Straight Up Again
24th Nov 2003, 10:37
I came across this stuff today...
Metal Storm (http://www.metalstorm.com/)
Such a simple idea, but apparently it took years to perfect.
It looks bloody scary stuff. Check out some of the videos (some of them are quite large files though). Watching 46 rounds going out of the array (24 barrels, 96 shots) at 3000 rpm is impressive. It's quite sobering thinking of 15 grenades (40mm) being fired quicker than I can blink, at 240,000 RPM, in one of the tests. This gives a 2cm separation between each grenade in the stack as they come out of the barrel (according to the website).
The 36 barrel 9mm prototype video is shows comparison of 600 rpm, 30,000 rpm, 60,000 rpm and 1 million rpm. You read correctly, 1 million rpm. 180 rounds at 1M rpm sounds like 1 shot to me, and doesn't look too healthy from the targets point of view either.
It doesn't look that quick to reload, and specially shaped rounds look like they could be a bit pricey, but there no moving parts (OK, apart from the projectile).
Hands up, who wants one?
Seriously though, I can see ground/ship based applications, but would this be popular for aircraft use?
Edited to add:
Thinking about it I suppose for ground attack the versatility of changing number of rounds and fire rate (and hence density of rounds on target) would be useful. If encountering several types of ground targets the software interface would allow the changes, light vehicles take less fire than buildings etc.
I'm still not so sure about the fire fighting applications though. Then again a few Green Godesses showing up with these attached would get the publics interest during the next fireshirkers whinge.
Metal Storm (http://www.metalstorm.com/)
Such a simple idea, but apparently it took years to perfect.
It looks bloody scary stuff. Check out some of the videos (some of them are quite large files though). Watching 46 rounds going out of the array (24 barrels, 96 shots) at 3000 rpm is impressive. It's quite sobering thinking of 15 grenades (40mm) being fired quicker than I can blink, at 240,000 RPM, in one of the tests. This gives a 2cm separation between each grenade in the stack as they come out of the barrel (according to the website).
The 36 barrel 9mm prototype video is shows comparison of 600 rpm, 30,000 rpm, 60,000 rpm and 1 million rpm. You read correctly, 1 million rpm. 180 rounds at 1M rpm sounds like 1 shot to me, and doesn't look too healthy from the targets point of view either.
It doesn't look that quick to reload, and specially shaped rounds look like they could be a bit pricey, but there no moving parts (OK, apart from the projectile).
Hands up, who wants one?
Seriously though, I can see ground/ship based applications, but would this be popular for aircraft use?
Edited to add:
Thinking about it I suppose for ground attack the versatility of changing number of rounds and fire rate (and hence density of rounds on target) would be useful. If encountering several types of ground targets the software interface would allow the changes, light vehicles take less fire than buildings etc.
I'm still not so sure about the fire fighting applications though. Then again a few Green Godesses showing up with these attached would get the publics interest during the next fireshirkers whinge.