Dragom's Fury - Breath of Fire
A Novel of the next World War
Regards.
Posted on 05/12/2002 9:24:18 AM PDT by greydog
WASHINGTON, May 12 (UPI) -- EXCLUSIVE
A new ballistic technology that can fire burst rates in excess of one million rounds per minute from a 36-barrel weapon was one of the reasons Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld canceled the $11 billion Crusader artillery system.
The technology is known as "Metal Storm," which is also the name of the Australian research and development company that owns it.
The fastest weapons today are mechanical Gatling gun styles that can fire at the rate of some 6,000 rounds per minute. Infantry rifles average 600 rounds, which is the firing rate for a magazine of 15 to 30 rounds.
Admiral Bill Owens, a retired former deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and author of "Lifting the Fog of War," a controversial book about defense modernization, is the chairman of the board of Metal Storm Ltd. With multimillion-dollar contracts, Metal Storm works closely with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Australian Defense Science and Technology Organization. Chuck Vehlow, a former general manager of the Boeing helicopter division, is the company's new chief corporate officer. Vehlow has negotiated big-ticket procurement contracts and technology licensing agreements with the Pentagon.
Most of Metal Storm's work is top secret. Already under development is an "area denial weapons system," including an unmanned aerial combat vehicle that will carry twelve 40-mm mortar boxes comprising a total of 1,200 tubes, and armed with 7,200 grenades. The system's unprecedented firing capabilities can lay down a continuous 50-meter-wide carpet of grenades for about two miles, firing all its grenades simultaneously with a five-yard separation on impact.
Another gun under development for a small combat aerial vehicle is multi-barreled and can fire 270 rounds onto a target in just .001 seconds without stress on the air frame or any drop in air speed.
The company's advanced individual combat weapon program is destined to replace small arms throughout the western alliance, said Mike O'Dwyer, company chief executive officer. The prototypes now being developed have a dual barrel capability to fire both 20-mm and 40-mm bursting munitions and standard 5.56-mm NATO ammunition.
The weapon will also fire "less-than-lethal" projectiles for riot control. The future infantry weapons hardware replacement program for Australia's small defense forces alone is estimated to be worth $700 million.
Metal Storm's submachine gun will be capable of firing multiple barrel rapid-fire bursts at 45,000 rounds per minute per barrel. The technology is 100 percent electronic. Its electronically variable rate of fire has been confirmed to one million rounds per minute.
The technology allows barrels to be grouped in any configuration required for a particular application because it has no moving parts, no separate magazine, no ammunition feed or ejection system. The only moving parts in this revolutionary ballistic technology are the bullets or other projectiles.
Next to "Metal Storm's" firepower, said a senior Pentagon acquisition official, the lumbering, 45-ton Crusader artillery tube would be obsolete equipment.
At the core of the new technology is a projectile design that allows multiple high-pressure ammo to be stacked in-line in a barrel, then electronically fired in sequence. In turn, multiple barrels can be grouped together to form compact weapons systems of unprecedented conventional firepower. These new weapons will have all-electronic access control systems to ensure that only authorized personnel use them. The dual function will also allow on-board selection at the press of a button between a non-lethal response capability and the kind of lethality that will deny an area to the enemy without having to use anti-personnel landmines.
Metal Storm also makes the Vle, a handgun with a 64-digit electronic keying system that conceals a transponder. An electronic message confirms when the weapon is set to fire and which fire setting is selected.
U.S. defense sources said the Metal Storm technological breakthrough will produce a new generation of weapons that will "accelerate out-of-atmosphere ballistic missile interdiction as well as biological and chemical cloud neutralization."
The technology is not just used for firing projectiles. It is an electronically controlled delivery system that has potential applications in fire fighting, fireworks displays, aerial advertising in the night sky, precision chemical distribution in agriculture, and seismic surveying for minerals and oil.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
Still, with our weapons made in Australia and everything else being made in China, we can kick back and relax.
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In small caliber I don't understand what this thing would be used for. I can't see how it would be better than existing systems. I can't see how ammunition would be fed to service it.
