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This show on Discovery channel, "Future Weapons" featured this new weapon technology that will replace ballistics as we know it: Metal Storm
The only moving parts in this new weapon tech is the projectile itself. They showed a handgun that fires 3 shots before the weapon has a chance to recoil. Gulp.
Posts: 90 | Registered: Apr 2006
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King: I wondered the same thing, but then I remembered Gatlin had the same argument thrown back in his face. He actually sold his gun to France first because our military was worried about ammo supplies. I think it was France...
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People always worry about ammo, but I've always found that there are plenty of breakable crates around when I need more.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Yes, Num, and Gatling's critics were absolutely right. The logistics departments of the day really were unable to cope with the sort of ammunition requirements that machine guns impose. Now, it obviously wasn't an insurmountable problem, and I don't think this will be, either. It just needs a bit of re-organising, same as they did after 1870, 1914, and indeed 1940. But it can't just be dismissed with an airy wave of the hand, either.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Numinor West: King: I wondered the same thing, but then I remembered Gatlin had the same argument thrown back in his face. He actually sold his gun to France first because our military was worried about ammo supplies. I think it was France...
The Union army denied soldiers access to repeating rifles (I think they were Spencers) because of ammo concern. One colonel or general set up payroll deduction plans so his soldiers could buy them, which they did out of self-preservation.
The presence of those rifles was decisive on several occasions.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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The title to the thread says it all, a MILLION rounds per minute. Even fired in short bursts, that churns through ammo like nothing else. And it's not just the actual shells, but all of the things that go into feeding that battlefield beast: the people to load and carry the ammo, the fuel to move the ammo, brass recovery, and that has nothing to do with all of the targeting systems such a system would need to make it battlefield effective.
But it's the same nightmare that faced those looking at the works of Gatling and Maxim. Many nations balked at first, but then figured out how to feed the beasts.
I still believe it is of dubious value for anything short of an anti-missile point-defense system, at least at this time.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I agree with you. I just wanted to know if you found a 3rd party site discussing the logistics from a feasibility analysis point of view.
Btw, I don't think this system uses "shells" in the conventional sense. All of the bullets are stacked in a tube with packets of powder between each round. At least that's what the computer graphic looked like.
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For some reason I can't help but think the recoil behind a mounted gun firing a million rounds a minute will do SOMETHING to the earth's natural rotating pattern. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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At some point, isn't there some sort of diminishing returns on this? Is a million rounds per minute that much better than 100,000 or even 10,000?
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Well, if they deliver on the claim of being able to engage several separate targets within seconds, the ability to deliver a guaranteed-lethal dose of ammunition within a millisecond would reduce the time it took to destroy a target, turn to the next target, destroy it, and move on. I don't think it is necessarily meant to deliver thousands of rounds, all at once, on a single heading.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: 1 million rounds per (edit: minute) = logistical nightmare.
I think the benefit is in the idea that you could deliver 10,000 rounds in less than a second. Logistically this would be better than firing all those rounds in 1 minute, because you would have less concerns with heat, noise, etc. You could also reduce the number of weapons needed by a factor of 10 or 20, thus endangering fewer soldiers and reducing tactical concerns.
This is kind of similar to the logic behind all the new airplanes having just two huge engines instead of a series of small ones. An engine exploding means the plane goes down, no matter how big that engine is... but if you only have two, the chances are less that one will blow, and you can focus your maintenance efforts on just two.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:I think the benefit is in the idea that you could deliver 10,000 rounds in less than a second. Logistically this would be better than firing all those rounds in 1 minute, because you would have less concerns with heat, noise, etc.
Actually, all those problems will be worse when firing the same amount in a smaller time period.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I'm curious as to what kind of ammo this thing uses; how big it is, how much it weighs, etc. The linked page says it has 40mm barrels, and could use lethal or non-lethal ammo, but that's about it.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Well if you could eliminate concerns about cooling, (which takes up coolant or water) and communication when the soldiers are close to the weapons, then that is a logistical problem right?
Its a stretch yah, but it doesn't make absolutely no sense.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Well, you may kind of have a point about communications, but the coolant thing is just silly - you're setting off the same amount of explosives, that they are closer together in time just makes the problem worse, since there' no time for the heat to dissipate.
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I can imagine some woman saying the same thing to the first caveman who figured out how to put a sharp rock at the end of a stick.
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*pertly* Yup, just before he really DID manage to put someone's eye out with it, and she got to clean up the mess. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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These things can actually intercept missiles in flight, which is what the actual rate of fire is for....it is a LOT easier to do that with a barrage of rounds saturating an area that to do it with a single round or counter-missile.
I doubt it will normally be fired at that rate for a solid minute. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Well it was a train the human race jumped on for convenience, we just never got off at the right station, and now its too late to get off because we have no idea where we are or where we're going.
