#xm29

July HF Patreon Wallpaper - Heckler & Koch OICW

This month’s Historical Firearms desktop wallpaper features a decidedly futuristic historical firearm, HK's Objective Individual Combat Weapon. This was HK's attempt to combine an assault rifle with a grenade launcher that fired 20mm High Explosive smart ordnance!

The wallpaper features HK's original US patent drawings which show details of weapon's concept. Along with a great original publicity photograph.

More on the HK OICW/XM29 here

If you enjoy the content I post, please consider supporting the blog via Patreon, there’s a couple of other perks available but each month you can download a hi-res desktop wallpaper like the one above! As always thanks for your continuing support, I really appreciate it!  

The Security for the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, stands guard as she visits the Malkohi Internally Displaced Person Camp in Yola, Nigeria, on April 22, 2016. Power was traveling to Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria to highlight the growing threat Boko Haram poses to the Lake Chad Basin region.

Andrew Harnik / AP                                

I just learned something today that blew my mind.

The Republic of Korea Army has an OICW. In service.

It's just like the XM29 OICW, which was supposed to be the future of the US Army soldier. The OICW fired a 5.56mm round like any other NATO rifle. The big gimmick was that in addition to that, it had a built in 20mm airburst grenade launcher with a fancy fire control computer. 

That's the XM29. It never caught on because frankly, it's huge. It was also really complicated and didn't work well enough to justify the costs. 

Back when this program was going on, this gun was the future. An assault rifle combined with something that shot fully automatic explosive 20mm rounds. It sounds like something out of Warhammer 40k. I remember when every single video game was parading this thing around as the ultimate weapon and then it never happened.