The DREAD weapons system

I was checking out military.com and came across a supposed centripetal motion gun that has capabilities that seem a little unrealistic, but I'd be interested to know what you all think of it. Basically it's a large disc with two handles that spins small golf ball shaped objects and shoots them at 120,000 rounds per minute, 8,000 fps out of the barrel. Due to the poor but necessary design of the ammo (round as opposed to bullet-shaped) the speed would significantly decrease after leaving the barrel, but would still move at incredible speed. There's no flash, and it's untraceable except for the sonic boom of the rounds, however the boom would be nearly impossible to pinpoint. It also eliminates jamming, and the fear of the enemy blowing up your ammunition.

Here's the link: www.military.com...

Parts of the story seem a little unreal to me. One major problem would be the physics behind it. When the round spins, it might throw off the balance of the gun, and when it leaves there would still be kickback. I imagine that this could be corrected if a ball equal in size were spinning in the exact opposite direction. This ball wouldn't leave the barrel and would counteract the forces of the balls leaving the gun. However, you would need some amazingly strong materials to hold these immense forces that can be generated even from a ball the size of a .38 caliber. The 360 degree shooting scares me.....they better have something to stop you from accidently taking out your entire squad

[edit on 16-6-2005 by zhangmaster]

It sounds to me like a test balloon for funding. The physics seem sound, it gives you the advantages cited, the firepower, speed, close bursts, no muzzle flash etcetera. All seems fine except for one thing: I wonder how you make a selection or feeding mechanism for balls spinning at such high speeds in a ring. The following quote:

DefRev is not at liberty to publish exactly why the DREAD can't jam, since Mr. St. George hasn't given us permission to describe the gun's operating and feeding mechanisms in any detail.

Makes me suspicious that such a thing simply doesn't exist and the inventor hopes of developing it if funded. I personally don't think it is possible, if anyone has an idea how such a mechanism could work I'd be interested to hear it.

It i a bit strange Yes... but "military.com" is a quite relieble web-site... So who knows...

I think this is very plausible. Think about the momentum that can be developed using centrifugal force? I think the only real challenge here would be directing the projectile after its momentum has been built up. But maybe that’s the “breakthrough” that’s been made.

If this meets expectations (and I don’t see why it shouldn’t), this will be revolutionary.

The same thing was bothering me too Simon, I mean the feeding mechanism would have to be revelutionary along with the gun for this to work. I would guess perhaps a high pressure system that pumps the balls into the gun...but still...for that speed....I would also worry about jamming. By this I mean, wouldn't it be possible for the balls to hit the mehanism that spins them? Picture a straight metal rectangle extending along to the end of the disk which would spin the balls. If this is a centripetal motion gun, you would need these pieces, and quite a few to allow that high rate of fire. With each metal rectangle, you increase the chances of a ball hitting the bottom if its bottom loaded, or the side depending on where its loaded from. For this to work, there must be something to synchronize the loading of the balls with the position of the metel piece. To rely only on the trigger pulling of the user might cause jamming, and damage to the mechanism is the ball is loaded behind the last piece and hits the next one at a high speed. Of course, these are all assumptions, and I don't know the exact working of the gun.

Skippy, I doubt that positioning would be that much of a problem. Once the ball is released, it will travel in a tangent line. My guess would be that there is a hole or two that opens up when the ball is firing. That way the ball would get out of its circular orbit and travel in the tangent. For 360 degree fire, the entire circular 'head' must also move. I wonder if firing could take place from two openings? If you load from two different points, you cut the rate of loading in half needed to sustain that rate of fire, and also counteract the forces if you spin in the opposite direction. Of course, you couldn't have the two loading points on the sides OR the bottom, or the ball 'pushing' mechanisms and balls would interact and it'd be catastrophic. If I designed it, I'd load one from the side, and one from the bottom, not the top which would obstruct vision. One of these loaders would be closer to the center of the disc than the other.

Whatever it is, it must be one hell of a complicated machine and require a large energy source, as well as materials we've probably never heard of to be strong enough to take those forces. If this exists, you're right Skippy, it will change everything in warfare.

[edit on 17-6-2005 by zhangmaster]

my guess is that the loading mechanism is at the center of the disc and loads from the bottom or top. The projectile is then able to be accelerated incrementally as it travels from the center of the disc to the edge where it reaches its final speed. This would reduce the strength of the materials required to build the weapon since the acceleration forces would not be applied all at once as they would be if the weapon was loaded near the edge of the disc.

Spring loading an acceleration arm could further dampen the recoil shock that would cause vibration in the weapon and loading 2 projectiles at once on opposite sides of the disc, firing from two barrels could, in theory balance the weapons recoil and vibration further. Just my spin on the issue.

I really like that idea Johan. It's simple, plausible, and makes sense. I would say that the loading would be underneath, not on top. Like I said before, if it were on top, it would obstruct vision, and with a 50,000 round capacity magazine....

[edit on 17-6-2005 by zhangmaster]

Seems useless. If you wanted to, you could the same thing with a silenced automatic weapon, and it would be less recoil, far more accuracy, more deadly, alot smaller, much simplier, and cheaper.

Seems like a waste of money.

I'm not sure what you mean...are you saying we're better off with just a simple handgun, or are you saying you could adapt technology like that for one? The latter would be impossible just because of size.

Is it useless? Impossible maybe, but something like this wouldn't be useless. No recoil, impossible to pinpoint, "muzzle" velocities of up to 8000 fps, no jamming, and immense forces upon impact make this one hell of a scary concept. Get a vehicle to hold the large magazine the site mentioned and you could probably cut down small building...the impact would be enough to stop anything it would seem. It could also be used as a non-lethal weapon for purposes such as crowd control in a slower speed setting.