1 MILLION rounds per minute

[25ACP]

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...

That's a good idea. If they can put a Hellfire missle on the predator, They could strap a little rimfire gun on some of the smaller UAVs. I'd go with WMR instead of .22lr though.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

That UAV would have to get damn close for it to be any effect at all, much less the headshot that would be required to actually take out the target. The suppressor wouldn't do much good since the BG in question could both see and hear the UAV, and blast it with a shotgun or AK. The lowest flying UAV in use right now has a 2000 ft operating floor, and most UAVs operate in the 10,000 to 18,000ft altitude range. They would have to drop to about 200 feet to even have a chance with a .22. That's just not practical. A small Air to Surface rocket would be the only real option for a UAV armament.

There is a UAV that's still being designed called the WASP Block III which falls below the Tier I UAV requirements. This would be a hand launched UAV that has an operation time of 1 hour, and a 50-1000ft altitude range. As of now, it's only projected to carry cameras for squad recon, not weapons like the Reaper or Predator.

What about accuracy as well? Guided rockets work great because they have a large enough kill radius to make centimeter accuracy irrelevant. 1 unguided bullet would have to be aimed just like a gun. Good luck getting that accuracy looking through a small video camera flying through the air at a couple hundred feet away from the target. One light breeze or updraft and your one bullet would be a few feet off target.

 

[RKBABob]

ZeSpectre wrote: 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!

Yeah, that would be a problem... untill the CEO buys himself a few congressmen!

Am I the only one who sees no possible purpose for this thing's existence? The Army already has guns that can punch plenty of holes, and quickly, too. 1,000,000 rounds a minute... Do they really need to kill the same target that many times?

The existing guns are operated mostly by human beings, since it is currently more expensive to develop and deploy computers capable of doing what soldiers currently handle. Soldiers are also blessed with judgement... the ability to tell the difference between an armed attacker and a class of kindergarten girls chasing a lost puppy.

I'm not looking forward to the day when the decision to take a life rests in the hands of a Microsoft computer.

 

[mrmeval]

Code? Hacking? I can put a solenoid and a switch on just about any semi-auto firearm.

I doubt you could get *any* semi-auto exemption for a software controlled 'semi-auto' firearm which would be the same as open bolt semi-autos.

 

[Soldier415]

The Border Patrol should be given a substantial discount, and MetalStorm weapons should be strung tightly along the border.

Problem solved

 

[physics]

1 million rounds per minute

slewing around at almost 2 complete revolutions per second

Sounds to me like about 46 projectiles per degree. Also, .02 deg/round. This means that you could hit 2 guys standing side by side at 2900m with 2 consecutive projectiles (using 1m for width of a person). This also means that out to 2900m, in a full circle, there would be more than one projectile per person. Wow, but as mentioned before, I've seen this before.

 

[akodo]

I think the system is a little silly and the numbers misleading. I don't see a bundle of single shot muskets with their triggers all tied to a single rope as a 'machinegun capable of firing 20 rounds in a single second!'

That's all metalstorm seems to be to me anyways. Sure, each barrel isn't a single shot, but rather a stack of ammo. Still it takes a bundle of 100 or so barrels to acheive this level of rapid fire...with no means of quickly reloading to keep it up and running. I suppose you could have a few guys run up there and start sliding in new 20 round shotstacks into each barrel, but that is going to take time.

As others have said, this seems like it would be a good system to counter a single incoming missle, where running out of ammo 1 one second wouldn't matter...failure to stop the missle results in explostion of the gun and what it is defending, success = empty gun but who cares.

I

 

[stevereno1]

I saw it on "future weapons", I must have one.

 

[Wes Janson]

The existing guns are operated mostly by human beings, since it is currently more expensive to develop and deploy computers capable of doing what soldiers currently handle. Soldiers are also blessed with judgement... the ability to tell the difference between an armed attacker and a class of kindergarten girls chasing a lost puppy.

I'm not looking forward to the day when the decision to take a life rests in the hands of a Microsoft computer.

You're not looking forward to the past, then, because it's already happened. Skynet's first victims:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki.html

 

[curmudgeon and anarchist]

Do they make a carry model?