Highest Rate of Fire?

PLEASE READ

I would just like to know have any more advancements been made in High RPM weapons? Last time I heard, the Australian Metal-Storm Company, held the record of something like 1 million rounds per minute, with their 18-barrelled minigun, forgot the name, I saw a video of this thing in action (quite impressive, penetrated something like 200 layers kevlar in about 30 secs, lol, pretty good for us Aussies , if you don't believe me go to the good ol' Guiness Book o' Records!). Anyway, I was wondering, paticularly if the U.S. has made any progress, prototypes or ideas about any high RPM weapons? I remembering reading somewhere, a plan to make a another Vuclan Minigun, the XL-900/XA-900 or something like that, to be mounted on Helicopters, it was supposed to have 20 barrels, and to fire at around 50 million RPM, it was scrapped though, because of design and technical problems, I think that was around 2002.

Anyway would like some feedback thanks, !

-Omar

[edit on 21/2/05 by The Godfather of Conspira]

Highest RPM weapon to my knowledge is the DREAD system, an electro-centrifugal powderless weapon system. It has no recoil, no gas blowback, no reload in the traditional sense, and so it is capable of firing up to 120,000 rounds per minute from a single barrel. I don't think any other weapon system can top the accuracy, rate of fire, or reliability.

BTW I am not one of their salesmen, I was just really impressed with the technology. I read a synopsis on defense review, and the thing looked awesome.

It delivers .50 cal spherical projectiles less than 1/3 inch apart, at distances comparable to sniper rifles, with identical accuracy. Pretty impressive, and there are a bunch of custom munitions planned for the system, things like less than lethal and non lethal, gas and rubber and what not.

Do an internet search for DREAD TALON SWORD and you'll probably find a link to defense review somewhere. They're the only ones with the story as far as i know.

[edit on 21-2-2005 by WyrdeOne]

[edit on 21-2-2005 by WyrdeOne]

Yes it's a very impressive weapon and 1 million rounds per minute would do a heck of a lot of damage to just about anything.

While much of the technology is a closely guarded secret, the firing mechanism has no moving parts. Instead, it uses electronic ballistics technology. Unlike other guns, the only parts which move are the bullets.

www.cnn.com...

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Highest RPM weapon to my knowledge is the DREAD system, an electro-centrifugal powderless weapon system. It has no recoil, no gas blowback, no reload in the traditional sense, and so it is capable of firing up to 120,000 rounds per minute from a single barrel. I don't think any other weapon system can top the accuracy, rate of fire, or reliability.

BTW I am not one of their salesmen, I was just really impressed with the technology. I read a synopsis on defense review, and the thing looked awesome.

It delivers .50 cal spherical projectiles less than 1/3 inch apart, at distances comparable to sniper rifles, with identical accuracy. Pretty impressive, and there are a bunch of custom munitions planned for the system, things like less than lethal and non lethal, gas and rubber and what not.

Do an internet search for DREAD TALON SWORD and you'll probably find a link to defense review somewhere. They're the only ones with the story as far as i know.

I saw some test footage of the DREAD system, it is a novel concept. However it looks extremely unwieldly like a giant disc. It will never be adapted as a personal weapon, and it has a way to go to replace the .50 HMG.
I like the round, looks rather like a mini golf ball.

I think there is a declassified video of the concept on www.atwar.net... in the video section.

Nope the highest RPM is 1,000,000. Google up "Metal Storm" It's going into operation soon.

Oops the author already posted that heh. I'll go find some links to vids....

www.metalstorm.com...

[edit on 21-2-2005 by sardion2000]

"Highest RPM weapon to my knowledge is the DREAD system, an electro-centrifugal powderless weapon system. It has no recoil, no gas blowback, no reload in the traditional sense, and so it is capable of firing up to 120,000 rounds per minute from a single barrel. I don't think any other weapon system can top the accuracy, rate of fire, or reliability.

BTW I am not one of their salesmen, I was just really impressed with the technology. I read a synopsis on defense review, and the thing looked awesome.

It delivers .50 cal spherical projectiles less than 1/3 inch apart, at distances comparable to sniper rifles, with identical accuracy. Pretty impressive, and there are a bunch of custom munitions planned for the system, things like less than lethal and non lethal, gas and rubber and what not"


Where are you getting your information? The reload time on the dread is significant first of all. The weapons has to spin down, load the ammunition and spin up again. By that time you would be dead. Acurracy? Reliability? hahah

It has not proven its reliability. It hasn't been in combat. So that point is false.

