Future weapons

[Quiet Riot]

Not sure if this is the right section for this, but I thought it was very interesting.   Imagine the future of war if entire armies were carrying these, once they are out of RD and have magazines attached.   Posted some of the text check out the site for the rest.  If anyone has heard or seen of other weapons in development please post them.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1281426.html

O'Dwyer's revolutionary weapons concept is based on an electronically fired gun-and-launcher design with multiple rounds stacked in a single barrel. The only moving parts are the bullets themselves. Beyond creating an astounding fast-firing weapon, the concept makes way for the creation of entirely new types of firearms. Among other things, it will allow the shooter to select from different types of rounds and even between firing lethal and nonlethal ammunition. O'Dwyer's ideas were initially met with skepticism, but now they are being taken seriously by the military and police.
"Nothing succeeds like actually building something and pulling the trigger or, in our case, pressing the button to show what happens," he tells POPULAR MECHANICS.

Applying what he had learned about tube loading and firing rates, O'Dwyer constructed a triple-barrel, a nine-barrel, and a 36-barrel firing prototype design that he lovingly named Bertha. "The reason for the 36 barrels was simply to indicate to ourselves and to others the future versatility of this system, in that with the 36 barrels we had 540 rounds on board and, based on the 45,000-round-per-minute rate per barrel, that gave us a maximum firing rate of 1.62 million rounds per minute," the inventor says. Prior to Bertha's well-deserved retirement, O'Dwyer used the demonstrator to achieve a 180-round burst of 9mm rounds (155 grain weight) at a rate of just over 1 million rounds per minute.

Other recent Metal Storm demonstrator systems have included a "scaled up" 40mm grenade launcher for the military that fires small "shot bursts" at rates equivalent to 6000 rounds per minute, as well as a Variable Lethality Law Enforcement (VLE) handgun. The fully electronic VLE can be easily safety-keyed to a particular individual or group, preventing its use should it fall into the wrong hands.

 

[foerestedwarrior]

problems I see with practicality, is. Accuracy drop by having rounds stacked in the barrel. 1 million rounds per minute?? so do we all get MLVW's to carry an updated combat load, you could fire that in one second.

 

[mo-litia]

I wonder if this is something we'll see in use anytime soon.  It's a great concept, though.

 

[Da_man]

I really dont see the point of such a fast firing rate.

 

[mover1]

From what I understand is that its a rail gun type of system and the energy needed so far makes it unpractical. As for the million rounds a minute the firing rate is calculated by having 36 barrels loaded. Well if thats the case we can tie all our cougars together with pretty string say they are one weapons system do a mass troop shoot and say we have an armoured vehicle that shoots a 76 mm at 1000 rounds a minute.

  It works and there is a video out there on the thing firing. Its very unimpressive. Not that i am knocking it. But I can only see it being in the experimental stages for a very long time.

 

[a_majoor]

The company site is: http://www.metalstorm.com/

Several concepts are presented on this site, including the VLE handgun, and area denial weapons based on the metalstorm principle.

The extreme rates of fire are more "proof of concept" demonstrations, but in principle something like that could be scaled up to fire a "burst" at incoming rockets or missiles (Like the Arena/Drozod tank defense systems sold by Russia, or the Phalenx anti-missile system common on many warships.) If chaff or flares are substituted for bullets, then it would also make a countermeasures pod for any sort of vehicle, ship or plane. As an infantry weapon, it might make a sort of SMG for room clearing or breaking an ambush, but it isn't very practical as a rifle.

The real advantage I can see is simplified mechanisms which reduce many of the causes of stoppages in current weapons. The fire control circuit can still be programmed to give "single shot" performance, or any sort of cyclic rate the user desires.

 

[JediElf]

It is not a railgun of any kind.  It uses electric pulses to set off the primer instead of a mechanical firing pin.  You wouldn't have all the stopages of regular weapons and all you would have to clean is the barrell.  It still is not very practical for small arms as, like foerestedwarrior said, your accuaracy would drop by having all those rounds stacked in the barrel.  I agree with a_majoor in that it would probably be used as a Close-In Defence system on a ship, or to shoot down ballistic missiles or something.  It would be a pain in the butt to field service though.

 

[Grunt]

I heard the whole metalstorm project was dropped as an impractical weapons system.

 

[a_majoor]

Link to the metalstorm website and you will see they are still a going concern as of today....
The company site is: http://www.metalstorm.com/

 

[MPSHIELD]

Shouldn't this topic be moved to the Weapons Sub Board?