You are the one that doesn't understand the technology of "Metal Storm". It uses multiple barrels that have multiple charges and projectiles in each barrel. There will definitely be muzzle blast. Lots of muzzle blast.
Regards.
In the video of a single barrel firing three rounds, it is on a test bed and looks very rudimentary. I think most of this is pure hype.
I have the same question. In small arms...what's the point ? Imagine tripping and sticking your barrel(s) in the mud...or in this case, four barrels...no chance of running a cleaning rod through due to the barrels being jammed up with "rounds".
McGavin999:
Which video ? I didn't see one that executes a re-load...I would be interested in seeing how this is accomplished.
True. Of course in a day of bows and arrows, the same could have been said about the first single-shot firearms.
In small caliber I don't understand what this thing would be used for. I can't see how it would be better than existing systems. I can't see how ammunition would be fed to service it.
It's not *better,* it's different. Think of it as a Roman candle, with multiple charges and projectiles stacked in the barrel, ready to be fired electronically in sequence. And there are likely ways of developing it as a recoilless system, as per the Burney gun, the WWII and Korean-era recoilless rifles, and the current German *Armbrust* Light antitank weapon.
Rather than a replacement for long-range artillery with 25-40-mile ranges, a large caliber variant *might* be able to replace or augment the mortar and its ammunition, offering a preloaded multishot launch tube, disposed of after use. As for the practicality of a preloaded weapon whose launcher/barrel is discarded after use, any grunt who's used a M72A2 LAW [L/ight A/ntitank W/eapon] rocket launcher is familiar with the concept.
Most likely immediate uses? a replacement for land mines, as a possible successor to the M18A1 Claymnore mine, essentially an explosive shotgun mine. And a very likely application for fitting aboard tanks to discourage unfriendly visitors from climbing on them while they're buttoned up, obviating the need for a nearby vehicle to *scratch my back* with co-axial machinegun fire, which can be hard on the recipient vehicle's optics, antennas, and externally stowed OVM. The likelihood that something along the line of Metalstorm could be used by combat vehicles as a sort of continuous Claymore against incoming wire-guided antitank projectiles is another happy thought, similar to the use of the MK 15 Phalanx CIWS against Harpoon/Silkworm/Exocet/other ski-skimming missiles, as an improvement over the externally mounted white phosphorous and grenade launchers now used for that purpose is another needed near-future likely application.
A replacement for traditional artillery or small arms? Not in this decade, likely not in the next. But someday, maybe. And for now, an augmentation to those other systems. -archy-/-
Or backblast, if it's arranged as a recoilless weapon, venting its exhaust gasses rearward through a central vent past doughnut-shaped projectiles and prop charges. A few years back the Navy did considerable experimentation on *Ring airfoils* and Metalstorm might be developed as a launcher for such projectiles.
But essentially, it's an electrically-fired Roman candle, and that idea has been used before. Interestingly, the Germans had a followon design to their WWII Mk108 aircraft cannon that was to have used a liquid *fuel* propellant, and which would have had multiple projectiles in the barrel simultaneously. The rate of fire could have been well in excess of 20,000 rounds per minute, as designed, but never advancing to the prototype stage, so far as I know.
-archy-/-
Picture a clip with the rounds lined up one after the other - end to end - instead of on top of one another. Thats the clip/barrel of this type weapon!
Suggest you got to post #23 and view the video at the Metal Storm site. Pretty damn impressive if you ask me! you may not want to throw too many rocks at the concept!
What is this new fangled stuff ? Is it like, the electronic 'rail gun' that uses magnetic induction to fire projectiles or sumthin' ? If it is, its way over this pharm boy's head.
Nah. Think of it as a box of Roman candles, set off electrically with an electronic switching setup. Even an old plough jockey could rig something along those basic lines up- the real trick will be in the materials and projectile design.
There is no "back blast". Go to the video at the Metal Storm site (see post #23) and see for yourself. You may not want to throw rocks at this technology after you educate yourself as to what it is.
Not only that, but what's the range of this weapon??
I saw an article on this weapon years ago and it was basically a small unit defense weapon. Unless they've adapeted it for larger caliber ammo, I don't see it as a replacement for artillery.
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