[westpointranger]

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,1 ... SRC=dod.nl

If this article is accurate, then we may be seeing the new revolution in weaponry design. I'm not going to hold my breath on all the "imposible to jam" stuff, but even if that is a load of bull it could still the best freakin weapon on the planet.

 

[Scatch Maroo]

Sounds cool, but I have a couple of questions...

Can the lead projectiles travel at 8,000fps or is that too fast and will they deform/break-up in the air?

This strategic partnership will also enable Leader to begin developing a family of gas-operated lightweight weapons chambered in .50 BMG (12.7x99mm), .338 Lapua, .300 Winchester Magnum and 7.62x51mm Nato (.308 Win.).

Since the projectiles are lead balls, why do they need a variety of different calibers, and how can they have .338 Lapua lead balls, or .300 Winchester Magnum lead balls?

Scatch Maroo

 

[hypno]

holy ****......if that thing is real it could be really scary for the iraquians...if all hat stuuf they said about it was true.....omg....it might replace the m-16!!!


~dom~

 

[Jeff_850]

hmm the rate of fire and ammo capacity for the .308 version is impressive
we'll see if the weapon can live upto the hype if we ever field it

still the weapon seems nothing short of impressive
but ANYTHING can break and i dont know why this would be any exception

 

[Kiwi]

Sounds cool, but I have a couple of questions...

Can the lead projectiles travel at 8,000fps or is that too fast and will they deform/break-up in the air?

This strategic partnership will also enable Leader to begin developing a family of gas-operated lightweight weapons chambered in .50 BMG (12.7x99mm), .338 Lapua, .300 Winchester Magnum and 7.62x51mm Nato (.308 Win.).

Since the projectiles are lead balls, why do they need a variety of different calibers, and how can they have .338 Lapua lead balls, or .300 Winchester Magnum lead balls?

Scatch Maroo

Scatch, I think the reference to the other calibres relates only to the "gas-opperated light weight weapons" intimating they shoot normal projectiles in the above calibres.
The .308 and .50 cals being the centrifuge, "golf ball" type of projectile ......still, all very intriging.

 

[robintico]

"the DREAD's ammunition will be .308 and .50 caliber round metal balls (steel, tungsten, tungsten carbide, ceramic-coated tungsten, etc...) that will be literally spun out of the weapon at speeds as high as 8000 fps (give or take a few hundred feet-per-second) at rather extreme rpm's, striking their targets with overwhelming and devastating firepower."

so, they would not break up in the air since they would be made of very tough materials. the main concern with propelling obejects at those speeds seems to be friction with air, hence the cermamic coating. ceramics have incredible heat resistant properties. the space shuttle tiles are made of ceramics. they are able to withstand temperatures of thousands of degrees kelvin... to get a general idea of the heat they shield from...

"The Shuttle reenters at Mach 18--that's 18 times the speed of sound. If all the energy of the air pushed out of the way by the shuttle were converted to heat, it would reach a temperature equal to the local atmospheric temperature (250 degrees Kelvin) multiplied by 18 squared; that's 80,000 K. But not all the energy is converted to heat; the actual temperature is "only" 2000 K. Yet even that is about a third of the temperature of the surface of the Sun"

 

[Ballistic_Coefficiency]

1: A .50 caliber projectile traveling at over 10 times the speed of sound and it doesnt have any sonic "crack"... supposedly the thing is silent. :| I will be the first to call B.S. on that...

2: 120,000 RPM cyclic rate... that is 2,000 rounds per second... completly useless... unless of coarse your name is Turok and you are hunting Dinosaurs and aliens after accidently going through a time machine cave. The M-136 7.62X51mm GAU "Minigun" fires 6,000 RPM cyclic... which is 100 rounds per second... which is allready insanely fast.

3: As far as i can see... ( i didnt read the whole thing since i dont have all the time in the world so please inform me if you know ) it doenst have any feeding device... the only "picture" of it... if you can even call it a picture... doesnt show anything but a disk with doul pistol grips and what appears to be some kind of small computer screen. Hhhhmmmmm... maybe it uses a paintball hopper the size of a house?

4: There arnt any REAL pictures of it... so im guessing this guy has only built on in a virtual world.

5: It also states "no heat"... well anything that spins / moves fast enough to have a cyclic rate of 120,000 RPM is going to have LOTS of heat build up on contact surfaces... even if they are ball bearing's.

I sit here hoping whoever is in charge of weapons development for the Companies and Units for our Government that things like this are not currently being thought up and using up tax payers money... I could go on and on... but i will stop now.

BC

 

[patriot]

With a cyclic rate that high you would need a Mack truck full of ammo to follow it around.

Hmmm..............Sounds like a plan! :lol:

 

[Poundcake]

Whoa-
so if that thing is electrical, where is the extension cord? I can't imagine a battery capable of powering that for long. So who is backing this project? K-bee or toys-r-us? haha, sorry I had to chime in, and I/m desperately short on sleep :shock:

 

[CM2k]

5: It also states "no heat"... well anything that spins / moves fast enough to have a cyclic rate of 120,000 RPM is going to have LOTS of heat build up on contact surfaces... even if they are ball bearing's.

Yeah, really. LOOK AT US! WE CAN DEFY THE RULES OF PHYSICS! Not only that, whatever the barrel for this thing, it'll heat up like all hell putting out 120,000 rpm, even if they are ceramic coated. The best you could physically do to retain little or no heat is to use magnetic fields. The trade off would be the fact that you'll never be able to power it with ease. Ever.

 

[patriot]

I poked around about this thing last night talking to one of my "friends" and they said there actually is a working device that fires 1 MILLION rounds per minute. I know it sounds crazy, and I'll keep my original statement including the ammo truck to feed it, but it does exsist.

 

[Dead Roman]

not to mention. the gyroscopic forces caused by a disc that large spinning fast enough to throw a projectil that fast is gonna be extremely hard to change directions with while in operation, rendering it useless as a field weapon. Ans the first time that disc gets hit by a shell its gonna come apart and throw shrapnel at a billion fps iun all directions(would you want to be holding those grips when that happens?

 

[Recoil]

*Deleted*

 

[Yimmy]

re

"the DREAD centrifuge-powered weapon system"

I didn't bother to read the article, but would like to point out that there is no such thing as centifugal force... it is just a simplistic way to help explain some laws of motion.

 

[snowy]

You could still ghillie up and snipe the operator from 800 yards.

That thing wouldn't be much use then.

-snowy

 

[Recoil]

*Deleted*

 

[Yimmy]

re

"Saying there's no such thing as centrifugal force doesn't add anything to this discussion and is simply argumentative"

Not at all, you obviously missed my point. I am no intellect at physics, but concerning centifugal force, it really doesn't exist - as in, a weapon based on it will not work. If this thing is real, there must be more to it.

 

[Recoil]

*Deleted*

 

[DELOREAN]

http://www.defensereview.com/modules.ph ... le&sid=526
Includes a video of it being fired close to the end.

 

[Clark]

Just try to sell a gun design on speculation at Rock Island Arsenal.
No request for quote, no contract.
Even if you sell the engineers at RIA, what does the brass care?
Such as patent 3894471 in 1975.