DREAD weapon system

[Rebar]

Imagine a gun with no recoil, no sound, no heat, no gunpowder, no visible firing signature (muzzle flash), and no stoppages or jams of any kind. Now imagine that this gun could fire .308 caliber and .50 caliber metal projectiles accurately at up to 8,000 fps (feet-per-second), featured an infinitely variable/programmable cyclic rate-of-fire (as high as 120,000 rounds-per-minute), and were capable of laying down a 360-degree field of fire. What if you could mount this weapon on any military Humvee (HMMWV), any helicopter/gunship, any armored personnel carrier (APC), and any other vehicle for which the technology were applicable?

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_DREAD,,00.html?ESRC=marine.nl
It looks too good to be true, but if it works half as good as advertized - WOW!

 

[Stickjockey]

Imagine a gun with no recoil, no sound, no heat, no gunpowder, no visible firing signature (muzzle flash), and no stoppages or jams of any kind.

Now what fun would that be?

 

[G36-UK]

Y'know guys, some of you are taking this Mexico/Minutemen war thing a little too far.

Why else would it be disguised as a sombrero?

 

[auschip]

A 360 degree field of fire, and the picture shows a double pistol grip. Some engineer must be angry at his testing group.

 

[DelayedReaction]

Interesting concept. I can only assume that the disk is capable of withstanding severe shock and is sealed against environmental effects; I can only imagine what a grain of sand would do to a disk spinning at high rpm. I'm pretty sure it's just a disk spinning at a really high velocity, with the spheres released at specific intervals and given time to accelerate before launching from the front.

How fast is that disk rotating? Well assuming it's 1 foot in diameter (probably slightly larger), and the ball is leaving at 3000 fps, that's an angular velocity (w = v/r) of 3000 rad/s or about 30,000 rpm. That's pretty fast.

 

[Flying V]

Someone should point out that that thing isn't a firearm, and hence isn't a machine gun.
It's civilian legal.

 

[cordex]

Okay ... so they've figured a way to completely remove friction from the equation (mmmkay ... right) and of course it doesn't generate any heat (I mean, no friction, no heat - right?), their design is not only good, it's foolproof (can't jam, hmm?) and the only sound it makes is the supersonic crack of the projectile?

Bullspit.

Neat idea, but that marketing piece was ridiculous.

1. How do you make something frictionless? If you've figured that out, why aren't you pulling in trillions of dollars revolutionizing modern machinery?
2. How do you bring a rotating disk up to many thousands of RMPs without generating heat? What kind of motor do you have in that thing?
3. How can a design be impervious to malfunctioning? You're saying a damaged projectile won't tie it up? A sandstorm won't cause any problems at all?
4. How do you spin something that fast and not make a noise?

Don't buy it.

 

[Snowdog]

I'm pretty sure that's the new Sovereign class starship NX-75832765837, lovingly named by its designers as "The Trash Can Lid" and will likely be designated as such.

In all seriousness, I doubt this gizmo will perform as promised. However, I will be more than tickled if it did.

 

[Mulliga]

Never trust any product that can break the laws of physics.

 

[Rockrivr1]

Video!!! I want to see video. Ok, I know that will never happen, but if this thing works as described, I'd love to see it in action. Um, as long as it's not pointing at me that is.

 

[Control Group]

1. How do you make something frictionless? If you've figured that out, why aren't you pulling in trillions of dollars revolutionizing modern machinery?

You are, for all practical purposes, completely right...but I can't help pointing out liquid He. It is, actually, completely frictionless. Zero friction. Of course, it also only exists at 2 or 3 Kelvin, but still. Frictionless. They could also mean the bearings are magnetically suspended and evacuated, which would eliminate friction. It wouldn't eliminate drag or heating, but it would eliminate friction.

2. How do you bring a rotating disk up to many thousands of RMPs without generating heat? What kind of motor do you have in that thing?

Well, if you've made it frictionless (see above), this isn't actually all that hard. And if it's cold enough to use superconductors, you don't even have to worry about resistance heating boiling off all your liquid He.

3. How can a design be impervious to malfunctioning? You're saying a damaged projectile won't tie it up? A sandstorm won't cause any problems at all?

This one you've got me on.

4. How do you spin something that fast and not make a noise?

I refer you again to the frictionlessness.

HOWEVER: all that being said, this is clearly crap. As soon as they talk about firing anything at any velocity (much less a .50 cal ball at 8,000fps) with "no recoil," they're clearly full of crap. Conservation of momentum's a - um, "female dog," you know?

