Re[4]: Metal Storm (Long-ish)

At 11:58 AM -0500 1/18/02, Flak Magnet wrote:
>Here's another couple of concepts inspired by what you described:
>
>Artillery guns firing salvoes using MST tech, so one tube can fulfill
>the combat role fulfilled by a battery. Just reload the barrel and
>fire away. Reducing the MST tech to a "round" instead of the
>ammo/barrel assemblies envisioned by Metal Storm would eliminate the
>need to zero, as the sight/calibration of the actual firing bore would
>still be zero-able. If the tube of MST gun is mechanically

If a very heavy barrel that has been manufactured to exact tolerances 
needs to be zero'ed why the heck do you think a 155mm metal storm 
system wouldn't need to be? How exactly are you going to easily do 
what tube artillery does?

Metal storm in that caliber is going to be more like MLRS. You won't 
be able to select a particular type of round because they will 
already all be loaded. Reloading the firing platform will take a bit 
of time even if you do it exactly the way that MLRS does it.

>Using MST tech and two or more clusters of multiple barrels for a
>Phalanx system, only one set of barrels fires while another is
>automatically swapped out with a fresh set, dumping the heat with the
>spent barrels.  Reloading of the ammo-feed system could be done while
>the system was firing if needed...  Heat becomes a non-issue.

That's a nice bit of fancy engineering you've got there. Auto-loaders 
mostly work when they are under cover and out of the elements on 
ships. You want to move this large multi barrel assembly out on an 
automatic system

>Also, someone complained about having to re-zero a weapon every time
>they changed barrels... Automatic pistols can be made very accurate,
>and the barrel is a moving part sitting inside the slide which has the

Pistols are really accurate at 10-15 feet. Accuracy of a rife is 
fractions of an inch at 100's of feet. Just swapping a barrel out 
won't give you anywhere near the correct accuracy. You won't see 
Metal Storm sniper rifles simply for the fact that the sniper won't 
be able to zero his rifle to that barrel using his scope.

I suggest you speak with a few people on Sci.Military.moderated about 
the practicalities of how accuracy with tube artiller is achieved and 
a few folks on	rec.guns about just swapping a barrel and not loosing 
zero.

>
>Still, I am curious about the system's susceptibility to EMP
>attacks... If the electronics can be made resistant to EMP damage, I
>think they'll be okay. An EMP pulse capable of frying microchips more
>than likely doesn't generate enough current in target circuitry to
>cause ignition of the propellant in a MST system... At least not an
>EMP that could be generated without nuking the MST system anyway. If
>the MST's circuitry is sensitive to low to mid-level EMP, then it's
>got issues.

An EMP pulse would likely see that barrel assembly as a really nice 
antenna. Enough juice to fire those rounds all at once would likely 
result. It doesn't take much to create a nice bit of current with EMP.

For the sci.military.moderated discussion see:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=group:sci.military.moderated+insubje 
ct:metal+insubject:storm&hl=en

And for sci.military.naval
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=group:sci.military.naval+insubject:m 
etal+insubject:storm&hl=en

apparently noone on rec guns has given it a thought.

--
Ryan Gill	  |	   |	     rmgill@mindspring.com
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