
The Objective Individual Combat Weapon or OICW was the next-generation service
rifle competition that was under development as part of the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
OICW program; the program was eventually discontinued without bringing the weapon out of the prototype phase. The acronym OICW is often used to refer to the entire weapons program.
It was started in the aftermath of the
Advanced Combat Rifle (or ACR) during the 1980s. Like the ACR program, it has largely been a failure in terms of achieving the specific program goals (e.g., replacing the
M16) and has cost millions of dollars, but has resulted in many innovative weapons and weapon concepts as well as offshoot programs of its own.
Development

The central idea of the program was to develop a rifle that enabled the attacking of targets behind cover by using airburst munitions. The munitions were to be much smaller than pre-existing
grenades and
grenade launchers, but large enough to be effective. The idea was refined into a combination of a short
assault rifle and semi-automatic, low-velocity
cannon
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder duri ...
firing air-bursting munitions. The OICW aimed to use advances in computer technology in a weapon that fired grenades automatically pre-set to explode above or beside targets hidden from view. Fragmentation from the exploding grenades could hit the target when normal rifle fire could not.
The winners of the first competition for the project during the 1990s were ATK and firearms manufacturer
Heckler & Koch with the
XM29 OICW. They went on to build numerous prototypes of the rifle for the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
military in the late 1990s. These projects centered on using a programmable 20 mm airburst munition-firing rifle by itself or with other projectile-based weapons attached. The 20 mm launcher was analyzed in various configurations, including a launcher by itself, with a 5.56 mm weapon (based on the
HK G36), or with a
MP7
The Heckler & Koch MP7 (German: ''Maschinenpistole 7'') is a personal defense weapon chambered for the HK 4.6×30mm armor-piercing cartridge designed by German defence manufacturer Heckler & Koch.
It was designed (together with the new cartrid ...
PDW.
By the early 2000s, the weapon had settled on a design and was classified as the XM29. The XM29 was based on the
HK CAWS (Close Assault Weapon System) (Cal. 18.5×76mm or 12 Gauge non-conventional). However, the weapon had serious problems: it did not meet weight or cost targets, and the 20 mm High Explosive Air Bursting (HEAB) did not seem to be lethal enough in testing. To compound matters, the kinetic-energy component had to be light and short in length. As a result, the
5.56×45mm NATO
The 5.56×45mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 5.56 NATO, but often pronounced "five-five-six") is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge family developed in the late 1970s in Belgium by FN Herstal. It consists of the SS109, L110, and ...
barrel had a length of only 250 mm (9.8 inches), which is too short to generate enough muzzle velocity to be effective as a standard infantry rifle. It was also too heavy and too large to be operated effectively by a soldier.
This resulted in the army starting development on new weapons, and finally shelving the XM29 in 2004. The kinetic energy component split off into the
XM8 rifle program and the airburst component developed into the
XM25 airburst weapon. According to a presentation by
Major Kevin Finch, Chief of the Small Arms Division of the
Directorate of Combat Developments at the U.S. Army Infantry Center, there were three main parts to the OICW program:
* Increment 1 (OICW 1) was a competition for a whole weapon system family similar to the
XM8. The weapon system was to potentially replace the
M4 carbine
The M4 carbine (officially Carbine, Caliber 5.56 mm, M4) is a 5.56×45mm NATO, gas-operated, magazine-fed carbine developed in the United States during the 1980s. It is a shortened version of the M16A2 assault rifle.
The M4 is extensively ...
,
M16 rifle
The M16 rifle (officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-rou ...
,
M249 light machine gun
A light machine gun (LMG) is a light-weight machine gun designed to be operated by a single infantryman, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. LMGs firing cartridges of the same caliber as the other riflemen of the ...
and some
M9 pistols. Other
arms companies had contended that the OICW project goals had changed enough to warrant another competition. Potential challengers could include a weapons system based on an updated M16, the
Steyr AUG
The Steyr AUG () is an Austrian bullpup assault rifle chambered for the 5.56×45mm NATO intermediate cartridge, designed in the 1960s by Steyr-Daimler-Puch, and now manufactured by Steyr Arms GmbH & Co KG.
It was adopted by the Austrian A ...
