For those of you who aren’t familiar with this weapons’ system, it’s called ‘Metal Storm’ and it can spit-out rounds at the rate of a million a minute, sound impossible…let’s take a closer look okay?
Here is some history on this unique weapons’ system:
Metal Storm has created a 36-barreled stacked projectile volley gun, boasting the highest rate of fire in the world. The prototype array demonstrated a firing rate of just over 1 million rounds per minute for a 180-round burst of 0.01 seconds (~27,777 rpm / barrel).
Firing within 0.1 seconds from up to 1600 barrels (at maximum configuration) the gun claimed a maximum rate of fire of 1.62 million RPM and creating a dense wall (0.1 m between follow-up projectiles) of 24,000 projectiles.
What is the Metal Storm gun used for?
It was originally conceived to remain stationary and to be used in setting up ambushes. Anything in its line of fire would be effectively turned into a paste, but by stepping a few feet to either side, the target remains fully composed solid.
Metal Storm used the concept of superposed load; multiple projectiles loaded nose to tail in a single gun barrel with propellant packed between them. The Roman candle, a traditional firework design, employs the same basic concept; however, the propellant continues to burn in the Roman candle’s barrel, igniting the charge behind the subsequent projectile.
The process is repeated by each charge in turn, ensuring that all projectiles in the barrel are discharged sequentially from the single ignition. Various methods of separately firing each propellant package behind stacked projectiles have been proposed which would allow a “shoot on demand” capability more suitable to firearms.
As of 26 July 2012, the company has been placed in voluntary administration. In late 2015, DefendTex, an Australian-based defence R&D company, acquired the intellectual property, trademarks and other assets of Metal Storm with a view to the continued development and commercialisation of the technology.
