We are the Mighty – by Orvelin Valle
The highest rate of fire for a machine gun in service is the M134 Minigun. The weapon was designed in the late 1960s for helicopters and armored vehicles. It fires 7.62 mm calibre rounds at a blistering rate of 6,000 rounds per minute, or 100 rounds per second — about ten times that of an ordinary machine gun, according to the Guinness World Records.
The Metal Storm gun, on the other hand, makes the M134 look like a toy. The prototype gun system was rated at 16,000 rounds per second or 1,000,000 rounds per minute. The gun system was developed by an Australian weapons company by the same name. In 2007, Metal Storm Inc. started delivering its gun systems to the US Navy for surface ships. This video shows how the Metal Storm gun achieves its head spinning firing rate.
Watch:
http://www.wearethemighty.com/intel/the-metal-storm-gun-can-fire-at-1-million-rounds-per-minute
Jesus Christ
Nuff said….
I actually remember first hearing about Metal Storm a pretty long time ago — it may have been 15 years ago or more. As I recall, the concept was being marketed as possibly useful for small arms as well as larger weapons.
Apparently the small arms development never went anywhere, which is no big surprise. But a weapon like Metal Storm might be useful for anti-missile defense on a ship — provided, of course, that such a gun is sufficiently reliable. It’s certainly a hell of a lot more complex than standard machine guns.
yep. i started hearing about it in the 90s.. pretty straight as its workings. barrels with stacked projectiles and powder charges are ignited by an electrical primer and controlled by a computer..
nothing new. this tech has been around for over 40-50 years. in fact if i remember the Heckler Koch HK P11 underwater pistol is based on something similar.. a multiple shot cartridge is loaded with steel darts with a rocket charge and a electrical primer is fired with each pull of the trigger.. more of a rocket gun but works on same principle as the metal storm..
I want one.
“The prototype gun system was rated at 16,000 rounds per second or 1,000,000 rounds per minute.”
How long would it take to load one minute’s worth of ammo?
More important……. how long would it take to get rid of the bad guys
with one of these on full auto???
makes ya think that emancipation from evil would be a potential
reality if we had one!
You might get rid of the bad guys pretty quickly with one of these, but only if they were foolish enough to stand in a group in front of it. In almost any other situation this weapon would be clumsy and impractical.
Metal Storm could be useful in place of a fixed or vehicle-mounted machine gun, or for anti-missile and anti-aircraft purposes. But for general combat? Nah. Too big, too heavy and immobile, probably too slow to aim, probably very slow to reload, uses too much ammo if its extreme rate of fire is employed, etc.