Army Puts Out Call for 'Magic' Hovering Bullet

The Pentagon certainly has imagination when it comes to making up dream weapons. It's put out a new list of weapons small businesses should try to design for it, and one of them is a "Nonlethal Warhead of Miniature Organic Precision Munitions," or what Wired describes as, "one part bazooka round; one part suicidal drone; one part stun round." Essentially, the Army wants a bullet that can acquire a target, close in on it in less than 20 seconds, and then somehow incapacitate it without killing it.

If it can't find its target, this hypothetical wonder-bullet will hover until it can. The whole thing is based on a nascent project called the "Lethal Miniature Aerial Munitions System," which the Pentagon itself has likened to a "magic bullet." The new project calls for a non-lethal "warhead" for that system—the Pentagon suggests incapacitating targets with something "mechanical, such as rubber balls; acoustic; chemical; electrical; or dazzle." (More US Army stories.)