RE: [SG,DS] Power Armour Weapon

Gatling guns work well because the number of round fired through any
particular barrel is a fraction of what a single barreled MG sees - i.e.
a six-barrelled gatling, each barrels sees only 1/6 of the bullets fed
into the MG so it has longer to cool than a single barrelled MG.  In
addition, the rotation of the barrels causes increased movement of air
which helps in cooling.  You can fire longer than a single barreled MG,
but you can't sustain for minutes on end at high rates because you still
will burn out the barrels.

In addition to the added weight of the barrels, the drive mechanism is
also relatively heavy (you need a lot of torque to get 20 pounds of
metal spinning in a second or two).  IIRC a 5.56mm minigun weighs over
30 lbs for just the gun, 1000 rounds of ammo another 35 lbs, a truck
battery to run the gun 30 lbs.	So for 100 lbs of weight, you get about
10 seconds of firepower.

Assuming you run the power from the PA and quadruple the ammo load - 30
lbs for the gun, 140 lbs for ammo - 170 lbs for 40 seconds of fire. Not
totally unreasonable if you can PSB PA in the first place.

--Binhan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: david smith [mailto:bifsmith207@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 4:13 AM
> To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> Subject: RE: [SG,DS] Power Armour Weapon
> 
.
> 
> Another question is are gataling guns (the multi barreled 
> rotating ones) 
> rotating to allow the barrels to cool between firing or is 
> there a separate 
> firing chamber for each barrel and the gun reloads while the 
> barrel is 
> rotating, so allowing the increadably high ROF the are 
> capable of (thinking 
> of the modern versions like the Phlanix or the gattaling in the A-10).
> 
> BIF
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&pgmarket=en-gb&XAP
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