January 23, 2006
UPI Reporters Still Undergunned
You would hope that the UPI's Pentagon correspondent would have enough gun savvy not to make this boneheaded statement:
Next month a new high-explosive munition will be fired in Singapore and then tested again by the U.S. Army, heralding what may be a sea change in weaponry: a gun that can fire 240,000 rounds per minute.That's compared to 60 rounds per minute in a standard military machine gun.
I hate to tell Pamela Hess, but by 1876 Gatling guns could fire 400-1,200 rounds/minute, and modern electrically-driven Gatlings can fire 4,000-6,000 rounds per minute. Every single gun I own (none of them machine guns) is capable of more than 60 rounds per minute. Poor knowledge, or poor editing? You make the call.
In addition, Metal Storm, the company fielding this "new" technology, had been around with weapons that can fire a million rounds a minute since 2003, and they put the 40mm launcher on Dragonfly UAVs in 2004. Has UPI discovered UAVs yet, or are they still working with those Sopwith Camel prototypes?
Way to be on top of things, UPI.
It is a pretty cool gun though. I saw it on the history channel a year or so ago. It's a big box of bullets in tubes, and when it is fired, it sounds like an A-10's gun.
Posted by: Kevin at January 23, 2006 09:06 AMI think I can feed sixty rounds per minute through my old bolt action .22 rifle, subtracting the reload time on the 20-25 round tubular magazine.
Posted by: Fish at January 23, 2006 05:18 PMAt certain ale houses in Manhattan that reporters frequent, I would often get into gun conversations, and I was suprised that they would ask questions that I knew the answers to at the age of 11, like what is a "round?". When you have a class of people with no early shooting experience, no military experience, and an aversion to firearms in general, they might write anything!
Posted by: Tom TB at January 24, 2006 07:48 AM
