Photos: Army designates year's best inventions

A soldier pulls the lanyard on an M-777A2 howitzer for the first firing in Afghanistan of a GPS-guided Excalibur round. Besides being digitally programmable, the M-777 is about 9,800 pounds lighter than the more common M-198 howitzer, according to the Army. Greater accuracy for the projectiles, the Army says, means less collateral damage in the target area.

Photo by Sgt. Henry Selzer/U.S. Army

Caption by Jonathan Skillings