Projectile weapons were one of the greatest inventions ever, and our use of them sets us apart in the world... but we just don't know when to say when, and now we have weapons which are too powerful to be put to any practical purpose.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Well, you may kind of have a point about communications, but the coolant thing is just silly - you're setting off the same amount of explosives, that they are closer together in time just makes the problem worse, since there' no time for the heat to dissipate.
Heat is the waste product of energy conversion, so if a weapon is more efficient, there will be less heat generated. I guess I am assuming that firing at this rate will make the weapon more efficient... I don't know exactly why I thought that.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Well, you may kind of have a point about communications, but the coolant thing is just silly - you're setting off the same amount of explosives, that they are closer together in time just makes the problem worse, since there' no time for the heat to dissipate.
Heat is the waste product of energy conversion, so if a weapon is more efficient, there will be less heat generated. I guess I am assuming that firing at this rate will make the weapon more efficient... I don't know exactly why I thought that.
Well, yeah, but you're applying the concept to the wrong product. Guns aren't designed to be energy-efficient, they're designed to spit out bullets as fast and as many as possible. Nobody really cares how hot they get in the process, provided they're still usable.
Now, if you were talking a power plant, you'd have a point.
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quote:Nobody really cares how hot they get in the process, provided they're still usable.
Tell that to my best friend -- an infantryman in the US Army. The heavier guns all have several barrels that are able to be swapped out in a few seconds, which enables the guns to be more or less continuosly fired while the hot barrels are cooling.
They care about how hot the barrels are. Especially when they have to swap them. . .
Posts: 1323 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Hence the qualification, "as long as they're still usable". The main point remains, energy efficiency is not a design consideration.
About the smart bombs, well, firstly you need to be able to put an aircraft in the air over the gun, right? (I'm assuming this thing will only be installed on major ships and bases, there's now way you can supply that much ammunition in the field.) This would be a good trick against the US air force. And the, you need to get the bomb through the hail of lead. Same problem as a missile, really : The thing is [/i]intended[/i] for defense against that sort of attack.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Best application I could see for this are either as a point defense weapon on a ship, perhaps to replace the Phalanx gun system?
Or as a replacement for the Vulcan cannon used on AC-130 gunships. There's no vehicle that could possibly carry enough ammo to make it effective on the battlefield, not when the tracked vehicle would be out of ammo that fast, and then just be useless on the field. Gunships can carry enough ammo to make it worthwhile, and I imagine raking an area with one of those things would pretty much immolate anything it touches like the finger of God. Not that the Vulcan doesn't already do precisely that....
I guess it'd be the difference between the pinky and the index finger of God.
Surely it can be made to have practical applications, point defense on a ship, or for that matter, at a ground installation, strikes me as the best use of the weapon. But I think it's offensive capabilities, most especially ON the battlefield itself, as a ground weapon, are extremely limited.
Maybet they could invent a machine that automatically creates its own ammo ON SITE, and that would solve part of the logistical problem, but I don't see that as very likely.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by pH: Clearly, I should keep one with me at all times. You never know when the dead will crawl out of their graves and come after your brains.
-pH
I hear you. Fortunately, my current residence is pretty well fortified against zombie attack. As long as I can trust my roommates not to do something dumb, I should be OK.
Just in case, I just wear a titanium helmet. Stylish, light weight, and inexpensive. I think the big gun would look nice on the roof though.
Zombie---> <---Me in my Apartment
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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The Metal Storm website is sorely lacking. The "Future Weapons" program showed all types of applications from 9mm pistols to Jet mounted cannons. In this one memorable graphic, a Jet flew over a column of tanks and reduced every piece of hardware on the field to bite sized chunks with a single pass.
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Big bombs with thousands of little bomblets in them. Each bomb can individually track it's target and veer in on it, striking tanks and such on the top where the armor is usually thinnest. Good way to reduce a tank brigade to scrap metal. I'm not sure if it is a HEAT round or not, but it would make sense if it was.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: Originally posted by MightyCow: That would be prefect for zombie defense. Those guys just keep coming and coming!
True, but the biggest problem is by the time you gain access to such a powerful weapon, you are late in the game and the zombies are long gone. You are usually fighting much more dangerous villians/ghouls by the time you get the million rounds per minute weapons.
**Looks around for crates that might contain ammo**
Posts: 375 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Lyrhawn- I'm not sure how relevant that would be considering the segment was on the Metal Storm weapons. You could see the jet with an array of downward facing tubes mounted under the wings as it unleashed a million rounds per minute (the actual fire duration was maybe a second).
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Can I interject a note of caution here? Aren't we in the habit of invading other countries for wanting to develop terribly powerful weapons? What gives us the balls to do it all the time and act like that's ok, even when we warn others not to? This just doesn't add up or me, not at all. :sad:
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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There is certainly a double standard there. Especially when there were rumors about the US to us small tactical nuclear weapons on Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.
However, I do not think this is such a situation. We are worried about other countries developing WMD's. This gun, while powerful, is not a WMD.
Posts: 375 | Registered: Mar 2005
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