Accuracy. hahaha. At 50 feet that thing is making grouping of 4-6 inches. The video clearly shows how inaccurate it is. (watch it carefully) Ball ammo is highly inaccurate. Instability in the spinning disk by disproportionate distribution of ammunition during firing adds to the inaccuracy.

at distances comparible to sniper rifles. hhahahhaha. Ballistic test showed maximun effective range for .308 projectiles at 3000 fps is 100 yards. And that is against an unarmoured target (human). .50 rounds aren't much better. The spherical projectiles are so inefficient it is not even funny. The ballistic coefficient of a .308 diameter lead ball is .044. A high performane 50 cal round can have a ballistic coefficient of 1.1.

Indentical accuracy. hahhahahahahah. The thing wouldn't hit a human sized target at 300 yards. Even if it did, it wouldn't kill him.

[edit on 23-2-2005 by KINGTIGER1]

Metalstorm Australia also holds the highest RPM for a pistol. It's called the O'Dwyer VLe Handgun, it fires 3 bullets from it's barrel in 1/500th of a second (60,000 RPM ) and is the world's first completely electronically controlled handgun and has no moving parts. It also has a unique, finger print/key ring/authentication recognition system, so only the owner of the gun, with the special "key ring" can a actually fire it (very good safety mechanism, being tried in US, because of high amount of deaths per year by firearms) and it also has remote control activation technology, which means it can be fired remotely. Another excellent Aussie invention :

Here's a link: www.metalstorm.com...

www.metalstorm.com...

It also has a video of this thing firing, it looks like it fires one bullet when the trigger is pressed but actually, 3 bullets leave the barrel at the same time.

Can't wait 'till the Metal Storm weapons go into action, I can just imagine some U.S. Marine firing the O'Dwyer VLe Handgun at an insurgent and suddenly 3 bullet holes appear in his chest, !

I have you all beat: My wife has the highest rate of fire. She can b@#$ch and complain faster than any known technology. Devastatingly effective.

If you want a high rate of fire, look up the G11.
2000 odd rounds a minute on burst fire.

While I'll grant that's pretty dang spiffy, is it practical?

A gun that fires one million rounds per minute is gonna light off roughly 17,000 rounds per second. So basically any good short burst is gonna send 17k+ rounds downrange. While this is going to tear the target to shreds, what kinda vehicle are you gonna find to carry the ammo necessary to make the weapon practical in a battlefield environment. Not to mention the cost of the ammunition. Firing at that rate the ammo cost is gonna get into some serious money in a serious hurry.

From what I can tell this isn't a weapon you'd want to use for anti-personell work. Too much wasted ammo. Sure, the guy's dead but is he any more dead then he would be if he took 3 or more rounds from a weapon with a lower rate of fire, of course not.

From the cost effectiveness angle, expending that much ammo is going to cost as much as a bomb. So taking out stationary targets with it is pretty much a wash. Moving targets (trucks, APV's, tanks, etc) are just as easily taken out with rockets and 20mm fire.

Like I said. It's a cool piece of machinery.... but I just don't see it as practical in a battlefield environment.

Thats just the max ROF, its completely computer controlled and can use more then one type of munition type in the system, you should really check out the link I provided eh.

Metal Storm Videos

high rof is handy against missels and as its rof can be controlled.

Kingtiger
Where are YOU getting your information? I'm getting mine from defense review. Check out their specs and argue about it with them. They claim no recoil, pinpoint accuracy at sniper rifle distances, and a ridiculous ROF. They don't make any note of 'spin-down' time as you say, I imagine it would take a second or 2 to cycle up, but that's it. The bursts are controlled by releasing the ammunition in cycles from the centrifuge. The reliability is a claim by the company that produces it, not based on deployment of the system, you're right. Are you saying companies don't test their products?

You said:
Accuracy. hahaha. At 50 feet that thing is making grouping of 4-6 inches. The video clearly shows how inaccurate it is. (watch it carefully) Ball ammo is highly inaccurate. Instability in the spinning disk by disproportionate distribution of ammunition during firing adds to the inaccuracy.


Yeah, the groups are 4-6 inches, but the individual rounds are landing only a third of an inch away from each other, which is a VERY tight group for an automatic weapon. The claim of accuracy comes from the fact that there is no recoil. There is no instability in the drum, according to the company that produces it, and since it's a silent firing weapon I would tend to agree. They have patented a new system to eliminate friction and increase possible ROF. Where are you getting your information that the spinning disk suffers from a disproportionate distribution of ammo? It's my understanding that the DREAD is fed from a circular magazine below the centrifuge, that pulls ammo up to replace that which is shot.

Metal storm is not as useful in space as DREAD, because of the recoil issue. DREAD is also better suited for mounting on air based, even light weight platforms. It's also being considered for embassy and domestic crowd control and if necessary, deadly force.

