Homing bullets, for a long time, were little more than the stuff of video games. The technology just wasn’t there to have a bullet deviate from its path very far, let alone home in on a target that started moving. Until now, thanks to DARPA.
In a video found by the Verge, you can see DARPA’s EXACTO bullets in action, and they’re fairly impressive. Out of six shots, the sniper connects with all six, and five out of six of which appear to hit center mass.
We’ve seen EXACTO at work before, but this footage shows how the bullet can track a moving target, and it’s actually almost scary. Especially when you get to the end of the video, where they give the rifle to some rando and he manages to hit the moving target as well.
It’s worth noting that this is a .50 caliber bullet paired to an optical tracking system, which means that only military snipers will have these and that you can easily defeat EXACTO by ducking behind something that will deflect a bullet. This system is more designed to take some of the complexity and math out of the shot, so snipers can take down more targets than it is to be racked into every rifle in the military.
This does, however, raise an important question: When’s DARPA going to get to work on a real-life Blue Shell?