25 mm caliber is a specific size of popular

autocannon An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber ( or more) armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bulle ...

ammunition. It has also been recently used for the Barrett XM109 anti-materiel rifle. Such ammunition includes the

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

-standard 25×137mm and 25×184mm, the Soviet 25x218mmSR, and the Chinese 25×183mmB.

Usage

The 25 mm round can be used in both an anti-materiel and anti-personnel fashion. When operating in the anti-personnel role, a 25 mm weapon armed with HE rounds can effectively kill large numbers of opposing troops either in the open or in light fortifications. When operating in the anti-materiel role, a 25 mm weapon armed with armor-piercing rounds can disable many

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...

and vehicles, including some

main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the role of armor-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more powerful engines, better suspension s ...

s. The US military uses 25 mm weapons in their AV-8B Harrier, AC-130 gunship, M2 Bradley, LAV-25,

F-35 Lightning II The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions. It is also able to provide ele ...

and as a standard ship-based munition in the

Mk 38 The Mark 38 25 mm Machine Gun System (MGS) is a shipboard weapon system designed to protect warships primarily from a variety of surface threats, especially small, fast surface craft. It consists of an M242 Bushmaster chain gun mounted on ...

autocannon.

Types of 25 mm ammunition

Several sub-types of the NATO 25 mm

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...

are available—the most common being armor-piercing, high-explosive, sabot,

tracer Tracer may refer to: Science * Flow tracer, any fluid property used to track fluid motion * Fluorescent tracer, a substance such as 2-NBDG containing a fluorophore that is used for tracking purposes * Histochemical tracer, a substance used for tr ...

, and practice rounds. Cartridges are usually composed of a combination of the aforementioned categories. For example, the M791 is an armor-piercing discarding sabot with tracer (APDS-T) round. It is used against lightly armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery, and aerial targets such as

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribut ...

s and slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft.

25 mm weapons

Each weapon is listed with its cartridge type appended.

Current weapons

M242 Bushmaster The M242 Bushmaster chain gun is a 25 mm (25×137mm) single-barrel chain-driven autocannon. It is used extensively by the U.S. military, such as in the Bradley fighting vehicle, as well as by other NATO members and some other nations in grou ...

: 25×137mm * GAU-12/22 Equalizer: 25×137mm * GIAT M811: 25×137mm * Oerlikon KBA: 25×137mm *

Oerlikon KBB Oerlikon may refer to: Companies * OC Oerlikon (former ''Unaxis''), a Swiss technology conglomerate, or one of its business units: ** Oerlikon Solar ** Oerlikon Balzers ** Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum * Oerlikon-Bührle, a company in Zürich, Switzer ...

: 25×184mm * Oerlikon KBD: 25×184mm * Type 61: 25×218mmSR * Type 95 SPAAA: 25×183mmB * ZPT-90: 25×183mmB

Historical weapons

25 mm Hotchkiss anti-aircraft gun The Hotchkiss 25 mm anti-aircraft gun was an anti-aircraft autocannon designed by the French firm of Hotchkiss. It served in World War II with French, Japanese and other nations' forces. Other than the designer company and the calibre, this ...

/ Type 96 25 mm AT/AA gun: 25×163mm *

25 mm Hotchkiss anti-tank gun 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on each ...

: 25×193.5mmR * 25 mm M1940 anti-aircraft gun: 25×218mmSR * 25 mm Bofors M/32 anti-aircraft gun: 25x205mmR (initial) or 25x187mmR (later)

External links

Federation of American Scientists: 25mm Ammunition
{Dead link, date=April 2019 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Large-caliber cartridges