Apparently our machine guns are not effective enough at killing, maiming and otherwise threatening our opponents, so the US military is helping develop an automatic weapon that fires a whopping 240,000 rounds per minute which works out to 4000 bullets per second.
Why even say it fires bullets at that speed? A more accurate description would be to call it a gun that streams a continuous line of copper wire from it's barrel.
Here's a clip from [http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060120-070112-5273r|a January 21, 2005 article] from www.UPI.com:
Next month a new high-explosive munition will be fired in Singapore and then tested again by the U.S. Army, heralding what may be a sea change in weaponry: a gun that can fire 240,000 rounds per minute.
That's compared to 60 rounds per minute in a standard military machine gun.
Metal Storm Inc., a munitions company headquartered in Virginia but with its roots in Australia, has been developing a gun that can shoot at blistering speeds, albeit in short bursts as each barrel is reloaded.
A Metal Storm gun of any size -- from a 9 mm hand-gun up to a machine gun size or a grenade launcher -- has no moving parts other than the bullets or munition inside the barrel. Rather than chambering a single slug for each shot - very quickly in the case of machine guns -- the bullets come pre-stacked inside the barrel and can be shot all at once, or one at a time, as the shooter decides through the electronic controls.
Because there are no moving parts, the weapon is less likely to jam, and will presumably need less maintenance.
Ah, yes, it's a safer gun.
Safety with guns is probably a very handy thing, especially if you are on the recieving end.
ReplyDeleteThe bullets would be fired so fast that they would form a complete stream as you have said, so maybe they are not going to be used for the army, but in the plumber industry. A new generation of pipe making machines has been born. ;)