> Yes, it fires a lot of ammo. But you throw away the barrels and load
But as the barrel needs only a limited lifetime, it can be very light. And
there's no separate magazine to carry.
So you're on the 4th or 5th mag/barrel change before the weight becomes
equal to a conventional weapon with the same amount of ammo. And anyone
who's carried around an M-60 or heavier weapon knows that you need spare
barrels even for those after a few thousand rounds, and they weigh a LOT.
Of course the Metal Storm ammo/barrel/mag loads may not weigh a lot, but
they're bulky. And its very easy to burn thousands of rounds very quickly.
> I'd hate to have one of them mis-fire too.
This has been very difficult to test: compared to conventional weapons,
they're very difficult indeed to make misfire. IIRC from the last shareholders
report I got they still hadn't been able to make one of their systems misfire
(ie frun away or fire without command) without destroying it before it could
even start to.
> At 10:05 AM +1100 1/17/02, Alan E Brain wrote:
How do you zero the new barrels? How do you protect the weapon system under
armor? How do you easily transfer ammo for a cannon type (25mm) from stores to
the vehicle?
> Of course the Metal Storm ammo/barrel/mag loads may not weigh a lot,
Something of a problem.
> Hang-fires are dealt with by just removing the barrel, and putting
I've always dealt with the occasional hang fire by ejecting the round while
turned away from the breech of the bolt action rifle (old.303 brit not of
greek or british mfg...).
From: "Ryan M Gill" <rmgill@mindspring.com>
> How do you zero the new barrels?
No idea. As they're clip-on, part of the sight system should be
integrated
with the barrel when high accuracy is required - this AFAICR is the
system used with the sniper rifle, which is designed to be good enough to take
out a target at 2000m.
For most applications, a 1/10 sec burst at 10,000 rounds per second is
enough, especially if it's a 40mm...
> How do you protect the weapon system under armor?
Same way you do other comparable weapons. Usually you don't. When you need to,
you use multiple barrels.
> How do you easily transfer ammo for a cannon type (25mm)
Take barrel out of shipping container.
Remove existing barrel - noting how many rounds are still in, if not
empty. Put barrel in mount. Lock.
Rather easier than changing a 25mm barrel. Definitely easier than loading a
mag with lost of 25mm rounds linked together.
Remember - there is no brass. No cartridge case. Weight of 20 rounds of
a normal weapon is: a)Electromechanical firing system, heavy enough to
reliably hit the round with a firing pin plus b)Firing actuator (trigger),
safety etc c) Furniture and recoil systems capable of taking the shock. d) 20
cartridges, each able to confine the propellant without ballooning too much.
e) A barrel heavy enough to take the heat stress from 1000 rounds (say) before
deforming. f) 20 lots of propellant g) 20 warheads
Now delete a), d), e) and replace them with a chip, a battery, and a barrel
not a lot heavier than the 20 cartridge cases. Upgrade c) as needed for the
ROF.
If you've ever policed up the brass after a lot of rounds have been fired, you
know how freaking heavy it is in large quantities.
> >Of course the Metal Storm ammo/barrel/mag loads may not weigh a lot,
*Shrug* No way around it. If you want to fire X rounds, it will weigh a lot.
> I've always dealt with the occasional hang fire by ejecting the round
Immediate Action/Gas Stoppage is even more hairy on an auto rifle. I
still
> At 6:39 PM +1100 1/17/02, Alan and Carmel Brain wrote:
And you will still have to zero the weapon. The sigting system on the Bradly
is a pretty good sized set of kit.
> > How do you protect the weapon system under armor?
But this will be a big box sitting on top of your armour, no?
> Take barrel out of shipping container.
takes 2 guys I bet.
> Remove existing barrel - noting how many rounds are still in, if not
> Rather easier than changing a 25mm barrel. Definitely easier than
Its still a 25mm barrel. It still has to be of a certain size that is able to
hold that powder charge. Now instead of being tapered at the front and only
thick at the breech end, its thick all along it's length. And its a different
barrel with different mechanical
properties that does need to be re-zeroed from the last one you just
used.
How many rounds do you get in a barrel? 10-20? Each one of those
rounds will have a different muzzle velocity because they will have traveled
down a different length barrel. Sure you might be able to vary the powder
portion per round, but, you've still got issues with the front rounds are
going to be traveling down a shorter barrel and will still have differences in
velocity from those in the back.
