Re[5]: Metal Storm (Long-ish)

At 1:47 PM -0500 1/18/02, Flak Magnet wrote:
>
>I think the part of the concept that I failed to communicate
>effectively was that the MST tube would fire the round into a
>conventional barrel, which would already be zeroed.  The advantage of
>using the technology that Metal Storm has developed as a ROUND rather
>than a round+barrel is that a single reloading operation can now fire
>and entire salvo, so perhaps one gun-bunny crew can reload tandem guns
>without breaking "stride".  The cluster of MetalStorm tubes concept is
>NOT present in my suggestion for an artillery piece using the
>MetalStorm tech... just one (or two for constant firing) conventionaly
>tube using the "stacked rounds" concept for the "shells".

Something like that would be harder for the crew to make changes to 
fuzes and projectile settings.

>RG> Metal storm in that caliber is going to be more like MLRS. You
won't
>RG> be able to select a particular type of round because they will
>RG> already all be loaded. Reloading the firing platform will take a
bit
>RG> of time even if you do it exactly the way that MLRS does it.
>
>I have to admit that I'm not sure how large an artillery round is...
>How big would one have to be to load 3-5 155mm rounds? Would something
>like that be unwieldy for a gunbunny team to slam into the breach of a
>hybrid MetalStorm/conventional barrel system? You can't tell me it's

Well considering the crews load the ammo in sections (ie projectile 
and individual charge bags), making it all one bit would be very hard 
for the crew to use. Add to that the current trend is for auto 
loaders to pull projectiles from one magazine and charges from 
another magazine and load them into a rammer tray, then elevate that 
entire section to the breech's position (ie you don't have to drop 
the barrel for reloads) and the rams the whole set home.

>
>Again, I admit ignorance of the phalanx system.  I didn't realize that
>it was a self-contained bolt-on unit.	Remember that before implement
>the rotating breach that lends the phalanx to it's phenomenal rate of
>fire was a "nice bit of fancy engineering".  But with the phalanx
>being used where such an autoloader would be too bulky, Metal Storm is
>probably not a good option.

The basic gatling gun is 1870's technology. I suspect that goal 
keeper is far easier to reload given its deeper projection into the 
ship. ie you can have a feed to the mount from below decks and 
theoretically from a well protected magazine.
>
>
>Never did I say it would make a good sniper rifle, rather to the
>contrary I think it would apply major vacuum (suck). If precision
>firing is the way to go, either hybridize the metal storm tech with
>conventional barrels (as I described above) or forgo metal storm tech
>entirely, sticking with conventional, mechanical feed systems.

Everything in combat is about getting that lead (loose term) on 
target. If you're just spraying it all over an area, its not going to 
do you much good.

[snip]

>I'm not certain about that without more details.  I mean, if the emp
>pulse is strong enough to create current, that current is going to
>find the path of least resistance... that path might be AWAY
>from the resistors that ignite the propellant in the barrel...  Again,
>it's something to test and design against.  If a computer can be
>hardened against EMP pulse, a guns system can be as well.

If it was that simple, it'd be easy to protect objects from an EMP 
pulse by grounding them. You have to encase them in a faraday cage 
that is grounded to protect them.

--
Ryan Gill	  |	   |	     rmgill@mindspring.com
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