Metal Storm and General Dynamics have been awarded a research contract to develop a vehicle mounted non-lethal counter-personnel[^1] weapons system. Military & Areospace reports …

The system is to dispense a new non-lethal munition that will incapacitate personnel through light, sound, and pressure stimuli and will provide longer range, greater area coverage, extended duration, and better scalability of effects than current non-lethal weapon systems, Marine Corps officials say.

Metal Storms technology makes perfect sense as a vehicle mounted anti-personnel system. The Metal Storm 3LG (pictured in the video above) is semi-automatic but light weight and compact (no protruding magazine). It would be much easier to add to a vehicle alongside lethal weapons than a belt-fed or cylinder fed 40mm launcher.

As an aside, the political correctness of less lethal systems always amuses me. The word “pressure stimuli” is used instead of “blunt force trauma” to describe whacking a person in the chest with the force of a baseball bat! I also like how they use the term “counter-personnel” instead of “anti-personnel”.

[ Many thanks to Daniel E. Watters for the info ]