Things that go boom in the night

A bit of housekeeping...

Faithful reader and alert militarist Maj. Dave points out the following about the pic I ran last week along with my observations about the weakening of U.S. Army boot camp:

The two women in that picture don't appear to be US Army, the weapons are wrong (steyr?), the berets are and the web gear are wrong ??

Carry on . . . Dave

Major Dave is correct of course, in my rush to use a female military photo I erred not only on the non-U.S. weapons, berets, flashes and web gear... but also the cammo pattern. My guess is Brits or somewhere in the UK.

I looked around a bit and the foreign shoulder weapons look closest to the Brit's SA 80; but some of the do-dads are off. Not a FN or Fal, not a Galil, and Steyr (below) seems to have gone space age...

So... anybody else got a clue?

Anyway, this is a good time to pass along some firepower info that is mind bending for an old 20-round magazine guy like myself.

The United States (and probably everyone else) is interested in making use of the new Metal Storm technology from an Australian company which allows fire burst rates in excess of one million rounds per minute from a 36-barrel weapon. Our prelim testing began last month.

The weapon system's main focus seems to be in the realm of "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.

Incredibly, another design under development is a small aerial combat vehicle equipped with a multi-barreled weapon that can fire 270 rounds onto a target in just .001 seconds without stress on the air frame or any drop in air speed.

This is the Metal Storm Advanced Individual Combat Weapons (AICW) prototype which can fire three pre-loaded 40mm standard blooper rounds from a tube hung above, not under, a 5.56 mm rifle barrel. The optics give the grenade launcher window-sized accuracy at 100+ yards.

All of this of course rewrites the entire concept of everything from automatic individual shoulder weapons to aviation and naval weapons platforms to artillery.

Another prototype based on a typical semi-auto law enforcement side arm can alternately fire lethal and non-lethal ammunition and only in the possession of the authorized officer.

These Metal Storm protos -- from a 9mm-based handgun up to a machine gun size or a grenade launcher -- have 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.

Because there are no moving parts, the weapon is less likely to jam, and will presumably need less maintenance.

The inventor, Mike O'Dwyer, a one-time Brisbane grocer, spent 30 years and much of his own money to develop the technology; now he has numerous contracts in place and the war and law enforcement parts of the world are about to change. A good overall story

Comments

[christmas payday loan]

At the end, these women are sweet normal ladies.

[Mikey C]

Look like royal signals badges on their barrettes to "CERTA CITO" swift and sure, mercury aka good old "Jimmy"but a staged pic?
I would thing so.

[wootton]

hey, just landed on this site while lookin at metal storm,and i can tell u the girls hav british 95 uniform and r holdin L98a1 rifles This is a cdt version of the british army's L85 and u can tell by the different cocking handle. My guess is these r army cadets because their berets r not air or sea cadets' and the one on the left is even wearin old olive green coloured shirts which r rarely used in combats, although on tht i may b wrong

[doc Russia]

http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/pw/pw_sa80.htm

L85/SA80
Definitely british by the camoflauge pattern

[bigwhitehat]

I own stock in Metalstorm.

[dagamore]

is it just me or does the chick on the right look high, you know the dark green marine?

[Duece]

Those weapons are the British IW-80. The bullpup design is fed to the left of the gal's(on the right) hand.