Metal Storm is a machine gun that is capable of firing 1 million rounds per minute. Yes you heard me right, that's the number 1 with 6 zero's behind it! which is about 16,600 rounds fired every second which is 16,500 more bullets fired in a second than the currently fastest multi barrelled rotary machine gun.
Metal Storm has no moving parts, as all the bullets are fired electronically. Also there are no spent and ejected cartridge cases as in conventional machine guns, as Metal Storm ammunition is case-less.
The bullets are pre-sealed in the barrels in a stacked configuration. By ' stacked ' it means that all the bullets are one behind the other in the barrels, so in effect the barrel itself is now the ammo magazine. No reloading of magazines is needed, the operator just replaces the pre loaded barrels.
Malfunctions such as typical machine gun jams are now totally eliminated, because as stated earlier, there are no moving parts except that is...the bullet moving up the barrel !! Therefore this weapons system is 99% dependable and reliable, this is a major leap in weapons technology. The remaining 1% would be if there was an electrical malfunction...such as a flat battery !
The case-less ammunition has the propellant built in to the actual bullet itself and this propellant is ignited via a small electrical charge, in fact a triple A Duracel™ battery will be enough to operate the gun, so large battery packs and electric generators that are normally associated with guns of this type are not needed.
For example, the Gatling gun or rotary barrel machine gun that fires up to 6,000 rounds per minute has to be operated by a large 240volt electric motor as seen in the image below.
The small electrical current is controlled by computer software, ( just plug a laptop into it ) to the exact barrel and the exact bullet within it, so that either one bullet or the entire amount of bullets can be fired.
1 rpm (rounds per minute), 6, or 60 or 6000, or 60,000 or 600,000 or even 1,000,000 bullets can be fired at the shooters behest. The bullets can literally be fired out of a single barrel like a storm of solid metal in a continuous almost solid line of hot lead like in this simple illustration below, whereas a bullet is depicted by this symbol rather than more conventionally...
And Metal Storm is a weapons system that has more than one barrel !
Metal Storm is both the name of the company and the product that it builds. The company is based in Brisbane, Australia and has a subsidiary base in Washington DC in the USA and a pro-active development base in Seattle, USA. Metal Storm owns all the rights to the method that the gun fires its ammunition i.e. EBT or Electronic Ballistics Technology, that was invented by Mr. J. Mike O'Dwyer.
Metal Storm technology can be applied in lots of different ways, one of the ways to use this high capacity firing mechanism is in Sentry guns. These quad barrelled guns lie dormant until sensors detect movement, then they automatically acquire the target and give it a quick million rounds per minute burst of say 600 bullets in 1/1000th of a second !
This is the perfect defence weapons system, literally set it up and forget about it, the gun will do the rest. Just ensure that your own side know where these guns would be emplaced ! because like landmines, it would be totally indiscriminate of who or what it blows away.
Metal Storm can be mounted anywhere and also has the option of firing different types and calibers of ammunition such as, armor piercing, explosive and shrapnel, 9mm, 40mm, 20mm and even non lethal soft rounds.
Metal Storm electronic ballistic technology can also be miniaturized somewhat, and a handgun is under development that uses the same system as the larger ones as described on this page.
A handgun may not be as practical though as the firer would have to carry a fair few spare barrels otherwise called magazines with him at all times due to the rapid expenditure of the ammunition. In this case, the pistol would need to be set to fire say a maximum of 3 rounds per trigger pull, you could then get 18 shots x 3 rounds if the capacity was 54 rounds in each gun.
Three bullets hitting the target in the same micro second would make a pistol like this a very lethal force to be reckoned with.
It is understood that the Australian Government did not want to invest any capital in any of these weapons, so Metal Storm went over to the USA, where it is now being developed and may soon see service with the military in the near future.
With guns like this mounted on tanks, armored cars, jeeps, trucks, helicopters, fighter aircraft and well all military vehicles then surely they would dominate any battlefield of the future. Specially adapted gun carriages could be remotely controlled and sent into hot spots to eliminate enemy positions without the need of endangering military personnel.
Below is an artists impression of a plane equipped with Metal Storm gun pods, imagine this flying over head and deploying a few hundred thousand 20mm explosive shells onto enemy armor. The word 'obliteration' comes to mind !
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