[OT] Re: Machine Guns (was Power Armour Weapons)

A few bits and pieces:

The 20mm gatling used by the USAF can still go through
a large fraction its barrel life (half?) in one burst.
The longer the burst the greater the wear. I imagine
they use quite ‘hot’ loads in it to make up for its
small calibre (20mm) and the lag as it takes time to
spin up. Apparently they were going to move to a
larger calibre weapon about thirty years ago but have
not changed yet.

There is footage of a Russian ship mounted AA gun
being cooled down after firing by a sailor plying it
with a hose.

A Shortage of brass was becoming a major concern for
the Germans in WW II in part because almost all of
their artillery used a brass case to seal the breech.
They devolved steel cases for small arms and less
successfully for artillery and were trying to develop
breeches that would seal with bagged charges, I wonder
why they did not just copy captured weapons though,
mind you this was Nazi Germany so logic seems to go
out of the window.

I read in one of Capstick’s books (Maneaters I think)
about a hunter in Africa who defended his camp against
cannibal attack with a shotgun, he fired it so rapidly
the solder holding the barrels together began to melt…

A few years back they carefully measured a Vickers and
then fired it all day and measured it again. They were
no signs of increased wear on her at all.

I believe the M60 in Vietnam could ‘run away’ if it
became too hot, the hot chamber cooking off rounds in
the breech.

Michael

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