 

[Ol' Badger]

WOW! A giant BB gun. Be hell on the Squrriells. sqeeze the trigger and the bunny goes poof! Neighbors cat goes zap! Toads that explode! Mincemeat of mice........

 

[Control Group]

Video!!! I want to see video. Ok, I know that will never happen, but if this thing works as described, I'd love to see it in action. Um, as long as it's not pointing at me that is.

Um

How could it not be pointing at you?

 

[Firethorn]

You could be under/above it, I guess.

 

[20cows]

What's that smell and why does everything look kind of pinkish?

It all sounds so wondrously marvelous that I hope it's at least 20% accurate. But it definately has a too-good-to-be-true taste to it.

Is that author a stockholder?

 

[Greysand]

Oh man, this thing has more problems than a tree hugger in Iraq. Like (for example) that there is no safe direction to point the thing. It's always pointed at everybody. And what happens after say half or so of the projecticles are fired? Did someone say "crazy scarry unbalanced?". (I'm from Kali, trust me, I know what unbalanced looks like) At best it wonldn't be silent anymore.

And lets not even get into what would happen should some poor fool touch the thing while it's spun up. (well, they didn't really need that thumb anyway)

If they can get the thing to work safely, well, more power to em. But I just can't stop picturing the cartoons where the buzz saw gets dropped and runs amock. (because noone in the army has ever dropped anything)

 

[Bart Noir]

There will be recoil, unless Newton just republished a law or two. But the effect will be to slow down a rapidly spinning disk and the wizz-bang neato computer control will compensate for this. In some fashion the ball (we've gone back from bullets to musket balls!) will be released from the spinning disk, controlled again by the WBNCC, with a targeting precision only dreamed of by today's primitive projectile launchers.

Yeah, sure, and what exactly does happen when the software's "undocumented feature" causes the WBNCC to recycle and spray balls in all directions? Don't ask me to test that one. Remember the Army's computer controlled grenade that killed the soldier launching it?

OBTW, the spinning disk is now a mucho-gyroscope and no man alive will be able to tip it up or down on its pintle mount. So the whole thing is in a heavy-duty turret with hydraulics to aim the frisbee-gun.

Bart Noir
Won't be selling my stock in Hercules, Dupont etc.

 

[30 cal slob]

Hmmm. I want one. I'm sure one could be made to take a registered HK sear.

 

[erik the bold]

I like the part where:

The only thing the DREAD's operator will really have to worry about is running out of ammo, which isn't likely. Any reasonably skilled gunner (Humvee, APC, Apache attack helicopter, etc.-- doesn't matter) should be able to avoid running through all 50,000 (or more) rounds of .308 Cal. or 10,000 (or more) rounds of .50 Cal.

Which means you have 25 seconds worth of ammunition at full speed
313 pounds of ammunition if lead
530 pounds if tungsten

I'm no math major, but I'd be hard pressed to believe that the thing could hold together at 120.000 rpm. What about the power required to accelerate that mass to the required speed?

What about the limitations of mechanical commutation? I haven't seen any electric motors over 20,000 rpm, and how do you get rid of the heat??

That why you rarely see a large(er) turbine spinning over 30,000 rpm.

Quickly spinning large disk shaped object on gimble = gyroscope

 

[Frank Exchange Of Views]

I seem to recall reading about something like this in one of Julian Hatcher's books - I would have to check which one.

But why bother when there is a two paragraph write up of the original whirly-gig/sling contraption in Dolf Goldsmith's new book on the Browning machine gun - with pictures even. What is neat is that some of the incredibly optimistic text from news items of the time are reproduced - sounds kind of similar...

Of course, it didn't work out back then...

 

[Preacherman]

If you put rotors on that thing, your Humvee could fly...

 

[Rebar]

Folks have brought up a lot of good reasons why it won't work.

Frankly, even if it did work, I don't see the need for it. Our current problems don't seem to be firepower, which we have in spades, but finding the target to bring the firepower onto.

 

[Rebar]

Here's a link to a video of it:
http://defensereview.com/dad/dread.mov

I'm downloading it now - beware, the site is S-L-O-W.

I'll give an update if I ever finish getting the file.

 

[svtruth]

Recoil

Wouldn't Newton's laws of motion lead to recoil? Throw a mass one way at a given velocity (F=mv) and generate an equal force the other way?
But still a cool idea, back to the sling.

 

[Owen]

no recoil because the projectile is already at speed when it's released. Somehow, I can balance being a real problem