1 MILLION rounds per minute

[TargetTerror]

(Edited: As noted by PTK, yes, I meant per minute)

Apparently, the day has finally arrived when guns can shoot at 1 million rounds/second:

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9819143-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Watch the video. It's amazing!

After years of development, a new class of weapon that uses computer-controlled electronic ignition instead of primers to fire projectiles may be finally taking its much coveted place in the U.S. military inventory.

Brisbane, Australia-based Metal Storm has delivered a four-barrel weapon to the Naval Surface Warfare Center for testing that uses a small electrical current instead a conventional firing pin to deliver stacked rounds at an astounding rate.

How astounding? Try 1 million rounds per minute. That's the rate, by the way, not the volume; still, there's no way you want to be anywhere near the wrong end of one of these puppies.

One version, the Redback, features a remotely operated 40mm that can automatically track targets by slewing around at almost 2 complete revolutions per second, according to the company. "The employment of Metal Storm's stacked round technology for a U.S. military weapon system is a huge step for us," Metal Storm CEO Lee Finniear said in the company's press release.

Electronically fired weapons and the general concept have been around for awhile--Austrian company Voere offers an electric, bolt-action hunting rifle--but nothing has approached Metal Storm (PDF). Metal Storm weapons use multiple, "lightweight, economical barrels" mounted in pods on a variety of platforms that can fire a wide selection of munitions.

The projectiles are stacked in-line in the barrel--nose to tail--so there are no magazines, no shell casings, and no mechanical components. This makes them ideal for unattended area denial or picket duty. They are also easily adapted to light vehicles and robot platforms. In fact, the company just signed an MOU with iRobot Government & Industrial Robots to combine its robot platforms with Metal Storm's scalable systems.

"Together with Metal Storm, we aim to develop a superior next-generation weapons platform that ensures absolute safety and always places a human in the decision loop," iRobot's Joe Dyer promised in announcing the agreement. "When you are talking about weaponizing robots, there is no margin for error."

Especially at a million rounds per minute.

 

[PTK]

That would be 1mm/minute, not second. Also, I remember reading about this in... 1999? 2000? Somewhere around there.

Still, it's very impressive technology, until you have to reload.

 

[average_shooter]

Yep, been around a couple years now. I think the History Channel (maybe it's Discovery, maybe both...) has an episode or two on the new electronic firing weapons. Cool stuff.

EDIT:

Still, it's very impressive technology, until you have to reload

Yeah, but when you can wipe out all of your enemy in seconds, do you really need to worry about having to reload?

 

[NASCAR_MAN]

Yeah...and if the first round misses...then so do the next 999,999 rounds. Seems like a waste, huh?

 

[Gord]

Metal Storm has been around for years. You didn't just miss the boat, you missed the forty refugee rafts that came after the boat too.

It is indeed an interesting technological development, but the Army axed it (as far as I can remember) for reasons I don't recall. Truthfully, I can't see a practical use for it that something else doesn't already do well. We've got miniguns for hail-of-bullets ship defense and mortars for bust-down-that-door operations.

 

[Outlaws]

The ATF is going to become a monster of an agency compared to what it is now when this technology hit the consumer market. There are a lot of people who can program, and hiding a code for full auto inside the gun will be a lot easier than than hiding a homemade DIAS. One touch of a button and you need a electronic engineer or hacker to look at the circuitry and coding to prove it has an illegal conversion.

 

[bogie]

Yeah...and if the first round misses...then so do the next 999,999 rounds. Seems like a waste, huh?

Doesn't matter that it's geriatric tech... The interesting thing is that it is essentially a Really Huge Claymore with some decent range... Then again, a minigun that you can aim seems to work just as well.

 

[Wes Janson]

The ATF is going to become a monster of an agency compared to what it is now when this technology hit the consumer market. There are a lot of people who can program, and hiding a code for full auto inside the gun will be a lot easier than than hiding a homemade DIAS. One touch of a button and you need a electronic engineer or hacker to look at the circuitry and coding to prove it has an illegal conversion.

No, because it's never going to hit the civilian market. Even if the developers wanted to sell specifically and solely to private individuals, ATF would rule any electronic system like Metalstorm to be a machinegun in a picosecond. I'm willing to bet money on it, because it's just that damn certain. Remember, they're an organization that considers shoelaces to be the legal equivilant of a CIWS system-no stretch is too great. And in the case of Metalstorm, it's not much of a stretch at all. Ain't gonna happen...unless the upcoming SCOTUS decision somehow kicks federal firearm law back seventy-five years.

Anyhow, bogie is right: a claymore makes for a crappy rifle. It's an interesting but nearly useless concept.

 

[Zoogster]

Getting to be old tech.
The million rounds per minute is misleading as well. Unlike conventional arms these things are not fed by a belt or magazine, but rather stacked in multiple barrels. This means they do not fire large volumes of fire for a prolonged period. Nor can they, because they must be reloaded manualy. The reloading process can only be made faster by replacing large metal cylinders of pre packed ammunition, heavy strong cylinders capable of dealing with the pressures as well. So logisticly it would require a lot more weight per number of rounds for a given caliber to transport and supply ammunition. This makes them far less suitable for most military roles.

They say it is "1 million rounds a minute" rate of fire because it fires 180 rounds so fast that when divided by the time they take to fire its 1 million rounds a minute, if it was sustained for a minute of fire it would fire 1 million. However it is only sustained for a mere fraction of a fraction second, such a small amount of time that it is only 180 rounds.


