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" So far, our coverage of the DARPATech 2007 conference in Anaheim, Calif. has focused on autonomous robots and potentially life-saving medical technology. But this is a Department of Defense-sponsored event, so what about stuff that kills people, or prevents U.S. personnel from getting killed?  Our honest assessment of the conference&amp;#039;s various presentations and progress updates is this: DARPA isn&amp;#039;t all that violent. There are definitely DARPA-funded weapons systems in development, ranging from a hybrid &amp;quot;scramjet&amp;quot; cruise missile to an advanced sniper rifle, but the more lethal-minded defense contractors tend to have massive war chests at their disposal. The tiny biotech labs and upstart communications firms are the ones most in need of a few million dollars in seed money. That&amp;#039;s not to say that DARPA is all lab coats and warm wishes. As Iraq and Afghanistan have proven, no amount of precise munitions or robotic reconnaissance will eliminate the old-fashioned blood-and-guts firefight. Here are some of the programs that might give U.S. warfighters an edge. And for the record, as goofy as the term &amp;quot;warfighters&amp;quot; might sound, and as much as we&amp;#039;ve tried to avoid it in the past, it&amp;#039;s actually the most economical way to describe members of every branch and every service. It avoids any confusion over whether someone is a troop, soldier, sailor, pilot, etc. And like it or not, it doesn&amp;#039;t seem to be going away. Lighter Bullets (and Guns) ATK, self-described maker of &amp;quot;bullets, bombs and rocket motors,&amp;quot; had a suite two floors above the main exhibit hall, where the company was showing off a slew of projects in development. Some were DARPA-funded, others were predominantly in-house, but the lines can get a little blurry. For example, DARPA is funding an effort to develop lighter ammunition, replacing the current brass shell casings with an aluminum alloy, potentially halving the overall weight of the rounds used in assault rifles and other small arms. The result would be a lighter load for infantry, and less fuel burned during transport (both air and ground). Russian scientists tooled around with this same kind of aluminum alloy years ago, but ATK&amp;#039;s challenge is to make the lighter rounds perform just as well as current ones, and to avoid costly changes in the manufacturing process. But ATK is also working with the Joint Service Small Arms Program on a caseless ammunition system, which would eliminate shell casings altogether; it would require new, compatible weapon systems. German gun-maker Heckler &amp;amp;amp; Koch made a run at caseless ammo with various prototypes of its G11, but that assault rifle never went into production. ATK is currently testing its experimental caseless rounds with an M-249 light machine gun, as well as developing a new gun (no further details on the rounds or specs of that new weapon, though). The goal of this program is, again, to cut ammo weight in half (at least). And since props are a salesman&amp;#039;s best friend, ATK built a mockup of a massive 25mm autocannon to help demonstrate a third, related program. With some proprietary design and material changes, ATK claims to have developed a 25mm autocannon that weighs about as much as a .50-caliber heavy machine gun, the kind mounted on many Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan. A 25mm is a major step up in terms of range and power. They&amp;#039;re currently mounted on Bradley fighting vehicles and in some Naval vessels. FA-18 fighters, by comparison, use 20mm guns. ATK rep James Chew said the company has been firing rounds with its 25mm prototype, and has started shopping the program around to potential buyers. Short-Term Impact: ATK isn&amp;#039;t releasing timelines for its caseless and lighter-cased rounds, which generally means deployment is barely a gleam in anyone&amp;#039;s eye. Approving new small arms has historically been an incredibly drawn-out process, so it&amp;#039;s doubtful that program will transition to production in the near future. The lightweight 25mm autocannon, however, seems to have significantly more potential as a product, providing there&amp;#039;s enough interest. Unless it&amp;#039;s prohibitively expensive or prone to mechanical problems, a widespread upgrade from .50 cal. to 25mm makes perfect sense, especially for warfighters dealing with gun battles on a routine basis. Crosswinds Sensor System for Snipers There were plenty of tight-lipped program managers at DARPATech, and a few outright refusals, but getting info about the Crosswinds Sensor System for Snipers (C-WINS, for short) was like finding a polar bear in a blizzard, chasing him onto thin ice, and then pulling his teeth while he rips you to ribbons. We did talk to the C-WINS&amp;#039; program manager, and he gave us the bare bones--unconfirmed through DARPA. C-WINS is intended to improve a sniper&amp;#039;s accuracy, increasing the chances of a hit on the first shot. Most snipers operate as part of a two-man team, with a spotter watching the target through his own optics (a spotter scope or binoculars), and helping the sniper adjust for range, wind and other factors. It&amp;#039;s an accuracy-by-committee approach. If the first shot goes wide, the spotter might relay that it struck a concrete wall 1 ft. to the left of the target.  The goal of C-WINS isn&amp;#039;t to eliminate the spotter, but to make his job a little easier. It uses lasers to detect the range to target, as well as the speed and direction of intervening crosswinds. This is particularly important in urban areas, where tightly spaced streets and buildings can generate unpredictable drafts and eddies between the sniper and the target.  