Post by ۞Quaalude™۞ on Jun 4, 2007 16:59:48 GMT -5
Splash, Splash, You're Dead: The Military's Next-Gen Water Gun
The next terrorist threat may come from the deep. In recent years, several homeland security alerts have focused on the danger of scuba-equipped terrorists targeting docked Navy vessels or ocean-side nuclear plants. Now the U.S. military is quietly developing a new generation of underwater weaponry capable of warding off undersea trespassers with liquid bullets.
It's a revival of an underwater arms race that was hot during the Cold War, when Western scientists sometimes struggled to match Russian technology. The Soviet threat was estimated to include some three thousand Special Forces frogmen -- an opponent virtually impervious to traditional arms.
Normal guns will work underwater, but the drag slows bullets right down. "I have tried it myself in our pool," says Scott Greenbaum, a Certified Glock Armourer and webmaster at GlockFAQ.com. "The bullets only traveled about 15 feet."
In addition to the drag, firing underwater is hazardous: Some types of ammunition can burst the gun, and the shockwave from the muzzle blast can cause permanent hearing damage. The Glock 17 is one of the few weapons that can be customized to fire underwater, with the aid of maritime spring cups, which stop water from impeding the firing pin.
But the amphibious glock is designed to be carried, not used, under water. "I've never heard of anyone actually shooting a shark, or fish, or person, or anything," says Greenbaum. So in 1970 the U.S. Navy introduced a special weapon for the job: a chunky six-shooter called the Underwater Defense Gun, or UDG.
Instead of firing bullets, the UDG "fired a stiletto-type dart that could provide range, accuracy and lethality underwater," says Tom Hawkins of the nonprofit Naval Special Warfare Foundation. To reduce shockwaves, a pusher piston sealed the barrel after firing. Each barrel could only fire once, hence the need for six separate barrels and the weapon's chubby profile.
The effective range was about 30 feet. As a bonus, the subsonic projectile and sealed firing system made the gun virtually silent above water.
"The weapon worked quite well," says Hawkins, "but it was bulky and heavy and the men never warmed up to it. It was also a signature controlled item -- as in signing your name to check it out -- and administratively a burden to the operational units."Today, the first line of defense against underwater terrorists -- should they emerge -- will be sonar and depth charges, rather than armed frogmen standing guard. But anyone tangling with combat divers will find them very well armed, and U.S. scientists are developing the next generation of underwater weapons. Much of their work relates to larger projectiles for mine or torpedo defense, but is also applicable to small arms.
Chris Weiland of the Advanced Experimental Thermofluid Engineering Research Laboratory in the mechanical engineering department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute is looking at new ways of achieving cavitation by injecting pressurized gas into the path of the projectile. "Natural cavitation only takes place at very high speeds," says Weiland. "This can be dramatically reduced."
Once a supercavitation bubble is established it can be maintained by venting rocket exhaust into it ("ventilated cavitation"), a system employed by the Russian Shkval torpedo. Developers of a modern Gyrojet pistol could use this method to give it greater range and power than any existing underwater weapon.
Perhaps the most intriguing hint of where the underwater arms race is headed comes from a 2005 U.S. patent granted to Thomas J. Gieseke, a Navy scientist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. The patent proposes a "high-velocity underwater jet weapon" that fires a stream of high-velocity liquid "bullets" -- fine grains of metal or sand that form a cavity more efficiently than solid rounds.
Gieseke declined to comment on the research, which gives a whole new meaning to the term "water pistol QC
www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/underwater_guns
The next terrorist threat may come from the deep. In recent years, several homeland security alerts have focused on the danger of scuba-equipped terrorists targeting docked Navy vessels or ocean-side nuclear plants. Now the U.S. military is quietly developing a new generation of underwater weaponry capable of warding off undersea trespassers with liquid bullets.
It's a revival of an underwater arms race that was hot during the Cold War, when Western scientists sometimes struggled to match Russian technology. The Soviet threat was estimated to include some three thousand Special Forces frogmen -- an opponent virtually impervious to traditional arms.
Normal guns will work underwater, but the drag slows bullets right down. "I have tried it myself in our pool," says Scott Greenbaum, a Certified Glock Armourer and webmaster at GlockFAQ.com. "The bullets only traveled about 15 feet."
In addition to the drag, firing underwater is hazardous: Some types of ammunition can burst the gun, and the shockwave from the muzzle blast can cause permanent hearing damage. The Glock 17 is one of the few weapons that can be customized to fire underwater, with the aid of maritime spring cups, which stop water from impeding the firing pin.
But the amphibious glock is designed to be carried, not used, under water. "I've never heard of anyone actually shooting a shark, or fish, or person, or anything," says Greenbaum. So in 1970 the U.S. Navy introduced a special weapon for the job: a chunky six-shooter called the Underwater Defense Gun, or UDG.
Instead of firing bullets, the UDG "fired a stiletto-type dart that could provide range, accuracy and lethality underwater," says Tom Hawkins of the nonprofit Naval Special Warfare Foundation. To reduce shockwaves, a pusher piston sealed the barrel after firing. Each barrel could only fire once, hence the need for six separate barrels and the weapon's chubby profile.
The effective range was about 30 feet. As a bonus, the subsonic projectile and sealed firing system made the gun virtually silent above water.
"The weapon worked quite well," says Hawkins, "but it was bulky and heavy and the men never warmed up to it. It was also a signature controlled item -- as in signing your name to check it out -- and administratively a burden to the operational units."Today, the first line of defense against underwater terrorists -- should they emerge -- will be sonar and depth charges, rather than armed frogmen standing guard. But anyone tangling with combat divers will find them very well armed, and U.S. scientists are developing the next generation of underwater weapons. Much of their work relates to larger projectiles for mine or torpedo defense, but is also applicable to small arms.
Chris Weiland of the Advanced Experimental Thermofluid Engineering Research Laboratory in the mechanical engineering department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute is looking at new ways of achieving cavitation by injecting pressurized gas into the path of the projectile. "Natural cavitation only takes place at very high speeds," says Weiland. "This can be dramatically reduced."
Once a supercavitation bubble is established it can be maintained by venting rocket exhaust into it ("ventilated cavitation"), a system employed by the Russian Shkval torpedo. Developers of a modern Gyrojet pistol could use this method to give it greater range and power than any existing underwater weapon.
Perhaps the most intriguing hint of where the underwater arms race is headed comes from a 2005 U.S. patent granted to Thomas J. Gieseke, a Navy scientist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. The patent proposes a "high-velocity underwater jet weapon" that fires a stream of high-velocity liquid "bullets" -- fine grains of metal or sand that form a cavity more efficiently than solid rounds.
Gieseke declined to comment on the research, which gives a whole new meaning to the term "water pistol QC
www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/underwater_guns