In a few second period a mini gun would fire a whole lot more total rounds.

There is miniguns with a rate of fire over 10,000 rounds per minute (most are around 6,000), that actualy have large reserves of ammunition available. Fired for 1 second such a gun would fire over 160 rounds, yet could continue to do so for several seconds. So in a little over 1 second a much more compact minigun could exceed the rate of actual fire of the bulky multi barreled metalstorm gun.
You could increase the number of barrels even furtheron the metalstorm, and increase the length to an even more unwieldy size to attempt to compensate, but in a couple seconds it would once again be outclassed.

There is several neat options for this technology, including booby traps, and electronicly fired systems like cheap sentry and security. Since it is basicly a barrel with contacts inside firing stacked ammunition the materials are very basic. Each gun could be produced for about the price of a barrel, and a cheap circuit. It allows people to attach an electronicly fired firearm to any system they can think of with very little engineering required. So you will see it used on some drones and sentries and other rapidly designed electronic systems. That does not mean it is better, just far cheaper and easier to implement.

Currently it is proprietary technology so it costs a bit more than it really should to implement.

 

[CypherNinja]

...unless the upcoming SCOTUS decision somehow kicks federal firearm law back seventy-five years.

I'd be happy if they knocked it back 22 years.

 

[geronimotwo]

i was going to say BS untill i read this

They say it is "1 million rounds a minute" rate of fire because it fires 180 rounds so fast that when divided by the time they take to fire its 1 million rounds a minute, if it was sustained for a minute of fire it would fire 1 million. However it is only sustained for a mere fraction of a fraction second, such a small amount of time that it is only 180 rounds.

just the logistics of feeding 166,666 rounds per second would boggle my mind.

 

[Blackbeard]

what would be cool is if it could deflect rounds by up to say 5 MOA at random, say with a set of electromagnets at the end of the barrel, like the anodes in a CRT. Then you'd have a can't-miss weapon. Sort of like a long-range anti-aircraft shotgun.

 

[Pigspitter]

I don't like the idea of "if it misfires the next round in line will push the ftf out of the barrel" that sounds like firing after a squib to me

 

[bogie]

Gettin' too complicated, gettin' too complicated...

NONE of these things, even a minigun, are all that accurate. If you want a randomish bullet hose, just go the cheap way, and go smoothbore...

I'm interested in three concepts: a .22LR miniminigun, an UAV-capable suppressed .22LR with a decent mag capacity, weight, without ammo, under 2 pounds, and a reloadable claymore - picture something 10" high x 36" wide, with a barrel every 3/8 to 1/2 inch... The efficacy of a claymore, a little more range, and you don't have to worry about standing right next to it when it goes off...

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

What exactly would be the purpose of a UAV with a suppressed 22?

 

[billwiese]

These may be excellent for post-SDI/"Star Wars" interceptor devices.

Put out a wall of lead in close enough proximity to the offending incoming weapon and it's done.


Bill Wiese
San Jose

 

[beaucoup ammo]

Traded on NASDAQ, MTSX is going for about $1.85 a share. I think the 52 week high was around $3.60.

 

[BobMcG]

Amazing

I saw a show on this on one of these channels. HC, TLC, or DC etc.. Don't remember which. It may been featured on one of the "Future Weapons" shows.

 

[Cosmoline]

Meh. It got a lot of press but its actual utility is very limited. Shooting down incoming suicide planes or slow missiles directed at ships, I suppose.

 

[ojibweindian]

These may be excellent for post-SDI/"Star Wars" interceptor devices.

Put out a wall of lead in close enough proximity to the offending incoming weapon and it's done.

Nope. The range of such a weapon means that any interception would be within the atmosphere. A warhead, believe it or not, has an incredibly hard shell to protect the payload from heat and small debris. It's very difficult to penetrate. Also, a warhead doesn't descend in a "straight line"; it skips and jukes, somewhat like a running back.

 

[DrewH]

Metal Storm has been around since the 1990s, I believe. They are not intrinsically a pro-RKBA firm (they are Australian, IIRC, so not really suprising they are not oriented for civilian use), they were partnered with a NJ university to develop a "smart" gun. The electronic controls used to fire made this a sort of natural partnership.

It is a sort of a neat idea intellectually, but the issue of resupplying the ammo supply make million rounds/minute claims kind of misleading. It fires the ammo it has on hand in its barrels at any rate you want electronically, to include very, very fast.

 

[legaleagle_45]

It got a lot of press but its actual utility is very limited. Shooting down incoming suicide planes or slow missiles directed at ships, I suppose.

Plus the ammo costs would be prohibitive for home defense purposes....

 

[bogie]

What exactly would be the purpose of a UAV with a suppressed 22?

Allow a small recon drone, without a huge weight penalty, to have at least some armament, just in case a high value hunka meat is spotted, and the guy at the joystick thinks he's got a chance...

 

[VirgilCaine]

Also, a warhead doesn't descend in a "straight line"; it skips and jukes, somewhat like a running back.

Really? Interesting, I had no idea.

 

[ZeSpectre]

Here's what gets me. Let's assume for a moment that we're talking about 9mm type costs (say $0.16/round). That's a capability to turn money into smoke at a rate of $160,000.00 PER MINUTE!

Also, 1 million rounds (again assuming something similar to a 9mm cartridge) would weigh in the ballpark of 20,000 lbs! What's that, about 9 tons? So much for putting that thing into orbit with a "reasonable" amount of firing time <grin>.