What is the issue? I don't understand the need for this.
40mm granade system by Metal Storm?
- Thread starter sammo
- Start date
you can mix and match different ordnance within each tube. You can select fire barrels, you can change the rate of fire between barrels and within each barrel. That allows a high degree of flexibility of response.
USN have been closely following the CIWS option.
Like any weapon system its relevance has to be acutely geared to the requirement, so I don't see it as a universal solution - the problem is that some see it as a universal solution across various spheres. Its not.
However, there are probably 2-3 things that USN is clearly interested in. I'm aware of 2 discrete projects that US Army are interested in. Its one of the few technologies where even the US doesn't have open access to. (although they certainly have greater access than anyone else)
I can certainly see it as a platform to launch 40mm grenades for a large field of fire. They would decimate an infantry approach. I saw the AF version demo placed on UCAVs... that looked pretty retarded to me. Using it as CIWS might be nice but those would be some pretty long barrells if you want to hold enough ammo. The thing about powder guns and CIWS, they are going extinct. With tactical COIL lasers coming out I think the future of CIWS is set.
I think the best use of Metal Storm would be for UVs that can't really reload themselves. The demo for that remote 40mm grenade launcher was pretty bad ass. Fired in bursts or full throttle that can do some serious anti-personel damage. It would be good for gun carrying UVs to... less likely to jam. Since they don't have to worry about reloading that would be no problem. I wouldn't want to personally carry a Metal Storm gun into combat however simply for the fact of reloads.
I think the best use of Metal Storm would be for UVs that can't really reload themselves. The demo for that remote 40mm grenade launcher was pretty bad ass. Fired in bursts or full throttle that can do some serious anti-personel damage. It would be good for gun carrying UVs to... less likely to jam. Since they don't have to worry about reloading that would be no problem. I wouldn't want to personally carry a Metal Storm gun into combat however simply for the fact of reloads.
Actually, in reality, this rather limits your response ability. Your barrels come preloaded, therefore if you suddenly find yourself facing say, primarily an Armoured threat when you were expecting a Personnel one, you have to stop firing, switch barrels and then return to firing. A conventional, multi-feed grenade launcher (for example) or cannot, has only to have the gunner flick a lever and instead of feeding anti-Armour rounds, he is now feeding anti-Personnel rounds. This is one of the big arguments against MetalStorm IMO. In a weapon system, where only a relatively small number of rounds are loaded, such as in the AICW, this isn't as big an issue but in a larger system, it can become an issue.
Its a quaint solution but again, like most of the weapons utilised for CIWS, the Metal Storm ones fail because they utilise too light a round IMO. Physics means that the missile will still hit its target usually.
No, it isn't. I agree. Part of the problem is that Metal Storm itself has hyped it as the panacea for all problems, which has IMO damaged its possible use a real solution.
It would be nice if it was possible to treat them in the same way they treat everybody else who wants in, on one of their projects but unfortunately, like the elephant who decided to sit on your backyard fence, its difficult to deny the US much, when it wants it.
its not difficult at all, its a barrel changeout. even within the barrel its not difficult to preload mixed rounds. eg 4 explosive, 1 tracer etc...
there is no change in tempo in mixing stacks of rounds - and the firing sequence and fire control system will determine how and what it fired. eg. you could programme barrel number 29 to be triggered for a given target detection parameter
i've dry handled both the prototype stage 1 weapon and the current steyr look alike. both were not difficult to swap out.
when working on an opposing tech in 2000 I wrote a paper on MS weaknesses, one of the weaknesses that I flagged was the limitation of being able to go beyond 40mm. recent discussions seem to show that some of my misgivings in 2000 have been addressed. still the proof is in the pudding.
some of the most effective CIWS rounds are based on solids. there is a vast difference in the way that a target will react if hit by a focussed cone of solids rather than proximity/contact managed explosive shells
The real solutions are not getting airplay - which IMV should have been the way that it always should have been handled. I don't have a lot of time for O'Dwyer as I think he's a pompous prat, and IMV he should have been listening to his mil experienced Board members more clearly. A reasonable indication of a companies strength is the retention and rotation of professionals employed as Directors.
At a foreign eyes level, the US gets far more access to the absolutes of the technology than anyone else - but the contract was deliberately and intentionally structured so as to ensure australian management of the IP. anything else is irresponsible IMV.
