Interesting new gun

[tony t]

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,1 ... D,,00.html

Facinating stuff. I wonder how many bullets are spun in the barrel at any one time.. the gyroscopic precession effect could be significant, which would cause the gun to swerve off target (and ultimately go into a wobble) when the gunner swings the gun to a different elevation. Kinda like flying a WW1 plane with a rotary engine, try to turn hard right on takeoff and it nosedives into the ground. Perhaps it has bullets rotating both ways to cancel the effect.

[Werner]

I operate on the theory that if you send your forces into a fair fight, you've made a mistake. I'm not sure I want any humans within weapons range. Computation is one of the things this country does well.

Unman the battlefield.

It looks like the USA is investing heavily in directed energy weapons. I imagine the phasers will kill the bullets on the way to killing the launcher.

[Timmy C]

Article seems pretty vague on what gets spun and how...seems like an April Fools joke to me, if it weren't March 26...

[tony t]

You're probably right. The part about not having recoil doesn't sound right. Any system that shoots out something at one end has to impart equal momentum to something in the other direction.

[kennylibben]

well you don't want to give away all your secrets before you even sell the thing!

[Sean Hert]

This kind of tech as been around a looong time- that article is from '05. Problem is, it still just a better bullet delivery system.

[Werner]

Newton's Third Law is immutable, and not a military secret. Every action exerts an equal and opposite reaction.

[Timmy C]

Well, it was the frictionless part that got me...there's nothing that's frictionless, especially in this case, where bullets have to go to the launcher somehow, during which heat would be generated.

[Ron Smith]

Um guys..........I can't believe nobody figured out the basics of how it works and it's heat/flash/noise free.......it's a centrifuge............THINK about it. Spinning disc with ribs, feed balls up into center of disc, centrifugal force send ball flying....the concept is dirt simple and IIRC there were historical area denial weapons based one the same principle. Now turning it into an accurate weapons system as good or better than MaDeuce does take some figuring out but the concept is just dirt simple.

[HMAS]

the DREAD's rounds will arrive only 30 thousandths of an inch apart (1/32nd of an inch apart),
Which is it?
Just someone whimsical fantasy I bet !
the physics don't add up!

[Timmy C]

That's what I thought, Ron, but that does not explain how there would be no friction nor heat generated - the bullets come into contact with the surface of the gun system -somewhere- along the way, and there -has- to be friction and heat that results from that, unless they decide to make it so that the bullets "float" through the system via miniature mag-lev technology.

[Ron Smith]

That's what I thought, Ron, but that does not explain how there would be no friction nor heat generated - the bullets come into contact with the surface of the gun system -somewhere- along the way, and there -has- to be friction and heat that results from that, unless they decide to make it so that the bullets "float" through the system via miniature mag-lev technology.

You're still over complicating it........the balls roll out, they are balls not "bullets"......how much heat does a rolling ball create from friction? There is no barrel, no tight seal needed for the expanding gas to propel the projectile, it is inertia and momentum that sends the ball out. The motor and bearings will heat up a little but cooling for those is old hat. And there is no recoil because it is not a straight forward impulse, the action/reaction cycle is the spinning disc (action)/flying ball (reaction). How they figured out getting the balls to fly accurately is a whole other kettle of fish.

[Werner]

This slingshot sounds more dangerous to it's own side. "[C]apable of laying down a 360-degree field of fire." Stop me if I'm wrong, but isn't the operator in that field?

20,000 rounds per minute out of what, a 200 round magazine? These things are still limited by what the Army can carry into combat.

"Virtually silent" -- yeah, except for the 20KHz whine the enemy could use for counterbattery fire.

Anyone with experience with a gyroscope knows they are not amenable to being redirected fast. They resist all efforts to change their position and orientation. That's why their so useful in navigation.

One final deal: a "bullet" traveling that fast converts the air around it into a bright blue plasma. A huge arrow back to the gun as well as who knows what the turbulence in the plasma does to the following rounds.


Not all of these ideas are good ones. What was the name of the Russian round battleships?

If the balls were levitated magnetically on the firing end, obviously the defender could do the same thing.

This is the opposite approach from normal Western development practice, which is to put the minimum warhead as exactly on target as possible. This weapon would have been great for WW.I trench warfare.

A .50 cal could fit guidance, right? Half the battle.

We should build real weapons for real battles. Not all or our future enemies will be quite so enthusiastic to lay down their lives as the current crop of Islamic Fundamentalists.

[Devin]

This kind of tech as been around a looong time- that article is from '05. Problem is, it still just a better bullet delivery system.

It's been around longer than that. There was a steam powered - but much larger - version of this same weapon tested during the American Civil War. There's a "Myth Busters" episode on it where they proved that it would work as designed in the 1860's, it just wasn't very feasible for the period.

[Timmy C]

Still sounds like something out of Contra or other 2D video games with the omnidirectional gun...

@Werner: Not if the operator is directly under or above the launcher.

[Werner]

@Werner: Not if the operator is directly under or above the launcher.

Timmy, counter battery fire is a developing technology. Right now, there are cannons which will automatically "do the math" and fire on an enemy cannon or mortar which has just fired. I imagine in a few years this will apply equally to heavy machine guns and other crew served light weapons. A generation from now, perhaps the grunt's rifle will be able to play the same software.

As Chuck more concisely put it in another thread, the US has become extremely casualty-averse. As a result, the weapons need to take the risks and protect the grunt in the field.

[Timmy C]

I wasn't referring to counter-battery artillery fire at all. I was referring to your (probably jokingly-made) statement of how 360 degrees would include the person holding the gun.

[kennylibben]

It really doesn't surprise me - the technology of firearms has hardly advanced since the boring of the barrels and invention of the machine gun.

It probably hasn't been spoken of much because of the doubters (just look at this board, then imagine the scale of them in the military!). Remember, it took WWI to convince the US armed forces that airplanes were valuable to them.