 BC. The good aerodynamics mean high energy retention and flatter trajectory, allowing the round to match or exceed the range of much heavier bullets such as the 7.62mm NATO, while being closer to the ak-47 and 5.56mm in terms of overall size and recoil. While the round is inbetween both cartridges, performance wise against barriers it performs much more similarly to the 7.62mm x 39mm, having better stopping power against people and being more barrier blind, not ably against wood and concrete. It retains the good armor penetration of the 5.56mm having a comparably high velocity and high sectional density. The standard bullet uses a lead and copper outer coating with an internal armor piercing steel penetrator rod, improving armor penetration in a manner similar to the AP4 and AP5 5.56mm round, although utilizing a stainless steel penetrator rod instead of far more expensive tungsten.
The 25mm grenades are based on the XM25 program, although they are casseless utilizing a caseless propellant binder similar to the G11, LSAT and metal storm programs. They utilize 140 gram projectiles traveling at 250 m/s, capable of reaching out to 700 meters with some difficulty, a much longer range than the effective range of the 40mm grenade launcher at 150 meters. The flatter trajectory is due to the higher velocity and better aerodynamic performance The performance is roughly identical to 40mm grenades of the same type, as they are approximately the same size. The standard dual purpose HE grenade can get up to 3.5 inches of armor penetration and has a 10 meter causality radius as it is based on the HEI helldog round, which is an improvement over the standard 2 inches of armor penetration and 5 meter causality radius of the prior round. The 25mm grenades can be programmed to airburst utilizing a laser range finder to program exactly when the grenades should explode, several meters to or from the target, or can be fired without being programmed and will simply detonate a few inches from the ground. Airbursting allows the fragments to be more like to hit the target as it improves area coverage by approximately 300%, and results in less of the blast and fragmentation being absorbed by the ground. Normally the explosive blast of a projectile has a large portion absorbed by the ground which deflects the blast wards up in a V-shape, allowing soldiers a high probability of survival if they are laying prone. With air-bursting rounds this is eliminated, increasing the chance of hitting the target and making the probability of a kill much higher. The fragmentation is also designed to be aerodynamic and pointed, being more likely to pierce soft body armor. Specialty rounds from smoke, flashbang, flare, rubber, doorbreaching, and various shotgun rounds such as buck, bird, or flachette rounds exist for the weapon. These are also generally equal to a 40mm grenade or 12 gauge shotgun in terms of performance. The weapon can be used for door breaching as much as a 12 gauge shotgun like the M26 or Masterkey can as well.
