The US Army has spent multiple years looking at the future of Infantry Section grenade firepower, pursuing a direct line of fire weapon using airbursting ammunition to deliver increased lethality behind cover and greater reach and precision. The project has encountered difficulties and rethinks along the way, most notably with the cancellation of the 25mm XM25 grenade launcher “PUNISHER” in 2018. We could track the origins of this project further back, to the equally abortive Objective Individual Combat Weapon or OICW, but this is beyond the scope of this article.

Now, the requirement for the Precision Grenadier System (PGS) is for “a Soldier portable, shoulder fired, semi-automatic, magazine fed, integrated armament system (weapon, ammunition, fire control) that enables rapid, precision engagements to destroy personnel targets in defilade and in the open with increased lethality and precision compared to legacy grenade launchers, while also not impacting Soldier mobility. The PGS is anticipated to be deployed as a Soldier’s primary weapon system, providing organic, close-quarters combat, counter-defilade, and counter-UAS capabilities through a family of ammunition to ranges in concert with the rest of the squad’s battlespace, and requiring minimal resupplies to support. This capability shall provide overmatch to comparable threat grenade launchers in near-peer formations in future operating environments to include urban, jungle, woodland, subterranean, and desert, in day, night, or obscured conditions”. Key to the PGS capability will be HE Airburst (HEAB) programmable ammunition, exploded at the correct position to deliver lethality behind cover, or against drones in the air.

The Precision Grenadier System project is to take off decisively in FY 2026 according to the Pentagon budget documents and multiple firms have showcased their proposals, including FN, Barrett, Colt and others.

On the way to the PGS Program of Record, in February 2025 the Army published a Prototype Project Opportunity Notice (PPON) inviting interested companies to put forward their offers so they could be given funding to be matured in “direct support of the PGS System Concept”. It must be noted that the PPON is a risk reduction effort separate from the Precision Grenadier Program of Record with the goal of developing technologies associated with the current capability gap.

The PPON was launched with the intent to award multiple Fixed Price Protoype Projects, and FN America has been awarded a first such deal, with 2 million USD in funding.

The RN Multi-purpose Tactical Launcher 30 mm (MTL-30), designed in the US, will be manufactured in the RN plant in South Carolina. The MTL-30 has M4-style ergonomics including fully ambidextrous bolt catch, magazine release and safety selector, plus telescopic buttstock with modular cheek riser. The weapon comes with integrated contiguous top rail for mounting of sights, plus M-LOK side slots with MIL-STD Picatinny rails for further accessories. It fires 30 mm medium-velocity grenades and is fed by box magazines for 3 or 5 rounds. Importantly, the weapon contains both dimensions and weight: it is 35 inches in length and 8.5 inches tall, and weighs just over 10 lb. The MTL-30 is meant to enable precision engagement of targets “beyond 500 meters”. This is an essential part of the concept, which is meant to overcome precision and range limitations connected with the usual ballistic trajectory, low-velocity 40 mm grenades fired by launchers (either rifle mounted or stand alone) such as the M203 and M320.

Under the PPON, the government is deliberately looking at what industry can offer, rather than work on its specific requirements for PGS. In answers to interested firms questions it specified it will not provide ammunition or fuzes, wanting instead to see what industry can put forward.

The PGS is now openly looked at also as a counter-drone option for the infantry squad.

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