Objective Individual Combat Weapon
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 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.
A working XM25 prototype is tested in 2005; this was part of OICW Increment 2
The final four ACR program test entrants
The Heckler & Koch MP7, conceptualized in the late 1990s as the kinetic energy component of the SABR (later XM29); the XM29 was put on hold, but the MP7 entered production in 2001
One tester is kneeling with a XM8 Carbine and XM320 attached, the other has the XM8 sharpshooter
The Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR) was a United States Army program, started in 1986, to find a replacement for the M16 assault rifle. Under the stress of battle the average soldier with an M16 may shoot a target at 45 meters, but hit probability is reduced to one out of ten shots on target by 220 meters. Because of this, the ACR program was initiated in the late 1980s to create a weapon that could double the hit probability. The ACR program was preceded by older programs such as the Special Purpose Individual Weapon. The program ended in 1990 after an expenditure of approximately US$300 million.
From top to bottom, ACR test rifles from AAI, HK, Steyr, and Colt
Colt ACR/M16A2E2