Last edited:
I wasn't suggesting it was for the AICW. I was suggesting that this would present a problem in a larger, vehicle or tripod, dedicated system. Whereas in a conventional Grenade Launcher, it is quite possible to simply flick a lever and change ammunition types, with Metal Storm either you have one barrel reserved for a different ammunition type, to allow you to engage differing targets of opportunity while you swap out the other barrels or you accept that you have to stop firing completely, to change ammunition types.
Even loading differing ammunition types in the one barrel does not change that sort of situation, because it means that when you hit the different ammunition, which is inappropriate for the target being fired on, either you stop firing from that barrel or you waste ammunition, which you should be saving for the appropriate target type at a later date.
What I feel they haven't addressed is the problems associated with recoil. Its nice to have a "million rounds a minute" but the larger the calibre, the greater the recoil and unless the barrels are given some form of recoil mechanism (and hence complicating expense), then your vehicle/vessel must absorb that recoil. Which means greater deck and mounting strengthening. I am also not convinced that they have adequately addressed accuracy problems either, associated with differing ballistics between rounds, when firing at longer range targets. I suspect dispersion will be as bad as rockets.
See above. Your "cone" will be far more of a dispersed cone than you perhaps realise. Even if a missile is hit at 1,000 metres, momentum will usually carry it to the target, particularly if its been armoured, as many are now starting to be.
I understand that there has been a bit of a game of musical chairs on the board. Each time I look, its changed, again. Which does not bode well for the company IMO.
Yeah, well, I've seen our IP flushed down the dunny often enough, not to have high hopes on that score. Its usually given away to any takers. Personally, I put it down to the "cultural cringe" and unwillingness to necessarily believe in our intellectual abilities (and provide venture capital for the development of them).
to use an example. firing at an ERA layered platform. you can programme barrels to fire solids to break the ERA, and then trigger other round types to follow through.
Its the same with perimeter defence round, solids to disrupt and cannister to fragment the secondary.
CIWS have gone out of "new install" favour because of the problems of incoming disintegration can just as easily contribute to a mobility kill (eg shards ripping up the comms "acoutrements"
The project I worked on was a recoil management process. I'm familiar with their problem.
See first response.
Well, they have probably one of the best vulture capital companies in the world involved, so it should be less of a problem for them.
as for cultural cringe, there are a number of Oz technologies that are privately owned but don't get media attention that are delivering far more than what MS does - and its real time technology and deployed. They don't give a damn about flying the flag because they don't have to. The right projects will attract the right funding. I must say that my exp with americans wrt this issue is very good. They're straight up and don't try to play the margins for their own benefit. I can't say the same for a few of our other technology allies.
Last edited:
Assuming dispersion problems can be surmounted. Not much use if you're second or third round strikes a different ERA "tile", now is it?
Yep, which is what I alluded to. Momemtum will carry the missile remains pretty much onto the target and unless you've got some way of armouring antennae, bye-bye, electronics.
But strangely this never seems to get into the press releases and wonderful animations from MS.
I was talking about the over-all trends, which are unfortunately, not good IMO. When I'm in my cups I sometimes think it might be better just to sell the whole country to the septics and be done with it. 22 billion is chickfeed, really and that way we're all millionares.
yes, thats true enough. but I am providing an example of whats possible.
I think there's a greater awareness though. hence SEA-RAM etc. all of those gatling CIWS provide a false sense of secrity IMV as far as an anti-shipping role is concerned.
O'Dwyer has always been good at noise making and deflection. Recoil has been an issue ever since my involvement on the other project circa 2000.
Both sides of govt have been pretty appalling at supporting local industry. There are a few techs that I deal with which are rapidly picked up overseas and in demand, and yet its a devils dance trying to get local attention. Ironically, I don't bother with australian tech in australia, now I just take it overseas instead. That applies not only to miltech, but also water management and solar tech. Its far more highly regarded and used overseas than locally. Go figure.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Question on Metal Storm weaponry
Does anyone know if Metal Storm electrically fired munitions have been looked at for aircraft? I'm thinking in particular of a replacement for the M61 20mm gatling gun found on different US aircraft.
While I believe that with a multi-barrel Metal Storm system the ROF would equal or exceed that of an M61, would a Metal Storm 20mm (or 30-40mm) system fit in the space occupied by an M61 with the same quantity of ammo and weight?
-Cheers
Does anyone know if Metal Storm electrically fired munitions have been looked at for aircraft? I'm thinking in particular of a replacement for the M61 20mm gatling gun found on different US aircraft.
