FN America displays MTL-30 grenade launcher at AUSA 2025 following $2M US Army prototype award.

At AUSA 2025 in Washington, D.C., FN America displayed the MTL-30 Multi-Purpose Tactical Launcher following its receipt of a $2 million Prototype Project Opportunity Notice (PPON) contract from the U.S. Army. 

At AUSA 2025 in Washington, D.C., held 13 to 15 October 2025, FN America exhibited the MTL-30 Multi-Purpose Tactical Launcher as its candidate for the U.S. Army Precision Grenadier System, and the display followed an award of a $2 million Prototype Project Opportunity Notice contract to advance prototype maturation and development. The presentation at the Association of the United States Army made the launcher’s configuration, ergonomics, and equipment interfaces visible to military delegations and industry attendees, and FN intends to produce the system at its Columbia, South Carolina, plant while continuing testing and integration under the current award.
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The FN MTL-30 provides direct or indirect fire capability at squad or section level and can be configured with sights, optics or fire-control equipment to expand its tactical use in urban, woodland, and other contested environments. (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The MTL-30 is a shoulder-fired, soldier-portable, semi-automatic launcher chambered for 30 mm medium-velocity grenades that fly on a relatively flat trajectory and that FN rates with an effective direct-fire range of 500 metres. The launcher measures roughly 34 to 35 inches in overall length and has an unloaded weight of just over 10 pounds, excluding optics. Feeding is by detachable box magazines offered in three- or five-round capacities, which contrasts with legacy single-shot underbarrel and stand-alone 40 mm launchers that use a high-arcing flight path and have shorter effective ranges.

Semi-automatic grenade launchers, such as the FN MTL-30, automate the loading and extraction cycle so the operator does not manually chamber each round, allowing faster follow-on shots and higher sustained engagement rates than single-shot systems. When a round is fired, the propellant gases or recoil energy operate the launcher action using gas operation, recoil operation or blowback depending on the design; that energy unlocks the breech, extracts and ejects the spent case, and then feeds the next round from a magazine or belt into the chamber before the bolt or breech locks in battery, ready for the next trigger pull. Designs address recoil and controllability through buffering or dedicated recoil-mitigation mechanisms, and feeding methods and capacities vary by model from small detachable box magazines to larger belt feeds. Many modern semi-automatic launchers include modular rails and sighting interfaces to accept optical aiming devices, laser rangefinders or ballistic computers, and some integrated fire-control packages enable programmable munitions to be set to detonate at a calculated distance for counter-defilade or airburst effects.

The MTL-30’s mechanical and ergonomic features follow familiar small-arms patterns to ease operator handling and maintenance. The upper receiver provides a continuous MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny rail at 12 o’clock and M-LOK attachment points on the handguard for accessories and sighting systems, while the lower receiver mirrors an M4 pattern with ambidextrous bolt release, magazine release and safety selector plus a six-position telescoping buttstock and modular cheek risers. The design includes non-reciprocating, ambidextrous charging handles, multiple muzzle device and suppressor options, and an internal recoil mitigation system intended to reduce felt recoil and aid controllability during follow-up shots; the system is also designed to be serviceable at the user level and to retain parts commonality with other FN products.

The Precision Grenadier System concept that the MTL-30 addresses comprises a weapon, an integrated fire control and a family of ammunition intended to provide counter-defilade effects, door breaching, close quarters battle, counter-UAS employment and effects against light armoured vehicles at squad level. Ammunition types associated with that concept include high-explosive airburst rounds, close-quarters shotgun-style rounds, counter-drone munitions, proximity-detonating rounds and armour-piercing variants. One development figure cited for medium-velocity rounds is a muzzle velocity near 203 metres per second to produce a flatter trajectory and shorter time-to-target, and program planning has included concepts such as issuing a dedicated grenadier per squad carrying multiple magazines, for example seven magazines totalling forty-five rounds with a mission-dependent mix of types.

The MTL-30’s development sits alongside other contemporaneous efforts to meet the same capability gap, and program history highlights tradeoffs that must be resolved. Earlier initiatives such as the XM25 Counter-Defilade Target Engagement weapon were cancelled in 2018 after concerns about weight and cost, and competing designs currently under development include Barrett and MARS’s Squad Support Rifle System and its 30 mm entry, Rheinmetall’s HAMMR derivative based on SSW40 work, and a Northrop Grumman and Colt collaboration on a 25 mm magazine-fed design. Program-level considerations include not only technical performance but also sustainment, logistics and interoperability, since NATO does not have a harmonised 30 mm infantry grenade standard and introducing a new calibre would require new supply chains for ammunition and spare parts.

Near-term industrial and programmatic steps emphasise incremental maturation, integration and testing rather than production. The immediate $2 million award supports prototype work intended to improve reliability, integrate candidate fire control optics or sighting suites, and complete demonstrations against performance criteria that will inform any future down-select and budget decisions. Production plans centre on FN America’s South Carolina facility and draw on the company’s manufacturing experience with existing machine guns and grenade launchers; the activity funded by the award is explicitly risk-reduction and prototype-focused rather than serial production.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.