Just saw this interesting piece of technology on Future Fighting Machines just now and I thought I'd share it with everyone. Its call "Metal Storm". A company in Brisbane, Austrailia has been developing systems that fire ONE MILLION!!! projectiles a minute. It involves no using electricity to fire these weapons, like a rail gun. It can be fitted with grenades, cameras, shells, almost anything that can be shot out of cannon. The launchers look like the VLS tubes on US Navy crusiers and destroyers, but there are as much as 10-20 projectiles in one tube, each one firing by a burst of electricity. Also they are making pistols out of the same technology. It would be like 10 rounds in the tube at one, and firing three rounds out of a pistol at once. Reloading is simple, pull out the spent tube, and insert a new one. Also there systems can be fitted to any a/c with NATO hardpoints. The canisters on a/c should look like the Storm Shadow the RAF has, except these can drop 100-200 grenades or anti-personnell/material bomblets in less than a minute. Here is the website
www.metalstorm.com, they have a wide range of video tests. In a battlefeild system, there would be a launcher, with 100-200 tubes on it, say one filled with cameras, another with mines, another with tank busters etc etc. You shoot off some cameras, look for the enemy, you identify and lock out any civilians or friendlies. ID the enemy troops, and fire your volley (200-400 rounds of anti-tank coming down around you will ruin ANYONES day). Also they don't have to be in military applications, it can be used at airports to fight fires. You set up a system, filled with airburst fire extinguishers, and you fire at the crashed aircraft, most of the fires are out before anyone arrives on the scene. There are graphics of it on their site.
by Blade » Fri Jun 06, 2003 8:24 pm 