With the spotter aiming the system at the target, it automatically gauges crosswinds at various ranges along the planned trajectory, calculates their effect on the bullet&amp;#039;s path (taking into account the type of round and the weapon that&amp;#039;s firing it), and wirelessly communicates with the scope. The result is a tiny red dot superimposed on the scope sight, representing the corrected aim point. Then, the sniper simply has to shift the sight until the red dot is centered on the target, and fire away. It&amp;#039;s arguable that followup systems could innovate spotters right out of a job, but the current program still requires a two-man operation. Although the system is designed to work with a wide range of rifles and machine guns, the sniper-assistance angle is the most obvious one. Short-Term Impact: The display allowed us to look through the scope, hit a button and see a little red dot to the right of the cross hairs. But it was a hands-on demonstrator, not a prototype or mockup. Until a feasibility study is completed, there&amp;#039;s no telling if or when C-WINS will be making snipers more lethal than ever. Magneto-Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM) Whether you call it a Magneto-Hydrodynamic Explosive, or simply MAHEM, this program sounds like the Pentagon finally stopped beating around the bush and built a proper comic book doomsday weapon. That&amp;#039;s obviously not the case, but MAHEM still feels a bit like mad science.  The goal is to make it easier for infantry to take out vehicles. Current shaped-charge warheads aren&amp;#039;t exactly slouches--designed to penetrate a vehicle&amp;#039;s armor with a sharply focused blast, Hellfire missiles and other munitions have proven incredibly effective against tanks and other heavily armored targets. But MAHEM is focusing on smaller, shoulder-launched warheads, which tend to be less powerful than a fighter or gunship-launched munition.  Instead of using high explosives (HE) to punch a hole in vehicle armor, this weapon takes an almost ludicrously high-tech approach, using a magnetic field to launch a spike into the target. As the round travels, a flux compression generator generates a mega-amp of current, and a powerful magnetic field. When the nose hits the vehicle, the round explodes, and the energy released by the sudden collapse of that magnetic field creates a &amp;quot;self-forging penetrator,&amp;quot; or a metal jet. In theory, that spike has more kinetic energy than an HE-driven projectile. And as grisly as the result sounds--a rod that impales the vehicle and its occupants--it&amp;#039;s no less gruesome than the magma squirted into a tank by a Hellfire missile. Short-Term Impact: A similar type of round has been demonstrated on a larger scale, but the current aim is to cram MAHEM technology into an unguided round that can be fired from a standard, single-use, disposable AT4 launcher. It will take around one and a half to two years of testing to find out whether the new round works, and then it&amp;#039;s up to whichever branch wants it (most likely the Army) to get the MAHEM into production. And considering the fact that U.S. troops have basically destroyed or disabled every hostile armored vehicle in Iraq and Afghanistan, there&amp;#039;s no real need to rush this program to deployment. MAHEM sits squarely on the fence between the Cold War-minded antivehicle weapon systems that seem so irrelevant today, and the more agile, infantry-empowering programs that provide more options to the troops who, in this current era of completely asymmetric warfare, are actually in harm&amp;#039;s way. Hard-Wire DARPA Armor This program had probably the most interesting display at the conference--a mocked-up Hummer with one door that had actually been fired at with a variety of different rounds. The door, which had been reinforced with Hardwire armor, was severely gouged in places, but none of the rounds, including .50 caliber and 20mm shells, had punched an actual hole. But the damage told the tale, exposing a mesh of ultra-high-tensile steel-reinforced plastic.  As the contractor manning the booth described it, Hardwire acts as a kind of rebar cage for ceramic armor, making it much more resilient, while keeping the weight down (as compared to simply adding steel layers). And to at least partially demonstrate one of Hardwire&amp;#039;s side benefits, the contractors had installed a flat-planel screen on the interior of the mocked-up, Humvee-style vehicle, with a video of what the bullets-vs.-door test looked and sounded like from the inside. The nonreinforced door seemed to be punctured by every round that hit it, and the sound of steel giving way was massive and ringing. The Hardwire door, by comparison, muffled the sound significantly, and despite lots of shaking and a few chips of paint flying loose as the door deformed under the larger rounds, nothing broke through. Steel might have been just as effective at resisting damage, but as the contractor put it, the vehicle would have been &amp;quot;ringing like the Liberty bell.&amp;quot; For personnel getting hammered by shrapnel from an IED or small-arms fire following an IED detonation, armor becomes a little less helpful when it can&amp;#039;t prevent potential hearing damage. Short-Term Impact: Unlike most of the programs at the conference, this one is already seeing at least limited use in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hardwire is being applied on a case-by-case basis to doors, hatches or basically any flat surface on a vehicle or building, and it has even been used to reinforce some structures in New York City (though the contractor wasn&amp;#039;t allowed to say exactly what or where). That&amp;#039;s nice to know for whomever&amp;#039;s in those mystery buildings, but with IED attacks taking such a heavy toll in Iraq, this kind of technology could have an impact. The downside of Hardwire is the same as nearly every other &amp;quot;up-armoring&amp;quot; solution: cost. Hardwire costs around the same as adding steel, but it adds less weight, meaning better fuel economy and less of an ongoing maintenance burden. Which makes it a potentially smarter way to armor up, but like any silver bullet--or silver shield--someone has to foot the bill. 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