Researchers on the U.S. Army Research Laboratory go about their business daily engaged on projects to assist better serve the army and its members who protect our country. Sometimes the research inspires commercial companies to do additional research and expand on certain aspects to develop products in their own.
That is what happened with the military Research Laboratory’s, or ARL’s, research called “Inertial Reticle Technology,” where researchers who were then within the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate developed an idea to use advanced fire control technology to sniper weapons.
As because of the this idea, a fashionable fire control system for rifles was developed by a Texas-based company, which later partnered with another prominent gun manufacturer. Their partnership allowed for the event of a brand new shooting system, which they claim may revolutionize how targets are acquired. It’s called the precision-guided firearm.
According to a piece of writing in American Rifleman magazine, dated Dec. 17, 2013, a brand new integrated rifle and sighting system was introduced in January 2013, wherein a video screen scope with an internal laser rangefinder to measure the space to the objective and, using the newest in digital technology, factors in temperature, barometric pressure, incline/decline, cant, air density, spin drift, target movement and effect drift.
Raymond Von Wahlde, aerospace engineer, Vehicle Technology Directorate, learned about this discovery through his former colleagues Lucian Sadowski and Dr. Stephen Small both from Joint Service Small Arms Program who managed a project inside the 1990′s called, “Project White Feather.”
Small named the project as a tribute to famed sniper Gunnery Sgt. Carlos N. Hathcock II, often called “White Feather.” Von Wahlde found that the recent rifle was much like the technology he had coauthored a white paper on with Dennis Metz from EAI Corporation in August 1999, titled “Sniper Weapon Fire Control Error Budget Analysis,” data from which was included at the company’s website.
Von Wahlde contacted the corporate to look if those that developed their precision-guided firearms were aware about the Special Operations Command-sponsored project is called “Project White Feather.”
Von Wahlde said in his message, “we called it the ‘Inertial Reticle.’ It was the brainchild of Dr. Mark Kregel. Might the precision guided firearm trace its ancestry back no less than partly to ‘Project White Feather?’”
Von Wahlde went directly to say, “Your videos look remarkably like ours did back within the day. i’m impressed along with your implementation. We utilized actual inertial sensors at the weapon to stabilize the specified aim point. i admire your image processing method for doing so. Your method to trigger pull is sublime. We replaced the trigger with a switch that armed the system. A solenoid actually pulled the trigger. That was among the many least liked features of our prototype by the users. Adjusting the trigger force is brilliant.”
Within a number of days, Von Wahlde received a message back from the corporate.
“Thank you greatly in your email. I appreciate your work — Project White Feather is still the most productive compilation and serious study of sniper performance data that i’m acquainted with. We make everyone at the team read it. Thanks on your interest, would like to turn you the system sometime,” said Bret Boyd, vp of sales and marketing, TrackingPoint.
Von Wahlde, who was project engineer for far of the testing, said he gives plenty of credit to his former colleagues.
“The technology was the brain child of Dr. Mark Kregel (now retired) and which includes Tom Haug (also retired) and Tim Brosseau from WMRD, they constructed the prototype systems for the IRT (Inertial Reticle Technology),” said Von Wahlde. “I am honored to be a part of a team that served as an inspiration for these systems.”
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U.S. Army Research Laboratory is a part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command or RDECOM, which has the mission to develop technology and engineering solutions for America’s Soldiers.
RDECOM is a significant subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. AMC is the Army’s premier provider of materiel readiness-technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection and sustainment-to the whole force, around the spectrum of joint military operations. If a Soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, eats it or communicates with it, AMC delivers it.
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