So to have 200 rounds on tap, I have to have 10 of these barrels in a mount
that has to train and elevate. All are out of armor for the most part. To
reload, I have to get out of the vehicle and climb up on top. No thanks. I'll
clip several more rounds of 25mm AP in the turret base, count them out and
hang them in the ammo bin.
> Remember - there is no brass. No cartridge case. Weight of 20 rounds of
You are still going to have a big slug of metal where your breech is in the
back are you not?
I still think I can more easily carry around 20 rounds of 7.62 in a small box
than I can 20 rounds stuck up a tube strapped to my back with a given length
barrel. Heck, I can more easily carry around one FAL, a SUIT Scope, and 6
extra box magazines than I can 7 barrels each with its own train of ammo, a
funny mount and spare batteries and 1 scope. (assuming your machine tolerances
are perfect every time I change the barrels to the new mount.)
> Now delete a), d), e) and replace them with a chip, a battery, and a
Yep. Not as heavy as the loaded brass. Ever pick up a.50 cal mg barrel?
Imagine that with 10 rounds in it.
> Immediate Action/Gas Stoppage is even more hairy on an auto rifle. I
Hmm, on the Fal if its a dead round, you turn the rifle away from you, hold
the extraction lever that is opposite the ejection port and eject the round.
Quite honestly though, misfired rounds out of decent ammo are wayyy rare. I've
never had it out of the surplus US, Austrian, Greek, British or Portuguese
ammo fail to function for me. The only problems I've was a batch of.303
British that was Pakistani and had very poor quality. Likely it could have
been storage issues.
There are a couple of factors that make the barrel lighter.
1) Unless you are re-loading barrels, it only has to survive 5-30
firings, not the 1000+ that most assault rifles or MG's have to survive
before barrel change, so heat dissipation, metal integrity and barrel
thickness can be manufactured to lower requirements.
2) There is no breechblock or receiver, it's just a tube sealed at one end. As
each bullet is fired, the propellent squishes the bullet beneath it, and in a
unique technique, the bullet is expanded slightly forming the base of the
firing chamber and consquently sealing the bullet for the next propellent
charge. Therefore, the back end of the tube doesn't see the full force of each
bullet, probably only force from the last few closest to the end. So there is
no need for a massive breech block.
3) The ammo is already in the tube, it's not fed into it. Each tube is
pre-loaded with alternating propellent and slug. So there is no
extraneous weight or mechanism. A lot of the complexity and mass of rapid
firing systems is the receiver, which has to be designed to keep the breach
sealed, move out of the way to extract a casing, allow a new round in, ram it
home, seal the breech, trigger the firing pin and repeat. The mechanism for
Metalstorm is: you pull the trigger, an
electrical current flows and propellent explodes - no moving parts other
than the trigger.
The firing system itself should also be lighter:
My understanding of the firing mechanism is that it is small enough to be used
in a pistol, about the same size as a 9mm. So a base system would probably be
lighter than the standard rifle, MG, or grenade launcher of equivalent
caliber. Assuming something like 12v or 24v required to fire the weapon, each
soldier would probably be issued two sets of rechargeable batteries and some
sort of hand generator might come as part of the structure (i.e. a hand pump
like a shotgun) to allow manual electrical generation. This is assuming that
next generation uniforms don't include power generators in their boots (saw an
article on a new flexible pizeoelectric matrix installed in running shoes able
to generate a couple of watts) which would allow them to recharge on the
march.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
<<SNIP>>
> >Remember - there is no brass. No cartridge case. Weight of
> And you will still have to zero the weapon. The sigting system on the
This system is not suitable for co-ax work from under armour. It is way
suitable for replacing the pintle mount on top.
> >Take barrel out of shipping container.
Why? How much do 10 25mm rounds weigh? The barrel is about as heavy as the
25mm cartridge cases. This is hypothetical: the only experimental models have
been 80mm, 40mm, 9mm, 20mm AFAICR.
MST is working on a hybrid system - basically a Steyr (similar to M-16)
with a 10-round 20mm MST system on top.
Think of it as an M-203 which can fire 10 20mm rounds instead of one
40mm. Individually or as a burst.
Here's where I get things on-topic: take a look at the metalstorm
website under "military applications" for a picture of this thing, and
the even more futuristic-looking follow-on.
> Its still a 25mm barrel. It still has to be of a certain size that is
No, it's as thin as a cartridge case along its whole length. Almost. Actually
rather thicker, but made of something quite a bit stronger and very much
lighter than brass.
Take a look at the web site!
> Each one of those
Correct, this is what they do.
