Let's hear it for the eleventy-seven layers of fact-checking editors!
This made me groan out loud - so loud, Lisa thought something was wrong with me. And she was in another room at the time.
Crap like this makes me ALMOST embarassed to admit that my brother-in-law is a journalist. Now, in his defense, he's never spouted this kind of stupid crap that I know of. And it's not like he and my sister have any shortage of things to be embarrased about ME for, and that's for stuff I'VE done, not just other folks who share my profession. So no rocks thrown on this point.
But obvious ignorance like this just makes me cringe.
For those of you who don't notice the immediate problem with the linked article, there are two, both in the first two paragraphs.
First, the Metal Storm system can NO WAY fire 240,00 rounds per minute... the barrels come pre-loaded with several shots, and when they're empty, you have to CHANGE BARRELS.
Second, and a MUCH MORE SERIOUS mistake, is that, by contrast, "That's compared to 60 rounds per minute in a standard military machine gun."
News flash to Pamela Hess, aka stupid bitch that needs to learn to do some research:
Discounting the time for magazine changes (which is normally done to find rounds-per-minute firing rates) I can fire about 120 AIMED rounds per minute from my mostly-stock Colt Commander - a semi-automatic pistol whose design is just nearly 100 years old.
Again, discounting reload time, I can fire 60 AIMED rounds a minute from my pump-action 12-gauge shotgun!
And both on the pistol, and shotgun, I'm not even that good. Adequate at best. (If you want to see GOOD, Google Tom Knapp and Jerry Miculek.)
I mean, think about it... 60 shots/minute is 1 shot/second. Look at your watch, look at the second hand, and think about a MACHINE GUN that only fired once per tick of the second hand. Even the most primitive machine guns, predating WW1, fired faster than that.
This twit either had a typo, which her eleventy-seven layers of vigorously fact-checking editors overlooked, or she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about, and couldn't be bothered to even apply a little common sense (which is notoriously UNcommon among our elite journalistic class, who are the ones who are rightly educated enough to tell the rest of us what to think).
I said earlier that obvious ignorance like this makes me cringe. Cringing is my first reaction... Once I think about it for a while, (as I've done in writing this post), it makes me PISSED. Frikken' idiot journos, who couldn't find their ass with both hands, a map, and an ass-finding machine, are shaping public opinion.
While people who actually know whereof they speak are discounted by edujizzmers and journaljizzmers as "anachronistic" and "right-wing whackos".
This is rapidly progressing to RCOB status. I think I'd better wrap this up and go take my blood pressure meds.
Crap like this makes me ALMOST embarassed to admit that my brother-in-law is a journalist. Now, in his defense, he's never spouted this kind of stupid crap that I know of. And it's not like he and my sister have any shortage of things to be embarrased about ME for, and that's for stuff I'VE done, not just other folks who share my profession. So no rocks thrown on this point.
But obvious ignorance like this just makes me cringe.
For those of you who don't notice the immediate problem with the linked article, there are two, both in the first two paragraphs.
First, the Metal Storm system can NO WAY fire 240,00 rounds per minute... the barrels come pre-loaded with several shots, and when they're empty, you have to CHANGE BARRELS.
Second, and a MUCH MORE SERIOUS mistake, is that, by contrast, "That's compared to 60 rounds per minute in a standard military machine gun."
News flash to Pamela Hess, aka stupid bitch that needs to learn to do some research:
Discounting the time for magazine changes (which is normally done to find rounds-per-minute firing rates) I can fire about 120 AIMED rounds per minute from my mostly-stock Colt Commander - a semi-automatic pistol whose design is just nearly 100 years old.
Again, discounting reload time, I can fire 60 AIMED rounds a minute from my pump-action 12-gauge shotgun!
And both on the pistol, and shotgun, I'm not even that good. Adequate at best. (If you want to see GOOD, Google Tom Knapp and Jerry Miculek.)
I mean, think about it... 60 shots/minute is 1 shot/second. Look at your watch, look at the second hand, and think about a MACHINE GUN that only fired once per tick of the second hand. Even the most primitive machine guns, predating WW1, fired faster than that.
This twit either had a typo, which her eleventy-seven layers of vigorously fact-checking editors overlooked, or she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about, and couldn't be bothered to even apply a little common sense (which is notoriously UNcommon among our elite journalistic class, who are the ones who are rightly educated enough to tell the rest of us what to think).
I said earlier that obvious ignorance like this makes me cringe. Cringing is my first reaction... Once I think about it for a while, (as I've done in writing this post), it makes me PISSED. Frikken' idiot journos, who couldn't find their ass with both hands, a map, and an ass-finding machine, are shaping public opinion.
While people who actually know whereof they speak are discounted by edujizzmers and journaljizzmers as "anachronistic" and "right-wing whackos".
This is rapidly progressing to RCOB status. I think I'd better wrap this up and go take my blood pressure meds.
posted by Aaron Neal at 11:34 PM
1 Comments:
Yeah, my gun guru, the EllTee, who was a Superintendant-level military armorer (an LT in the Sheriff's office when we worked there, pre-retirment) sent me that article this morning.
I also noted the egregious error about machine guns.
There is a much more egregious error, several of them, in fact.
The article is several years old. MetalStorm was demonstrated about the time we went into Iraq in '03.
Secondly, the guiding priciple behind MetalStorm isn't it's potential rate of fire, it's the fact that said rate of fire is completely variable, being controlled by a computer. The same computer control allows EACH ROUND in MetalStorm to be controlled as to detonation (explosive rounds down to rifle size are possible because this is caseless-cartridge and even case-less bullet ammo. The ammo is formed by injection moulding, in two parts, the propellant (they adopted the GyroJet I think) and the round, which is either some sort of ceramic, or compressed explosive, or some other hi-tech thing.
The loaded rounds are end-to-end in a barrel, which can either be reloadable or throwaway. The barrels are mounted in clusters. Everything is connedted to a mil-spec computer interface that programs all functions, from rate of fire to when the rounds explode (how far out, on contact, or in the 40mm size, whether or not to use VT fuzing).
MetalStorm is available from a .40 cal (or so, I'm not exactly sure) size that would replace the infantryman's rifle to 40mm long-range grenades.
The concept is proven, but has unresolved future issues.
The unresolved issues relate to life of the ammo stored in the barrels, logistics systems to reload barrel clusters and whether or not the weapon is suceptible to EMP as a disabling factor.
MetalStorm is being touted by the "humane war" fringe as a replacement for land mines, which it isn't.
The land mine is a hidden explosive, whereas an area-denial version of the MetalStorm must remain above the surface. It is made of metal, and could be detected by magnetic-anomaly detection gear.
The idea has potential, but MetalStorm isn't the only one working in this direction. H&K demonstrated a NGR (Next-Gen-Rifle) years ago with the caseless, stacked ammo concept (except that it was designed to be easily reloaded).
Most military projectiles are scheduled to be completely chip-controlled down to at least the 20mm in the near future. The Army won't buy them if they're not, it's that simple.
Will it be MetalStorm that get's the Army's nod?
My guess is no, because MetalStorm is fixated on the super-hose concept, and refuses to sell their ingenious concept on it's main value, which is totally controllable fire, of any volume, with projectiles that will destroy any target.
This worthless article is proof of that.
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