While I believe that with a multi-barrel Metal Storm system the ROF would equal or exceed that of an M61, would a Metal Storm 20mm (or 30-40mm) system fit in the space occupied by an M61 with the same quantity of ammo and weight?
-Cheers
I think that is hardly possible. After all you won't fit more than let's say 6 to 8 rounds in one barrel. And since the barrels would have to rotate to share one hole in the aircraft's hull to fire through, you would still need a rotating mechanism for the new gun, so it would hardly look different from a conventional gatling gun. The rate of fire might be higher (but i doubt that because the ROF in such a system would be defined by the speed in which the 6 barrels rotate instead of just the feeding mechanism), but the accuracy would be far worse because only the last round in every barrel would actually pass through the full lenght of the barrel. So not only would the rounds vary in the "ammount of guidance" they get from the barrel (sorry, my english is too weak to find better words for that), but also the gas pressure that propells each round would be different due to the fact that the rounds spend different times inside the barrel.
Since long range accuracy is important for an aircraft's gun, Metalstorm cannot replace a conventional system here.
The problem with the variing gas pressure and way to pass through the barrel also seems to be a problem with the 3 round rifle-mounted infantry grenade launcher. The soldier using that thing would have to use a different angle for each of the 3 rounds to aim accurately.
In my opinion the big 40mm Metalstorm grenadelauncher that can be used to make it rain a lot of grenades over a defined area in a short time in indirect fire is the only useful utilisation of the Metalstorm principle. For every other use conventional guns seem to be the better alternative. Even for robots like the one at the beginning of this thread the new recoilless guns from Rheinmetall seem a better solution. You could combine that principle with a link-less feeding system like it is used for the Eurofighter Typhoon 27mm gun that is far less likely to suffer jamming than conventional machine guns using ammo belts/chains and saves a lot of space.
(I tried to post direct links to the information sheets about the two systems i mentioned, but somehow the redirecting function of Defence Talk won't let me. The links only lead to the main page of Rheinmetall. www.rheinmetall-detec.com Click on "systems & products", then on "weapons and ammunition", "medium calibre", "weapons" and there you'll find the "Recoilless Cannon RMK 30" and the "BK 27 Aircraft Cannon for Eurofighter".)
Last edited:
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Thanks TriangleC for your imput. It was an idea that had occurred to me, but as indicated, I wasn't sure if there was enough space/weight to allow enough barrels (and enough rounds per barrel) to be worthwhile.
I wasn't aware that in the current employment of the M61, the aperture was only large enough for 1 barrel to fire at any one time. That would certainly work against a Metal Storm system. Does anyone know about the M61 system on the F-22A Raptor? From what I understand, it is supposed to be enclosed, only opening to fire, doe the aperture open enough to expose all the barrels? I believe that F-35 is supposed to be using a similar system, but using a 25mm gun instead of another version of the M61.
-Cheers
I wasn't aware that in the current employment of the M61, the aperture was only large enough for 1 barrel to fire at any one time. That would certainly work against a Metal Storm system. Does anyone know about the M61 system on the F-22A Raptor? From what I understand, it is supposed to be enclosed, only opening to fire, doe the aperture open enough to expose all the barrels? I believe that F-35 is supposed to be using a similar system, but using a 25mm gun instead of another version of the M61.
-Cheers
in the F-22 only one barrel is exposed.
You see it good in this video.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sGIjcmKpp4U
You see it good in this video.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sGIjcmKpp4U
Costs ?
What sort of costs are involved with metal storm weapons? Do they use any sort of standard ammo ? If they do not , how expensive is it to use ?If it is a great weapon but very expensive , what use is it ? How can sosts be kept down ? Doe sit have any fixed or rotary winged applications? If the pistol version of the weapon system is reloaded by changing barrels , is it really a practical weapon?How heavy is the loaded barrel ? Can a person carry enough barrels to really use the weapon? I worry that this weapon is interesting but possibly non-applicable.
What sort of costs are involved with metal storm weapons? Do they use any sort of standard ammo ? If they do not , how expensive is it to use ?If it is a great weapon but very expensive , what use is it ? How can sosts be kept down ? Doe sit have any fixed or rotary winged applications? If the pistol version of the weapon system is reloaded by changing barrels , is it really a practical weapon?How heavy is the loaded barrel ? Can a person carry enough barrels to really use the weapon? I worry that this weapon is interesting but possibly non-applicable.