Advanced Combat Pistol

[mike wightman]

Sounds like a multi barrelled metal storm pistol

http://www.metalstorm.com/04_electronic_prototype.html

while on their site, have a look at the presentations section. I found a couple at the bottom to be pretty interesting
"the war on terrorism" and "advanced sniper rifle".

 

[Todg]

For those interested in MetalStorm, be aware that there are huge accuracy issues. Not important in a saturation fire weapon but maybe an issue in a small arm.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Are these fixable problems?

 

[veltyen]

Probably

It may be an issue of technological maturity, it may be an inherent problem. It took a long time (several hundred years) before chemical based weapons were as accurate as muscle powered weapons, before that they were only good for bombardment and terror factor.

I would think the accuracy problems would keep it from being used in a rifle type weapon for a while yet, as a pistol/SMG or for area denial lack of accuracy is less of a problem.

At the moment an equivalent firearm is going to be more accurate. That firearm is unlikely to be able to fire its third bullet before the first has left the barrel though.

I think the next big change may be towards caseless with electronic ignition. That change is still a while off (for a variety of maturity issues) but the first precursors are already arround.

 

[Uncle Bob]

I find the metalstorm sniper rifle rather curious. First the accuracy issues we have discussed. Then, every metalstorm application so far uses short, fat projectiles not well suited to supersonic flight.

Also they pointed out that the MV from the first bullet of a series can have 25% more muzzle velocity than later bullets. That means the trajectory will vary with every shot, making targets over 500m away (250 m if it really is subsonic) very difficult.

Oh. The U.S. Army is working towards a caseless LMG. They are still working on the ammo, even leveraging the Nobel/HK wot

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Electrical ignition is a major safety step forward, since it allows you to remotely deactivate the weapon. You could use, say, your cellphone to send a code to turn it on/off, removing the danger of your kids accidentally shooting themselves. Plus, cops could have an override signal, turning any weapons pointed at them into expensive clubs.

 

[Todg]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:

Oh. The U.S. Army is working towards a caseless LMG. They are still working on the ammo, even leveraging the Nobel/HK wot

Caseless ammo had been tried in aircraft canon. In particular, the GAU-7 was supposed to replace the M61 in the F-15. IIRC, it was canvelled in the mid 70s due to a host of problems.

Caseless ammo in automatic weapons is a huge problem, sincve the mechanical stresses each round undergoes are hard to reconcile wityh a case that must fully combust and not leave any material behind in the chamber to jam the next round.

There is also the cook-off issue previously mentioned. The 'breech' of the G11 is much larger in size than for a convention rifle, and one reason was to have a larger thermal sink. Because the G11 ammuniton was much smaller than conventional ammunition (partially due to the small size of the projectile), the overall size was comparable to a conventional weapon. With a heavier caliber weapon like a GPMG, this may become and issue.

BTW, HK solved it's cook off problem by replacing the propellant by a specialized explosive that was less sensitive to heat. There were some concerns about the vulerability of ammuniotn stores. conventional ammunition, when exposed to things like fire, tends to be only marginally hazardous. The caseless ammo used by the HK explodes when burned. in large amounts, it is basically a bomb.

I expect that this is technology that will ultimately become mature and prevalent, particularly in smal arms. The reasons are logistical in nature. Caseless ammo is cheaper to produce in large quantaties and is lighter. There are no real performance advantages over conventional ammunition. It is also not particularly useful if you are producing a wide variety of loads. One has only to look at the huge variation in ammunition of any particular caliber to see why caseless ammo has been a toatl failure in the civilian market. Voere couldn't slle the caseless sporting rifles it made, even at cut rate prices. Ultimately, these guns were snapped up by collectors who recognized they would some day become curiositys, much like the Daisey VL.

Caseless will probaby become the de facto standard in military weapons, but probably not in the case of sporting arms.

 

[Todg]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
Electrical ignition is a major safety step forward, since it allows you to remotely deactivate the weapon. You could use, say, your cellphone to send a code to turn it on/off, removing the danger of your kids accidentally shooting themselves. Plus, cops could have an override signal, turning any weapons pointed at them into expensive clubs.

This is a great advantage to a totalitarian regime. I'm not sure it's a step forward. What happens when criminals or terrorist start deactivating guns?

Electronic ignition is a great boon to precision shooter, because such ignitions have near zero lock time (that is the time between the pull of the trigger and the detonation of the primer).

There is a lot to be said for good old mechanical firing systems. They are superbly reliable, even if a gun is left unused for a century. They can be manufactured at low tech and are relatively easy to service.

IIRC, the first commercial firearm using electronic ignition is the Remington Etronx. For whatever reason, it failed to attract attention and the military showed no interest. In a high tech society, it makes sense, but why unecessarily complicate things?

Unless you have other reasons, as mentioned above.

 

[mike wightman]

Would sporting arms be better with binary propellants - if they are ever developed?

 

[Jame]

What's the difference between caseless and binary-propellant?

 

[mike wightman]

A caseless round has a bullet in a solid block of explosive, a binary propellant uses two different fluids that are mixed in the firing chamber.

I first heard of them - b.p. - in Traveller 2300.

The advantage I can see with the b.p. is that the "charge" could be adjusted.

