Whoah!
The Department of Defense is experimenting with new wall designs to protect sensitive installations. The designs are meant to work sort of like bulletproof vests: they absorb certain kinds of kinetic energy in far lighter, more flexible fashion than traditional materials.
So you've just got to check out this video: a 36-ton truck drives head-on into the wall at 50 miles per hour, and gets stopped dead.
The wall's still standing.
I'd call that impressive.
Whoa! That's incredible! Looks like at least some of our money isn't going to waste.
Ah, good to see DARPA back to its old self. On a related note, check out this new weapon system. A gun with no moving parts that could also be converted to fire-fighting duties.
http://www.metalstorm.com/
Its a company based out of Austrailia. The system is capable of firing huge amounts of shells.
"In Metal Storm weapons, there are no mechanical steps to slow the rate, and this has resulted in demonstrated burst rates in excess of one million rounds per minute from a 36 barrel weapon."
You read correctly, 1,000,000 rounds per minute. The system is computer controled and and fire a mix of rounds such as; flares, armor piercing, recon, grenades and for fire fighting foom.
One example they give is for police. The gun has four barrels, two contain bullets and two contain nonleathal bean bag rounds. The gun also has biometric sensors so only the Police Officer can fire the gun.
Its based on the same tech as an inkjet printer. The web site has some amimations that you can download.
That gun can hold a million rounds? (Or more?)
For all intents and purposes, a weapon that can fire projectiles at a rate of one megahertz (1 million rounds per second) is not firing projectiles but extruding a metal rod very, very quickly.
It's a million rounds per minute, Jerry. So that would be only about 167 kilohertz. Maybe more like a cable. ;-)
I heard about this a couple days ago. It's the same stuff they spray into the beds of pickup trucks for the high-end bedliners. (Not the cheaper screw-in variety.)
It is not a continious rod. Each round is stacked on top of the previous round. When the top most round is fired the explosion expands the next round so it seals the tube.
The rounds themselves are, well rounds not just metal rods. Each tube can carry its own variety of round thus you can mix and match your load to meet various needs.
I find it exciting that non-military needs such as firefighting. Check out the clips.
I've owned metal storm stock for over a year - it's traded on the NASDAQ as a sponsored ADR, symbol MTSX. I suggest everyone buy it - once that Pentagon contract comes in ...
No, it doesn't hold a million rounds. There has been no reason to descripe firearm cyclic rate in RPM rather than RPS for a century, but the practice remains. Hold back the trigger on a typical submachine gun or full-auto assault rifle (the kind you can't buy without your sheriff's signiture and a background check) and you are out of ammo in a couple of seconds. Proper practice is to tap the trigger for a two or three shot burst.
Michael, Triticale: Jerry and I were joking. ;-)
That video reminds me of Howard Dean's presidential campaign.