LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With QuoteThe British Army have been using caseless Tank Rounds for years, great system.
Originally Posted by iar1
Electrically-ignited assault rifle ammo was developed in the late 1950s and 1960s. It was a failure, but it led to the hunting rifle ammo.
Metal Storm might be a product one day, but not yet. Both volley guns and chain-fired guns have been around for centuries, and both have problems that no one was ever able to work out. It was bold of them to try and combine these two problematic systems into a viable commercial product, but its not surprising that, so far, it hasn't succeeded.
The British Army have been using caseless Tank Rounds for years, great system.
The Bundeswehr only introduced the G36 as a "transitionary rifle", with - back then - the idea that a new system would be procured within 10 to 15 years. This "transitionary rifle" was to be a rifle already introduced on the market, so that development costs would be saved. There were two rifles put into final Bw field tests, the Steyr AUG and HK's HK50 (G36).
The hype mostly came through the fact that it was then first introduced with SOF within the Bw, giving it a "spec-ops rifle" rumour back then, especially as other units didn't get it until like 2 or 3 years later (my own unit still had G3A3 and MP2 Uzi on its STAN in 2000, those ppl we sent on deployments had to be retrained on G36 first).
Do you know the name of the caseless round they are using?
It's not any particular round, its a three part affair.
The projectile, either Chemical or kinetic energy
The propellant, either a full or half bag charge depending on the type of projectile being used.
The igniter, is a vent tube that is ignited through an electrical charge.
The advantage is that the only thing that remains in the turret is the spent vent tube, which is about as big as a fat biro pen.
Any one that has ever been a gunner or loader using this system will tell you that it keeps you busy.
Tony
Yet another ex-tankie of 1 RTR origin.
IGNITER? Is it same as the primer used in a bullet?
If there is some thing, that is left back in the barrel (a turret in this case), then how can it be called as case less ammo? Case less ammos are supposed to leave nothing behind, right?
Even the G11 left the primer next to the firer, I think the phrase of case less may be somewhat misleading.
Tony
Yet another ex-tankie of 1 RTR origin.
So, that means there has to be an ejection mechanism to push out the used primer?
I remember an old German knife seller who responded to my teenaged query as to why some stainless steel was discolored by saying (actually, he sort of yelled it): "You speak English, yes!? It is 'stain less,' not 'stain not'!! "
So, maybe that's the answer. Its "case less," not "case not."
)
Those "caseless" tank rounds are usually referred to as "(self-) combustible cases". In these combustible cases, the bottom/turret of the case typically is made of steel, and remains to be ejected, so it's not caseless.
In the G11, the primer completely burned up, so there war nothing to eject.
I stand corrected.
Tony
Yet another ex-tankie of 1 RTR origin.
Ther was an ariticle in the American Rifleman a few months back that describied why the US is holding back on adopting any new small arms. They feel that their research on caseless ammunition/weapons is paying off to the point that these weapons will be available in just a few short years... We are talking rifles and machineguns. There were two different types of ammuntion they were talking about. One might have been totally caseless, but had the cook off problem. The other IIRC, was in a plastic type case similar to a shotgun shell (no brass) that disentegrated upon firing the gun so no ejection port was necessary. The ammo was supposed to be lighter than current cased ammunition.
Revelation 16:16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
(Been There)
Part of the reason for the general failure of the ACR programme to find a suitable replacement for the M16 was that the initial evaluation performed with existing soldiers to see what "Hits per trigger pull" they were getting, was flawed.
Once the programme was commissioned and the Allied Telysyn built the eveluation systems into the various ranges at Fort Benning, it was discovered that the M16's performace wasn't as significantly far behind the performance of the ACR candidates as the US Army was led to believe.
This meant that the cost of procuring, training and supporting the new system wasn't worth the money no matter how much a saving may ultimately be made with a caseless system.
In all probability, the DoD/US Army wasn't being realistic with what they thought they could achieve with a high-rate burst fire weapon. The G11 was probably the most revolutionary in terms of the ammunition and weapon system, Colt used a duplex 5.56mm round (2 projectiles in one case) and Steyr relied upon a rising/falling block flechette firing system that could operate at very high rates. AAI used a conventional 5.56mm rifle also firing flechettes.
As mentioned in this thread previously, the name of the game was hit probability per trigger pull or HPTP. This led to having to get the rifle to fire bursts at high rates or like the Colt duplex system to get as many projectiles in the air for the fewest rounds fired; 3rd burst = 6 projectiles down range.
On the cookoff front, HK and Dynamit Nobel designed the eventual telecoped case using denatured HMX explosive. This meant that they received the heat tolerance of the explosive with the relatively tame velocities of a propellant. The cookoff difference of Dynamit Nobel's HITP (High Ignition Temperature Propellant) when compared with standard solidified nitrocellulose was reportedly about 100 degrees celcius. This meant that the new propelant more than made up for the insulating properties of the missing brass case and preventing almost certain cookoff of chambered ammunition after extended firing.
The last I heard, the exact details of firing mechanism of the G11 was still a German state secret (probably because the German Government commissioned the work) so it still may be some time before we see the precise functioning of the final G11 product.
Because the lack of the case caused so many sealing problems, very close tolerances were required to prevent high pressure gases from entering the inside of the weapon. This apparently caused excessive wear at the front and rear of the rotary chamber so much so that weapon needed servicing every 6000 rounds....
The question of the extraction of an unfired round was apparently dealt with by the machanism where the loading mechanism if not loading another cartridge would push the cartridge out of the bottom of the weapon.
Rolling your own caseless? Could be a bit tricky as the cartridge was ignited by a rotary fring mechanism that dug and turned into the base of the round. Once the combustible primer was ignited, it would flash through a small hole into the interior of the HITP body and ignite a small booster charge. This charge did two things, 1) kick the projectile into the bore and 2) break up the HITP propellant to ensure a uniform and complete burn.
The G11 was an elegant, if not slightly overly complex weapon system that if it had entered full scale use with an army would have probably been refined into a very reliable and highly capable system.
The problem for the caseless round was that a plastic telescoped case as used by the steyr system would have solved many of the operational issues encountered by HK in the G11. The push-through nature of that paralell sided cartridges meant that there were no extraction/ejection phases in operation so if a round loaded the previous one was ejected.
I'm not a big fan of flechettes but the Steyr ACR could fire at over 2200 rounds per minute (as did the G11) but had a tenth of the complexity.
Given that the OICW project died a few years ago, I'm guessing that governments/armies are really looking at the true system that integrates man with weapon where as much human error can be removed from the equation.
Armies would prefer to invest in technology rather than operator skill as training costs are very high and and final skill is variable...
I know this is a lengthy post but I thought I'd lob my two cents worth in to the pot. Most of this was from memory so correct me if there are glaring omissions or mistakes!
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Share this thread with friends: