New U.S. cannon, "Metal Storm," can fire 1 million+ rounds-per-minuteWASHINGTON, May 12 (UPI) -- A new ballistic technology that can fire burst rates in excess of one million rounds per minute from a 36-barrel weapon was one of the reasons Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld canceled the $11 billion Crusader artillery system.
The technology is known as "Metal Storm," which is also the name of the Australian research and development company that owns it.
The fastest weapons today are mechanical Gatling gun styles that can fire at the rate of some 6,000 rounds per minute. Infantry rifles average 600 rounds, which is the firing rate for a magazine of 15 to 30 rounds.
Most of Metal Storm's work is top secret. Already under development is an "area denial weapons system," including an unmanned aerial combat vehicle that will carry twelve 40-mm mortar boxes comprising a total of 1,200 tubes, and armed with 7,200 grenades. The system's unprecedented firing capabilities can lay down a continuous 50-meter-wide carpet of grenades for about two miles, firing all its grenades simultaneously with a five-yard separation on impact.
Another gun under development for a small combat aerial vehicle is multi-barreled and can fire 270 rounds onto a target in just .001 seconds without stress on the air frame or any drop in air speed.
The company's advanced individual combat weapon program is destined to replace small arms throughout the western alliance, said Mike O'Dwyer, company chief executive officer. The prototypes now being developed have a dual barrel capability to fire both 20-mm and 40-mm bursting munitions and standard 5.56-mm NATO ammunition.
Metal Storm's submachine gun will be capable of firing multiple barrel rapid-fire bursts at 45,000 rounds per minute per barrel. The technology is 100 percent electronic. Its electronically variable rate of fire has been confirmed to one million rounds per minute.
The technology allows barrels to be grouped in any configuration required for a particular application because it has no moving parts, no separate magazine, no ammunition feed or ejection system. The only moving parts in this revolutionary ballistic technology are the bullets or other projectiles.
Next to "Metal Storm's" firepower, said a senior Pentagon acquisition official, the lumbering, 45-ton Crusader artillery tube would be obsolete equipment.