I totally dig the metal storm movies, the 1 million round number is deceptive, because it doesn't ACTUALLY hold or fire that many rounds, it just rounds up the math after a 1 second burst utilizing each barrel multiple times.

Same with dread, though it IS capable of maintaining an arc of fire for longer, and since there is no heat buildup, I imagine there would be no loss of accuracy. They would only need a 2 second burst to mow down the entire riot though, so I guess it's a moot point.

"Kingtiger
Where are YOU getting your information?"

I used the information from the patent office. It contains highly detailed drawqings and discriptions of the DREAD weapon system. 100 times more tecnical then defense review.



"I'm getting mine from defense review. Check out their specs and argue about it with them. They claim no recoil, pinpoint accuracy at sniper rifle distances, and a ridiculous ROF. "


Read it. The patent on it is MUCH more precise. It's not an advertisement, but a no bull overview of the weapon. As far as recoil, there is a counter-rotating force associated with the device. A helicopter needs a tail rotor (or other rotor), to counteract torque. They never mention accuracy at sniper rifle distances. The 120,000 RPM is a future version of the dread that has 40 rails of ammunition storage. You can't expect ball ammunition to go far. Go do the ballistic analysis for yourself.



"They don't make any note of 'spin-down' time as you say, I imagine it would take a second or 2 to cycle up, but that's it."

Why would they? It's an advertisement. If firestone mentioned their tires blow up in their ads, they would be in trouble. 2 seconds haahahha. Try 60 minutes at their "claimed" power rate. The energy that these 1000 bullets obtain through spin up is quite high. So a 1 horsepower motor (assuming perfect efficiency) would take approx. 15 seconds to accelerate 1 .50 cal tungsten sphere to an energy level of 10,000 joules. That doen't take into account electric motor inefficiency, drag, acceleration of disk, etc.




"The bursts are controlled by releasing the ammunition in cycles from the centrifuge. The reliability is a claim by the company that produces it, not based on deployment of the system, you're right. Are you saying companies don't test their products? "

It has never been tested in "lethal form" all statistics haven't been disclosed.


"Yeah, the groups are 4-6 inches, but the individual rounds are landing only a third of an inch away from each other, which is a VERY tight group for an automatic weapon. The claim of accuracy comes from the fact that there is no recoil. There is no instability in the drum, according to the company that produces it, and since it's a silent firing weapon I would tend to agree. They have patented a new system to eliminate friction and increase possible ROF. Where are you getting your information that the spinning disk suffers from a disproportionate distribution of ammo? It's my understanding that the DREAD is fed from a circular magazine below the centrifuge, that pulls ammo up to replace that which is shot. "

If you have ever shot long distances with a rifle, you will understand that accuracy diminishes almost exponetially with distance. The effects of wind, gravity, and minute angle differences is very pronounced at long distances.
Two inch spread at 50 feet will be a 2 foot spread at 500 feet (even though that's beyond the capability of the dread system)
Again, you did not read the patent. All the ammunition is stored on the spinning disk. In the most ambitious version, 1000 spheres are accelerated simultaneously in "grooves". this is how they claim that their is no friction. The balls are then released one after the other. Even if they are a third of an inch apart, their is a split second that the disk is not stable. It's like tying an obeject to a fan. Vibration occurs, accuracy is diminished.

"Metal storm is not as useful in space as DREAD, because of the recoil issue. DREAD is also better suited for mounting on air based, even light weight platforms. It's also being considered for embassy and domestic crowd control and if necessary, deadly force. "

I do believe it can effectively used in CLOSE urban combat and for embassy protection and such. Whether airbased or ground based, the effective range is very short.

"I totally dig the metal storm movies, the 1 million round number is deceptive, because it doesn't ACTUALLY hold or fire that many rounds, it just rounds up the math after a 1 second burst utilizing each barrel multiple times. "

I agree. The standard should be in terms of how many rounds you can get actually get out a minute, not how many "POTENTALLY".

"Same with dread, though it IS capable of maintaining an arc of fire for longer, and since there is no heat buildup, I imagine there would be no loss of accuracy. They would only need a 2 second burst to mow down the entire riot though, so I guess it's a moot point."

Their will always be heat buildup. No heat buildup means 100% efficiency. The heat may be negligible inthe weapon, but it still their. Also, the heat has been transfereed to the humvee's engines which must run to use the dread system.


