Re: Water Cooled Vickers Guns....

> I suggest that Water cooled barrels in the context of Power armor
> could be a viable solution because of the following:
>
> The need for sustained fire vs high volume bursts.

You really need both, and electric gattling guns deliever both.

> The need for minimal difficult to acquire consumables off of high
> tech worlds where super concentrated buckeyball cooling fluid isn't
> really available.

Then how are you going to maintain the PA?

> The need for enhancing barrel length in excess of what you get with
> air cooled weapons in any materials science context.

Most of the material in a barrel isn't to keep the pressure in.  It's to
keep the barrel from drooping and to act as a heat sink.

> The possibility that you'd actually have to go up against waves of
> attackers (I'll bet planners didn't expect Human Waves in Korea)
> especially in far away, out of the way places where you can't get
> your high-tech buckeyball lined barrels in mass quantities to replace.

Then again, how are you going to maintain the PA?  If you can't get the
small parts to replace on the mini-gun, how are you going to get the
large
parts to replace worn out components on the PA?

> The fact that water is universal, troops need it, IC engines need it,
> it's easy to make, it's easy to find unless you're on Dune and
> generally available where humans are. Water purification is fairly
> easy. Rather than needed some superduper glycol based coolant, use
> water with a bit of anti-freeze added.

Just don't try using it on Hoth...

> I'm not talking about a Vickers (1) with the bloody tripod strapped
> on to some PA troopers arm. I'm talking about a sleek barrel with a
> small, armored jacket or even set of tubes running down it's length
> that would have a return and supply line running to the back mounted
> Power and environmental unit on the PA. Run the cooling circuits in
> parallel, one air circulator slightly larger for the increased
> airflow.

Some how I suspect that the power jack built into the mounting point for
a
mini-gun would be much less sensative shrapnel damage...

> Your barrels will last much longer if they stay a lower temperature.
> You won't have to change barrels nearly as often and given realistic
> supply lines, you'll be able to source a more basic type of ammo from
> a variety of sources vs relying on your super supply chain all the
> way back to high tech worlds where they make your super buckey-ball
> materials.

Yet again, how are you going to maintain the PA?  I wouldn't be to quick
on
the ammo sourcing.  Higher tech ammo opperates at higher pressure.  This
means that unless your gun is externally powered, it won't cycle the
weapon
reliable, if at all.  So now you have both coolent lines and a power
jack if
you want a reliable weapon.  Why not just go with a mini-gun and get rid
of
the coolent lines?

> With any super high rate of fire concept (multiple barrels) you're
> going to still have to replace those barrels after sustained fire use
> (air does not conduct heat nearly as well as water, even if your
> barrels are spinning around) and you're going to run out of ammo long
> before. A lower, more sustained rate with better barrel cooling seems
> the way to go for me. Suppose that doctrine use two different methods
> at the same time (Horrors! two different ideas in concurrent
> use...Can you say FW190 and BF109????!!?).

Electric gattling guns both provide high rate of fire bursts AND slow
sustained rate of fire.  The six barreled GE XM214 5.56 mini-gun is
typically NOT set at its maximum rate of fire of 10,000 rpm.  Typically
it
is set at between 400 and 4,000 rpm.  That means the typical settings
for a
three barreled 5.56 mini-gun would be between 200 and 5,000 rpm.

> 1. From a primitive world standpoint, one very well could run up
> against local troops with such weapons based on the previously
> mentioned local technology limits. Supply of such weapons would be
> simple as would the technology needed to support such weapons. A
> water cooled weapon doesn't have all that much more parts than an air
> cooled weapon and it's likely to have lower temperature ranges given
> certain conditions.

I still say that if you can maintian PA, you can maintain electric
gattling
guns...

ias