Six shooters? Pah?

Gotta love a sexy six (or seven) shooter – I know revolvers in .22LR are even made as 10-shooters – so kudos to Ed for giving us one Monday. Gotta say, though, that today’s offerings are a tad more sophisticated.

Let’s start with Metal Storm – a Chinese made system. How do you intercept a hypersonic missile? Two ways – a very sophisticated fast system a la the US Patriot, or by putting up a wall of lead. The difficulty is that they fly very fast and above the normal range of conventional ADA. So your window of opportunity to hit it is very narrow, when it is descending.

Researchers in Taiyuan, central China’s industrial hub, have devised a novel solution: a replaceable container-like magazine loaded with barrels pre-packed with bullets. After firing, the barrels and the entire container are discarded as a single disposable unit.

The box-style rotary firing system boosts loading speed, reduces barrel wear, and maintains accuracy, enabling multiple strikes, continuous operations, and quick counterattacks.

Did I mention a claimed cyclic rate of 450,000 rounds a minute?

This generates an unmatched barrage capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles exceeding Mach 7. By comparison, the US military’s most advanced Phalanx system reaches only 4,500 rounds per minute.

I was impressed by Mike Dillon’s 4000+ rpm version of a mini-gun. 100 times as many? Whoa…

Lu’s team further explained that the contactless trigger works by instantly melting an alloy wire embedded in the bullet, creating a high-energy metal jet to ignite the explosive. This electronic trigger achieves remarkable efficiency, with a firing time of just 17.5 microseconds. According to test data, it is capable of meeting the target performance of 450,000 rounds per minute per barrel, the team noted.

This is actually quite a lock time – a Savage 110 (currently the claimed fastest commercial rifle on the  market) achieves a lock time of about 1.6-1.7 milliseconds. There are 1000 microseconds per millisecond, so this is about 100 times faster, allowing for the high rate of fire.

The weapon, known as Metal Storm, was initially proposed by Australian inventor Mike O’Dwyer in the 1990s. His company, Metal Storm Inc, developed a 36-barrel test system capable of firing at an astonishing rate of 1 million rounds per minute. In 2006, O’Dwyer revealed that the PLA had offered $100 million for the technology.

This caught the attention of the US Department of Defense, which partnered with him to explore new battlefield weapon systems. Despite early promise, the project faced technical and logistical challenges, leading to its abandonment and the bankruptcy of Metal Storm Inc in 2012.Interesting Engineering

Unlike the US, Beijing has kept up interest and has multiple development teams on the program. Interesting read.  One ugly thought – ingenious soldiers have long been known for improvising uses for weapons outside their design parameters (example – use of the German 88mm AA gun as a tank killer par excellence in WWII) – God help the attacking infantry in front of a Metal Storm barrage.

The world’s hypersonic missile club is pretty limited – the US, Russia, China, India – now Taiwan?

The new hypersonic missile – named Qingtian – has a range exceeding 1243 miles (2000 kilometers), and is being mass produced, as per a report by Liberty Time Net.

The reports also state that Taiwan is trying to develop a system that will allow it to also be deployed from mobile launchers.Interesting Engineering II

Taiwan claims to be delivering the missiles to some Army units already, which actually may put them on a par or slightly ahead of the US which just conducted a successful test in December.

Category: China, Science and Technology