Re: [SG,DS] Power Armour Weapon

Radiators are in use in current small arms...  For example, the original
version of the Soviet PKM GPMG had a paritaial fluted barrel.  The
flutes
increase surface area without increasing weight.  They also affect
barrel
vibration when firing.	Fluted barrels are common in the civilian
shooting
sector on high accuracy rifles with high rate of fire, such as varmit
rifles.  Another current radiator in use is the prominent threads on
Steyr
AUG barrels.  This thread is a radiator to assist in heat disipation.

Why a hot barrel is such a bad thing is material science.  Basically, if
a
steel barrel is too hot to touch, it is hot enough to cause
re-crystalization.  This means you are changing the properties of the
steel
in the barrel.	It was much worse in WWI because the technology and
quality
controls were much lower then they were in WWII.  This means that heat
was a
much worse problem in WWI then WWII.  While it is still a problem today,
it
is not the overiding conern it was in WWI.

There is an lot of experimentation going on in small arms barrels in the
U.S. civilian shooting industry, such as carbon fiber barrels with
titatnium
linners, low friction coating for bullets (internal ballistics), Very
Low
Drag bullets (external ballistics), etc.  Actually, the VLD bullets
aren't
experimental, they are very common now for long range shooting matches
(300+
yards).  There's a lot of potential for improved military small arms and
improved amunition, but it languishes (from a military stand point)
because
the U.S. military has it's head way up its own	"donkey."

ias