New super-gun to be tested in Feb

[syscom3]

a gun that can fire 240,000 rounds per minute.

Saw this on drudge report.

http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/vie...0-070112-5273r

By PAMELA HESS
UPI Pentagon Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Next month a new high-explosive munition will be fired in Singapore and then tested again by the U.S. Army, heralding what may be a sea change in weaponry: a gun that can fire 240,000 rounds per minute.

That's compared to 60 rounds per minute in a standard military machine gun.

Metal Storm Inc., a munitions company headquartered in Virginia but with its roots in Australia, has been developing a gun that can shoot at blistering speeds, albeit in short bursts as each barrel is reloaded.

A Metal Storm gun of any size -- from a 9 mm hand-gun up to a machine gun size or a grenade launcher -- has no moving parts other than the bullets or munition inside the barrel. Rather than chambering a single slug for each shot - very quickly in the case of machine guns -- the bullets come pre-stacked inside the barrel and can be shot all at once, or one at a time, as the shooter decides through the electronic controls.

Because there are no moving parts, the weapon is less likely to jam, and will presumably need less maintenance.

Lashing many barrels together increases the number of rounds per second. Once fired, however, each spent barrel has to be reloaded.

Starting in 2006 the company will demonstrate its prototypes with applicability that is especially likely to interest the U.S. military. The weapon system can be mounted on an unmanned ground combat vehicle, an unmanned aerial vehicle, and might be used as a defense against rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

Metal Storm's speed allows it to lay down a blinding wall of slugs that can intercept and pulverize incoming enemy fire, according to company CEO David Smith. As long as the grenade or mortar is fired from outside a range of about 50 meters or 162.5 feet and a Doppler radar is in use, a Metal Storm system could be an effective defense, he told UPI.

Closer than that and there is just not time to react.

"But if you are from 50 meters and beyond, if everything can work fast enough -- the radar -- there is enough time mathematically" to shoot down incoming fire, Smith said.

At least 153 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq by enemy rockets and mortars since the start of the war. Nearly 2,000 have been wounded.

The grenade launcher barrel can also carry less-than-lethal munitions, like small bean bags, sponge grenades or smoke. On Jan. 16, the Army awarded Metal Storm a $975,000 contract to further develop its non-lethal rounds.

"Our so-called competition is (the) Mk19 - grenade machine gun," Smith said. "It's enormously heavy. It takes six people to carry it into a battlefield scene. It's not mobile.

"But the military has had this transition out of big system warfighting into much lighter, higher firepower that can be carried into battle by individuals or light vehicles. Our guns have no moving parts -- so they have the same amount of fire power at significantly reduced weight ratio."

Metal Storm technology has been under development for about a decade, but a series of small-business innovative research contracts awarded recently by the Department of Energy and the Army mean prototypes are now being produced and demonstrated.

"We are to the point we can start providing prototypes. The Army is very, very parochial in how they buy weapon systems," Smith said. "But now we can put it into an actual environment."

The company is also studying whether it can mount a Metal Storm weapon on a small helicopter, particularly looking at the recoil effect from the gun.

Smith said such a system - deployable down to the squad level -- could be useful in a place like Iraq, where it's a common tactic for insurgents to launch a mortar and then run. By the time soldiers on foot or in a vehicle get to the launch site, the shooters are long gone. But a UAV quickly launched can see where the shooters run to, and if a gun is on board, can shoot at them.

The Australian military is testing a Metal Storm gun of its own, the Advanced Individual Combat Weapon (AICW). The AICW combines both an assault rifle and a 40 mm grenade launcher in a single unit with a common trigger, allowing the shooter to choose which munition he wants to fire without having to refit his weapon. It also allows three grenades to be fired at once, whereas one is the only option in the current generation of weapons.

Metal Storm Inc. will demonstrate a high-explosive munition with a 10-meter (32.5 feet) or burst radius in Singapore on Feb. 6, Smith said, and for the Army's Picatinny Arsenal and Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center later that month.

[Aggie08]

Sweeeeeeeeet. That's pretty good thinkin, shootin mortars and rockets out of the sky.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

That's compared to 60 rounds per minute in a standard military machine gun.

Where do they get that from. Any machine gun used in the military is more than 60 rounds per minute. Hell the M-60D that I use as a door gun is way more than 60 rounds per minute.

[syscom3]

I think thats a typo. Should be 600 rounds per minute

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I hope so, because even the Mark 19 that they are talking about which is not a machine gun but rather a automatic Grenade Launcher that lobs 40mm Grenades is more than 60 rounds a minute. We have several of them in my unit, they are quite fun to blow **** up with.

[R988]

Minigun does 60,000 rounds per minute, thats 60 bullets per second

240K rpm is 240 bullets in a second, thats a lot of of lead in the air at one time, electronic controls also mean that you can theoritically 'lock' the gun so only you can use it, so its no good to the enemy.

[evangilder]

240krpm is 4,000 bullets per second!

[reddragon]

How are you going to feed a gun 240,000 rounds a minute? Darn thing will eat up an awful lot of ammunition.

[Glider]

I suspect that practical application has taken second place to Technical application.

[pbfoot]

I don't believe the thing uses a gun barrel rather its a flat panel the best way i can describe it is like a honeycomb in the bees nest

[Gnomey]

If it is one I am thinking of then there is a video on the web somewhere that I have seen which shows it firing at increasing speeds (I think it went from 60krpm upto 1Mrpm!) I will see if I can find it.

[zerum]

http://www.metalstorm.com/index.php?...Live%20Firings
http://www.metalstorm.com/index.php?...Live%20Firings
Here is more about the 40 mm,

[reddragon]

What concerns me most is I've seen stories of the U. S. military having only a short-term supply of ammunition on hand. I could be wrong, but it seems like I've seen a figure of something like perhaps a 30 day supply. It may be higher, but by how much, I don't know. If this gun fires at such a high rate, it looks like it will eat through the ammunition at an extremely fast rate of speed.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

We are now getting ammo from our allies. When we went to gunnary a couple of months ago we were using British Ammo because we did not have stockpiles of US ammo anymore. Its all the same though, NATO uses the same stuff.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

240K rpm is 240 bullets in a second

240krpm is 4,000 bullets per second

he must be using the metric minute