New super-gun to be tested in Feb

Next month a new high-explosive munition will be fired in Singapore and then tested again by the U.S. Army, heralding what may be a sea change in weaponry: a gun that can fire 240,000 rounds per minute. That’s compared to 60 rounds per minute in a standard military machine gun.

Talk about rock-and-roll with a vengeance!

A Metal Storm gun of any size — from a 9 mm hand-gun up to a machine gun size or a grenade launcher — has no moving parts other than the bullets or munition inside the barrel. Rather than chambering a single slug for each shot – very quickly in the case of machine guns — the bullets come pre-stacked inside the barrel and can be shot all at once, or one at a time, as the shooter decides through the electronic controls.

Metal Storm’s speed allows it to lay down a blinding wall of slugs that can intercept and pulverize incoming enemy fire, according to company CEO David Smith. As long as the grenade or mortar is fired from outside a range of about 50 meters or 162.5 feet and a Doppler radar is in use, a Metal Storm system could be an effective defense, he told UPI.

Pretty nifty! There’s more detail in the article if you are into it.