[edit on 24-2-2005 by KINGTIGER1]

Kingtiger
I read your comment on defensereview's forum, well written! I do disagree with you and one of the other posters there though, the calculations you provided use false data, so I don't think they can be relied upon. The maker of DREAD claims muzzle velocities exceeding 8000 fps are possible, that's nearly three times the amount used to debunk the DREAD in terms of terminal velocities. Also, I understand the concept of firing a rifle, I'm actually one of the most accurate shooters in America by my own humble estimation, so is my uncle who shoots for the RedHead pro team (he's been hailed as the finest shot with any weapon), I guess it runs in the family. I think the differences between rifles and this weapon sort of make the comparison moot though. I'm interested to see some more live fire tests of the weapon, maybe a limited deployment on TALON?

I do see your point about their cluster munitions failing to do what they say they will. I'm not sure how the munitions are going to manage to 'stack up' on route to the target, the video demonstration shows a more shotgun like pattern. There is also not a lot of info not available on the mechanism, the electricity requirements (you're right, there 'average' load seems too low and the absence of peak requirements struck me as suspicious), and the distance (you were right, they never said a word about distance, I was wrong to say that, I guess I got mixed up and added that - sorry). I think perhaps trinamic is trying to put one over on us. I guess we won't know till they're installed on the white house lawn to quell dissent...

[edit on 24-2-2005 by WyrdeOne]

" I do disagree with you and one of the other posters there though, the calculations you provided use false data, so I don't think they can be relied upon."

Can you specify. Perhaps I can tell you how I got the "false data". Here is the patent.

patft.uspto.gov...
enter the patent number, which is 6,520,169

"The maker of DREAD claims muzzle velocities exceeding 8000 fps are possible, that's nearly three times the amount used to debunk the DREAD in terms of terminal velocities."

They said 5000-8000fps are possible. Anyway, air resistance increases exponentially, not linearly. I used Sierra Infinity to calculate the energy at different distances and velocities. 8000 fps only increases the effective range marginally (perhaps 300ft). You still will not be able to engage targets at 500 yards effectively. The developing standard that needs to be obtained for a small arm to be effective is the ability to penetrate level 2 kevlar vests. The proliferation of body armor requires higher terminal energy to incapacitate the enemy. Spheres don't provide this ability.


"the video demonstration shows a more shotgun like pattern."

EXACTLY. That is an indoor test. Close range and optimal conditions.

"There is also not a lot of info not available on the mechanism, the electricity requirements (you're right, there 'average' load seems too low and the absence of peak requirements struck me as suspicious)"

The ad claims 150 watts (I believe). That is obviously false. The energy requirement, while being within the realm of reason, are much higher then 150 watts.


"and the distance (you were right, they never said a word about distance, I was wrong to say that, I guess I got mixed up and added that - sorry)"

That's OK. If you are familiar with fragmenting munitions, you know that lethal range is small, and is limited by the poor ballistics of the fragmenting objects. Even the 60mm MAPAM mortar round only has a lethal radius of 20m (which is amazing for a 60mm mortar round) even though it's .3gram spherical projectiles exit at over 1.1kms a second. Spheres are simply horrible shapes for traveling through air, or any other medium for that matter. This also calls into question penetrative power.

"I think perhaps trinamic is trying to put one over on us. I guess we won't know till they're installed on the white house lawn to quell dissent... "

It has uses, but its not going to be a major battlefield weapon. Urban operations and security enforecement suit the DREAD the best.

It was good you posted the patent link, others will no doubt like to check it out, but I've already looked at it. The bit of data about muzzle velocity was what I was talking about. Certain DREAD munitions can achieve 8k fps and up. It is odd though, that neither the white paper nor the patent included ANY information about effective range. When I first read through it I thought I saw mention of 'sniper like accuracy out to 2000 yards' but I couldn't find anything even remotely like that, so..I guess I imagined it..

If the inventor doesn't even know how far this thing can shoot, how can he keep pimping it?

If spheres are horrible for travelling through the air, how about ovoids?

"The bit of data about muzzle velocity was what I was talking about. Certain DREAD munitions can achieve 8k fps and up."

It takes 7+ times more enrgy to accelerate a projectile to 8k fps then it does to 3k fps. So, if it can shoot 8k fps, it is certainly an energy hog. I think the velocity boost is not worth the energy investment.


"It is odd though, that neither the white paper nor the patent included ANY information about effective range. "

It is not there for a reason.


"If the inventor doesn't even know how far this thing can shoot, how can he keep pimping it? "

He knows all too well. He is just hoping that possible military contracters don't put to much weight on ballistic coefficient.

"If spheres are horrible for travelling through the air, how about ovoids?"

Stabilization would be need. A tail or gyroscopic stabilization would be essential. The dread weapon syatem is based around spheres, and even stabilized ovoids are not that great. For distances in excess of 1000 yards, small arms should rely not on Kinetic Energy, but on "payload" rounds. The XM307 is an example. If the XM307 can prove its reliabily and lethality, it is poised to be the small arm of the future (MK47 looks promising as well).