I remember laughing at an old British defence advertisement for a machine gun about 100 years ago. This gun was designed to fire round bullets for killing Christians but could be changed to square bullets for Muslims! Beat that. Well perhaps BAE systems just have, since they are now developing environmentally friendly weapons. For example bullets without lead in them. So the next time an Insurgent is fired upon with such a device he can thank BAE systems for thinking of his well being! http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/350925.html
Perhaps they are designed to make them die of laughing like the Monty python joke.

More seriously, the reason is supposed to avoid civilian and friendly causalities, but perhaps it is a clumsy attempt to show BAE systems as a corporately responsible company! Somehow I think this idea may backfire.

This raises the question why haven’t weapons such as bullets and fragmentation parts been designed with poisonous chemical or biological substances in them, since a much smaller fragment would be lethal and therefore many more of them could be used for a given weight of munition. Perhaps they have and they come under some chemical or biological weapons treaty, or the heat from the blast renders them less effective. It seems an obvious idea that could have been exploited in the less politically correct recent past. Anyone know of any such systems?

Nothing new, the US Military has been switching to a lead free round. What I hate is that the new round is considered a Armour Piercing round by BATFE. Which means that the era of buying cheap military surplus ammo for fun shooting is coming to an end.