Rolled Out On: 9/28/2007 11:53 PM

And the crossbow was anethema to god and unfit to be used against Christians.

PSH throughout history.

Rolled Out On: 9/29/2007 9:09 AM

The potential for this weapon to be used by civil authorities to control angry crowds of protestors cannot be dismissed. Given the overwhelming response by millions of anti-war protestors prior to the invasion of Iraq, it seems only logical that Coalition governments are keen to find new and more effective means of crowd dispersal, particularly if pre-emptive invasions of nation states continue.

Yeah, it's only logical that George Bush would want to send 1,000,000 rounds a minute into a crowd of protestors.

This person really needs to stop breaking the pills in half.

Rolled Out On: 9/29/2007 1:21 PM

you'd think some system that had ever, y'know, actually killed somebody might be better deserving of hysteria.

not that metalstorm isn't technically interesting, but the reload time and weight of the reloads will probably forever limit it to applications that just about never need to actually shoot. which, seems to me, means its capacity for actual mayhem will never be all that great.

Rolled Out On: 9/29/2007 2:50 PM

Offhand, I honestly think it would make a decent area-denial tool, but that probably does fall under "never need to actually shoot". All the enemy would have to do is trip across a single installation, and they would never go near that area again.

That said, for applications like an eventual replacement of the CIWS system onboard US Navy ships... Dunno. Might be useful, might not - either way, reloading the current Phalanx takes damned near forever as it is.

Also, for personal weapons, such as concealed-carry pistols and the like... I guess I have limited experience there, but I think they might be useful.

Any way you look at it, though, those hysterics were... well... hysterical ;).

Rolled Out On: 9/29/2007 6:23 PM

That's nothing compared to the PSH involved in reporting on The Most Terrifying Gun in the World!

Rolled Out On: 9/29/2007 6:57 PM

Uh, yeah Kev. That one deserves two icons and a mop.

Jeesh.

Rolled Out On: 9/29/2007 8:10 PM

Seems like a few Claymores could do as much, and would be easier and faster to set up.

Rolled Out On: 10/1/2007 3:04 PM

Oh god, I <3 metalstorm so much. It's such an overhyped piece of crap.

I got to watch a feasibility test with that worthless hunk of crap once, and I swear to god, the damn thing blew up. One of the rounds failed to "bang" in proper sequence, but the round behind it, and the one behind it, etc, did go bang. The result was the most spectacular failure of a weapon system I've ever seen.

The Navy GMC I was there with said "well, it'd make a hell of a landmine."

Rolled Out On: 10/1/2007 5:22 PM

it's a neat concept for achieving enormous rates of fire at the cost of really slow reload times, which is useful in... oh, maybe as many as three or four situations.

unfortunately it also uses the next round to be fired as the breech block for the current round to be fired. i'm thinking this may be why they're using low-pressure 40mm grenades for so many of their demonstrations.

it might be able to replace a CIWS some day, i guess. might make a drop-in replacement for the Spanish Navy's homebrew CIWS-alike, which currently uses a 12-pack of regular 20mm cannon. but first, it'll have to get up to the same pressures and muzzle velocities as the Vulcan cannon achieves, and i don't recall the MetalStorm folks fielding that sort of demonstrator so far.