> but, you've still got issues with
It's more complex: this thing fires so fast that you can (and do) have 2
slugs travelling down the barrel simultaneously - the rear one moves
slower with the same charge as it's fighting its way through the hot
propellant gasses still in the tube from the leading one. After exiting
the barrel though, it slows down less, travelling in the near-vacuum
produced by the first one. This property makes it great for long range
sniping: for a given recoil, you get a greatly increased range. Once the train
of bullets catches up with each other, the ones at the back "push" the ones at
the front
(actually they act more like a single long boat-tail or base-bleed
round, there's certainly no physical contact, but suffice to say they go
faster for longer).
> You are still going to have a big slug of metal where your breech is
I think you're labouring under a misapprehension: There's no breech. Take a
look at the web site.
> At 10:12 AM +1100 1/18/02, Alan E Brain wrote:
If you want a big boxy pintle on top.
> Why? How much do 10 25mm rounds weigh? The barrel is about as heavy
> No, it's as thin as a cartridge case along its whole length. Almost.
Sounds nice and resiliant.
> Take a look at the web site!
I went looking at this thing when it started its rounds in the Military News
groups about 2 years ago. I wasn't convinced it will replace all weapons then,
and I'm not now.
> >Each one of those
How close do they get with the accuracy and precision.
> [snip]
Ok, something that will contain the force of the expansion of gasses of the
propellant from the last round. For a 25mm, that is pretty substantial. Even
it if is for just one use.
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 7:53 AM +0100 1/18/02, K.H.Ranitzsch wrote:
Think of this. A coax MG under armor has a single barrel protruding through
the mantlet. A metal storm mount would have say, 20 rounds per barrel. If you
only have one fragile barrel protruding through the mantlet, then you have 20
rounds on tap. That coax 7.62 MG has 50. The loader can clip another can of
250 rounds of 7.62 link on to the end of that belt in a very confined space.
Having to slide the barrel out (compromising the NBC integrity of the fighting
compartment btw) and slide a new barrel in after 20 rounds.
I couldn't even think to slide a barrel out of the turret on my ferret unless
I turned the turret around, elevated the gun and banged the driver (usually
me, but in this case it'd have to be someone else) in the back of the head.
Changing a can of 7.62 (or 30.06 in the case of an M1919A4) is a heck of a lot
easier. Also, I'd have a hard time stowing 125 32" long barrels inside that
vehicle. I can carry 10 cans belt of link rather easily in that very confined
fighting compartment. If in combat, I'd take a conventional MG any day.
Note rocket artillery performs in a similar manner to Metal Storm. High volume
low dwell. However, tube type artillery is still kicking and getting very
advanced. TOT strikes are getting to be in the realm of 10 rounds on the
target at the same time per tube. If 6 tubes are in the fire mission, then you
get 60 rounds on that strike in about 2 seconds, not a heck of a lot of time
for the bad guys to take cover or get under armor.
> Alan E Brain wrote:
> > Yes, it fires a lot of ammo. But you throw away the barrels and load
And there's no separate magazine to carry.
Unfortunately, the lifetime of the barrel is not determined by its weight, but
by the relative hardness of the rifling compared to the driving band. The
weight of the barrel is determined by pressures in
> B Lin wrote:
> There are a couple of factors that make the barrel lighter.
My understanding is that most of the barrels' weight is to keep it from
bursting when the first round is fired and the next million are almost free.
For most firearms it is the rifling that wears out, not the barrel (ie: it is
not replaced because it is unsafe). For weapons larger than sidearms, the
guntube must be rigid or the weapon is inaccurate.
> 2) There is no breechblock or receiver, it's just a tube sealed at one
> At 4:17 PM -0500 1/18/02, Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
But weight of the barrel has a direct bearing on how much heat it can absorb.
That heat level has a direct bearing on barrel life under sustained use.
> I am neither a metallurgist nor a gunsmith, but I do know that
Those are technically cannons.
Heavy machine guns (M2HB) have big heavy barrels that can absorb more calories
of heat before the rifling gets softer.
> "K.H.Ranitzsch" wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
Given that a.50BMG round is about 6" long (I may be in error), twenty of them
in a metalstorm barrel will be more than 10' long. Explain to the tanker that
> Alan Brain Wrote:
> > You mean a Metal-storm gun is not sutable for use under armour ? Why
How's this for a mental image to explain the problem: Imagine making love to a
giraffe while inside a moving Volkswagen. Now imagine that the giraffe has the
potential to explode.
From: "K.H.Ranitzsch" <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de>
> You mean a Metal-storm gun is not sutable for use under armour ? Why
Bulk. There's never enough room in an AFV.