Superposed load question
Superposed load question
Are any companies trying to create superposed load weapons that can actually be used in combat?
I didn't even know the term "superposed load" until a few minutes ago. I'm not a gun guy but I ended up on the Wikipedia page for Metal Storm which went bankrupt in 2012.
Metal Storm Limited was a research and development company based in Brisbane, Australia, that specialized in electronically initiated superposed load weapons technology and owned the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technology invented by J. Mike O'Dwyer. The Metal Storm name applied to both the company and technology. The company had been placed into voluntary administration by 2012.
[...]
Metal Storm used the concept of superposed load; multiple projectiles loaded nose to tail in a single gun barrel with propellant packed between them. The Roman candle, a traditional firework design, employs the same basic concept...
I didn't understand so I watched this video...
The Weapon That Can Shred Any Tank to Pieces
The Metal Storm gun, a design with 36 barrels, has an impressive rate of fire of over 1.62 million rounds per minute, equaling 180 rounds in a .01-second burst. It employs caseless 9-millimeter ammunition that can fire a wall of 24,000 rounds that move at speeds of Mach 5. And it can literally tear apart any tank that stands in its way!
Skip the historical intro and go straight to the stuff about Metal Storm.
What the video mentions...
- "The gun was stacked and couldn't be moved."
- In theory a Metal Storm gun could shred a tank but in reality it's nonsense. See #1.
- "The time to prepare it was tediously slow." I don't understand why the vid didn't use the term "reload".
- "It was never produced to [fire for more than five seconds.]"
- The gun/ammo was very expensive.
I'm not surprised the company went bankrupt.
i think eventually, and I mean eventually we will see replacement of reliable, easy to manufacture current propellent and jacketed ammunition with some kind of electrically activated caseless type
not superposed obviously but just like the old H&K style. if only for the weight reduction and increased ammunition capacity (as well as smoother action and less recoil). if a formula can be developed that creates very little fouling, or maybe the gas or some kind of electrical action (magnetic maybe?) can clear the barrel of residue before it settles in.
I think there will be a race between this tech and useful man portable coilguns since they both have similar advantages. one relies on developing a clean propellant (coupled with a simple li-ion equivilant battery) and the other a compact, energy dense solid state battery and possibly superconducting loop capacitor.
a hybrid of both might be more likely. enough electrical energy to use less propellant or possibly instantly transform it into a plasma-hot gas and eject it magnetically with the projectile. so basically a caseless coilgun combo.
whichever one wins will finally unseat the perfectly useful jacketed cartridge weapon, which will still be used forever afterward in some capacity
I don't know what that is.
Is that a kind of railgun?
sorry the H&K G11 first real caseless prototype assault rifle
coilguns are magnetic weapons but unlike rail guns they can continuously fire without damaging the barrel. they suspend the projectiles in magnetic coils, so they don't technically make contact with anything.
unlike rail guns they require much more potent magnets and higher energy densities. home built coilgun rifles can basically hit velocities of an air rifle. so it's a trade-off. rail guns will never be scaled down below artillery because they must be rebuilt after x number of shots (I could see a man portable single shot rail gun for deep armor penetration one day perhaps)
last time i spam you with replies i promise:
coilgun: multiple magnetic stages like a rocket taking off. each has to fire off perfectly. complex magnets, floating projectile
rail gun: works like a mag-lev train. single rail, some contact is made, no staging. just acceleration. but wears itself out quickly from contact.
good coilgun example video