, the
FN SCAR, and potentially any other manufacturer that fulfilled the Army requirements for participating. It also listed the shotgun being replaced by a modular shotgun system (
XM26 LSS) mounted on the OICW 1 winner. The Increment 1 portion was put on an eight-week hold in July 2005, primarily to take into account input and needs of other services. On October 31, 2005, the OICW I program was cancelled. The reason given for the cancellation was stated as: "This action has been taken in order for the Army to reevaluate its priorities for small caliber weapons, and to incorporate emerging requirements identified during
Operation Enduring Freedom and
Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Government will also incorporate studies looking into current capability gaps during said reevaluation."
* OICW Increment 2 was a stand-alone airburst weapon the (
XM25). This is a standalone launcher that uses bigger 25 mm munition, and was intended to be a special applications and support weapon, not an individual combat weapon as previous models were. In 2005, the weapon underwent limited field trials and combat testing.
* OICW Increment 3 was the XM29. The M203 was listed as being replaced by a combination of Increments 2 and 3. The M249 was also to be partially replaced by a lightweight MG (LMGA, now LSAT), which was listed as being the successor to the
M60 and
M240.
Related weapons

In the aftermath of the ACR program, the OICW program began. There were two main contenders, one design by AAI and its companies, and the other by ATK (with H&K and other companies); ATK and H&K won.
OICW concepts/prototypes in the 1990s:
* 20 mm smart grenade and 5.56 mm rifle in side by side configuration
* 20 mm smart grenade stand alone unit (XM25)
* 20 mm smart grenade and
MP7
The Heckler & Koch MP7 (German: ''Maschinenpistole 7'') is a personal defense weapon chambered for the HK 4.6×30mm armor-piercing cartridge designed by German defence manufacturer Heckler & Koch.
It was designed (together with the new cartrid ...
* 20 mm smart grenade and 5.56 mm rifle in over-under configuration (
XM29 OICW)
Some weapon programs involved with, stemming from, or using technology from the OICW project include:
*
XM1018 XM1 may refer to:
* 3730 Hurban (1983 XM1), a main-belt asteroid
* The Fujifilm X-M1, a mirrorless digital camera
* The M1 Abrams (or XM1 prototype), a US main battle tank
* The Marske XM-1, an experimental glider plane
* An Sirius XM Satellite Rad ...
(25×40mm HEAB Ammunition)
*
XM8 rifle (5.56 kinetic energy component)
*
M320 (40 mm grenade launcher originally developed for the XM8)
*
XM25 (Uses low velocity 25×40mm smart airburst munition, semi-automatic standalone grenade launcher)
*
XM109 (Uses high velocity 25×59mm munition,
anti-materiel rifle)
*
XM307 ACSW
The XM307 Advanced Crew Served Weapon (ACSW) was a developmental 25 mm belt-fed automatic grenade launcher with programmable airburst capability. It is the result of the ''OCSW'' or ''Objective Crew Served Weapon'' project. It is lightweight and ...
(Uses high velocity 25×59mm smart airburst munition, automatic grenade launcher)
**
XM312 (.50 BMG version of XM307)
*
Mk 47 (Mk 47 Mod 0) (40 mm automatic grenade launcher capable of using smart 40 mm airburst grenades)
*
Land Warrior
*
XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System (A lightweight 12-gauge bolt-action accessory shotgun)
See also
*
80.002
*
Advanced Individual Combat Weapon
*
FN F2000
*
PAPOP
*
Daewoo K11
*
Neopup PAW-20
*
QTS-11
*
Special Purpose Individual Weapon
The Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) was a long-running United States Army program to develop, in part, a workable flechette-firing "rifle", though other concepts were also involved. The concepts continued to be tested under the Future Ri ...
*
NIVA XM1970
*
Advanced Combat Rifle
*
HK CAWS
*
List of individual weapons of the U.S. Armed Forces
This is a list of weapons served individually by the United States armed forces. While the general understanding is that crew-served weapons require more than one person to operate them, there are important exceptions in the case of both squad a ...
*
List of crew served weapons of the US Armed Forces
*
List of modern infantry related terms and acronyms
List of abbreviations, acronyms and initials related to military subjects such as modern armour, artillery, infantry, and weapons, along with their definitions.
A
* AA – anti-aircraft
* AA – AEGIS Ashore
* AAA – anti-aircraft artillery "Tr ...
External links
More information including picturesJane's Defense news on OICW program in May 2005Janes Defense news on OICW program in August 2000{Dead link, date=April 2020 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes
DefenseReview entry on sources sought for Non-Developmental multi-configurable 5.56 mm modular weapon systemMilitary Factory Small ArmsOICW I canceled
Assault rifles
Grenade launchers
Trial and research firearms of the United States