Khyros said:
Okay... while the concept is interesting and potentially usefull for law enforcement, I'd like to hear how well it will work in the real world for soldiers. Throwing something that looks like a grenade into a building tends to get the folks inside riled up and they do nasty things like trigger their claymores and fire controlled bursts at the entry points... also.. that troopie who's watching an LCD screen to see what the device is looking at is not covering his assgned sector of fire... which is never a good thing. Now... on the other hand... thumping a 40mm HEDP or tossing a real hand grenade into the same location tends to avoid the unpleasant aspects of entering a defended structure...
Someone else other than the troopie could look through the eye. Section 29c or the errr "Greneyedier". Perhaps this guy could be held in the Plt HQ.
If it causes the Claymores to be fired when people AREN`T in the way, even better.
Problem with throwing REAL grenades in to houses in, for example, down town Basra; the people inside might just be havinga bad day.
One minute some loon comes in and declares Jihad from the kiddies bedroom window, then some Brtish Soldiers destroy the decor and smash the crockery with a mills bomb.
Or they get looked at inquistively with a mk2 eyeball?
The uses for these are quite varied. Hopefully the MoD will buy the design outright, and the patent, then sell them. This would bring the unit cost down, and thus they would be more expendable.
Their use by frontline tps, SF, EOD, SAR (Caving, or after earth quakes) and in various industrial arenas (checking inside pipes for example) could then help the MoD pay for the development costs.