 

[Uncle Bob]

A caseless round saves a good deal of weight, if you are carrying hundreds of rounds.

A liquid propellant can be metered for reduced charge loads, good for indirect fire and silenced weapons

A binary propellant allows safer bulk storage.

I don't see any real advantage in a sporting arm. Unless you want a machine-shotgun that could wipe out the passenger-pigeon all by itself

 

[Todg]

Binary propellant has different meaning. I'm not familiar with the Traveller context, but the term can apply to either liquid of solid propellants, as Bob said.

Liquid propellants have been researched for artillery for quite a while because they have a number of advantages. One is the ability to be metered easily. Another is that liquid propellants are typically more energetic per unit mass than solid propellants. Also, they tend to combust better with the result there is usually less muzzle flash.

In the case of binary propellants, the propellants is usually divided into fuel and oxidizer. This may be done for reasons of safety, or to allow the use of even more energetic components.

Binary fuels are typically divided into two classes: hypergolic and non-hypergolic. Hypergolic fules include things like hydrazine, aliphatic amines like TEA, amino alcolhols and unsaturated hydrocarbon. Non-hypergolic fuels can be things like n-octane, JP4, isopropol alcohol, RJ-4 and others.

Oxidizers are such lovely componds as white fuming nitric acod, hydrogen peroxide, di-nitrogen tetroxide and solutions f oxygen salts.

The other binary type propellant, and one seldom mentined, is solid binary propellants. In the context of small arms, this is usually two different propellants with different burning characterists. The aim is to increase velocity without signigucantly increasing chamber pressure by extending the time/pressure curve of the propellant combustion to match capacity of the barrel. The simplest for of this is to blend a slow and fast burning powder together. This type of propellant is still fairly new and experimental.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Hypergolic binaries ... forget what I said about safety with these puppies.

I think a binary could also be an energetic material and a sensitizing material, although the fuel/oxidyzer division is more common

 

[Todg]

The example of binaries I gave are pretty ugly. There are other forms (not necessarily propellants) that are relatively safe until combined. ANFO is a fairly well known binary explosive made from combining ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. KinePak is nothing more than ammonium nitrate and nitromethane.

That being said, there doesn't seem to be much reason for traditional binary propellants in small arms, where the amount of material is relatively small and any minor gains in performance are likely to be offset by complexity.

One might argue that the second form makes more sense, in certain limited applications. Improved propellants that can gnerate higher velocitoes without increased chamber pressures will be a boon to high-velocity weapons, particular those used in anti-armor roles.

ultimately, however, it appear that we are near the development cycle end of small arms. There's really not likely to be much improvement in peformance of current small arms, and the next leap is going to be something else, in the same way that the gun overtook the bow.

The OICW seems to point in one direction. Smart, airbursting munitions represent a radical change in small arms. Coupled with the development of micro-ROVs, it doesn't take much imagination to envision future weapons that use highly autonomous, smart projectiles that can fly around corners, and home i on an individual.

The small arm of tomorrow may have as much in common with contemporary firearms as the WWII aircraft machinegun does to a Phoenix missile.

 

[veltyen]

Knifemissiles.

Programmable controllable semi-intelligent sharpened self mobile bullets.

Even further away then anything else we've talked about. Logistically the occasional replacement and recharging put them well ahead of conventional ammo. They can be shot arround corners by default. If you really wanted you could also put an explosive charge into them.

We could build very basic precursors today, but nothing even so close as a proof of concept.

 

[Uncle Bob]

The U.S. Navy is developing the Spike missile (not the Israeli AT missile of the same name) to put a 5 lb terminal homing missile in the hands of the SEALs and Marines. It is supposed to be cheap enough to issue and expend like RPGs (well. you can if Uncle Sam is buying).

And the Future Warrior (c. 2020) is usually portrayed with a hand-held four-barrel (25mm?) rocket launcher firing terminal homing missiles.

Tod, they say that when two men always agree one is un-necessary. I am not prepared to be un-necessary, so we must quarrel sometime

 

[Todg]

Well, with all the automation on the battlefield coming down the pipe, I'm starting to wonder why the Imperium still has men on the field after about TL12.

The AF is already talking about the possible elimination of the man in combat aircraft (a very hotly debated concept). But given the advances in technology, and particularly given the Western democracies unwillingness to accept casualties, I wonder how long it will be before people are debating removing the man from ground combat.

Mind you, I don't see this as happening anytime soon, and as a fromer infantryman and infantry officer, I have a very queasy feeling in my stomach just contemplating this.

I'm glad i probably won't live to see it.

What this has to do with the topic at hand is another question, so maybe it's time to start another thread.

 

[Anthony]

The reason the Imperium has men on the field after TL 12 is the same reason the Imperium has human gunners and human crew aboard Xboats -- apparently computer technology in the 3I is stuck at about a 1980s level.

 

[veltyen]

Humans are cheap.

The parable of the cheap army vs the expensive army.

The expensive army is capable of taking on other expensive armies. Top flight equipment, highly paid personel.

The cheap army involves many people donating their time for the cause and the application of many cheap weapons (surplus rifles from expensive armies for example).

Is the expensive army more effective? Yup. Against a lot of targets it is. Both are about as effective when used against soft targets however.