October 7, 2025: Wide Area Munition/WAM was an idea that began with an Army War College quip. The way to attrit Soviet armored vehicles invading West Germany was to create walking talking mines to disrupt the Soviet offensive with mobility kills and occasional knock outs of Soviet tanks and APCs.

Here are three of NATO’s alternative tactical/operational options for fighting the war in Central Europe.

Option 1: fight a wild mechanized battle supported by NATO air and win on every avenue of approach from Austria to the Baltic, but definitely win in the Fulda Gap to Frankfurt corridor. A gamble? Yes.

Option 2 Have light infantry with anti-tank weapons positioned in depth to absorb the Soviet tank thrust. The idea was attributed to a Bundeswehr general named Loeser – hence Americans labeling it The Loser. That said, Ukraine with advanced anti-vehicle weapons has run a modified version of the Loeser.

Option 3 Use allied armor and mech to canalize the Soviets then, when a couple of tank divisions entered a fire zone, annihilate them using small tactical nuclear 155 mm artillery rounds producing a .1 kiloton explosion.

Option 3 risked possible escalation to theater and strategic nuclear weapons. Which is why the Bundeswehr toyed with Option 2.

The Wide Area Munition was a robot anti-tank light infantryman. A static, seismic and audio sentient robot --- and definitely a Textron project before its time. The end of the Cold War killed WAM as a U.S. weapons project. Who needs to spend money to stop a mechanized attack in Europe – the Russian threat has evaporated!

As indicated, Ukraine has revived the concept of wide area anti-vehicle munitions, especially one that can be integrated with other smart but comparatively inexpensive weapons and sensor systems. Textron claims the XM204 is the only system available of its kind providing autonomous terrain shaping capabilities. The idea is the system forces the attacker to make difficult choices about entering the area seeded with XM204s. Here’s how it works: the weapon sensor detects using audio, seismic, visual, or other sensors to identify the vehicle. The system fires the munition upward. The smart munition picks up the target then aims for the engine or the crew compartment.

In concept, the presence of the XM204 forces the attacker to either stop and clear the mines, or choose an alternative route, or accept casualties and attempt to run the minefield. Textron says the XM204 is another step toward an advanced anti-vehicle precision munition system.

The primitive 1986 WAM was the first step.

Austin Bay