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Special Purpose Individual Weapon
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<p>The Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) was a long-running <a href="/facts/United_States_Army/WACWBEK9">United States Army</a> program to develop, in part, a <a href="/facts/Flechette/lPwq62Ko">flechette</a>-firing "rifle", though other concepts were also involved. The concepts continued to be tested under the Future Rifle Program and again in the 1980s under the <a href="/facts/Advanced_Combat_Rifle/lvPRX1A9">Advanced Combat Rifle</a> program, but neither program resulted in a system useful enough to warrant replacing the <a href="/facts/M16_rifle/kre1Wcpd">M16</a>. </p>