Dr. Gatling's Infernal Device ...

[sagallacci]

Regarding AC-130 type gunships, in real combat, they tend to fly high and far from their targets, least they shoot back, 15Kft + up and several miles out, so they are also a bit less obvious, visually and audibly. As they are shooting "down hill", the weapons range is greatly extended.

[ysi_maniac]

Ther is a 37mm example inthis thread, but could it be even bigger?
40mm, 50mm, ...?

[rickshaw]

Ther is a 37mm example inthis thread, but could it be even bigger?
40mm, 50mm, ...?

Nothing really stopping it, except the problems of rotating such a massive weapon "up to speed", so to speak.  Then there is the problem of recoil.  Both would make it difficult to train and the mounting would have to be rather massive I suspect.

[Sauragnmon]

That gave me a sadistic image of some Russian Bruiser ship with 57mm Super AK-630's on it, using a wide basing mount on it to stabilize the unit, and some sort of gas driven system with maybe a pressurized gas starter or something, like a compressed air kick-start system to run the beast up to speed before it starts unleashing a hail of death on some unsuspecting Frigate.

[Jschmus]

That gave me a sadistic image of some Russian Bruiser ship with 57mm Super AK-630's on it, using a wide basing mount on it to stabilize the unit, and some sort of gas driven system with maybe a pressurized gas starter or something, like a compressed air kick-start system to run the beast up to speed before it starts unleashing a hail of death on some unsuspecting Frigate.

That would certainly make a nice piracy deterrent.

[Weaver]

That gave me a sadistic image of some Russian Bruiser ship with 57mm Super AK-630's on it, using a wide basing mount on it to stabilize the unit, and some sort of gas driven system with maybe a pressurized gas starter or something, like a compressed air kick-start system to run the beast up to speed before it starts unleashing a hail of death on some unsuspecting Frigate.

Spin-up speeds become quite a problem as you scale a Gatling up, not only due to the increased mass of the bigger barrel and breeches, but also because of the increased forces involved in throwing big rounds around, which demand more metal to resist them, which inceases weight, etc, etc.....

Perhaps you could run a flywheel up to speed electrically when you go to action stations, and then clutch it to the gun to fire for a fast start-up?

[Sauragnmon]

The flywheel idea is a thought, though I was considering a standard gas-driven action for the Russian gatling guns, but basically a pneumatic starting motor, so the weapon kicks into speed quickly. Though if I recall, the Russian weapons don't spool up like Western ones, but being gas-driven, go from a cold start and accellerate during the firing cycle, so ostensibly, using the pneumatic accellerator could just give it an extra push during the early stage to help increase the accelleration.

[jcf]

The cyclic speed on a weapon in the over 40mm to 57mm size is not going to be anywhere close to as fast as even the GAU-8,
let alone the Russian guns, nor does it need to be.  While the increase in size in diameter doesn't seem much, the overall increase
in projectile mass and overall round size would create some major technical and physics hurdles. And you can forget about gas-operation,
at those sizes you'd be getting into gas erosion territory and a misfire could be disastrous.

The spin-up delay of an externally powered Gatling weapon is only really an issue (or supposed issue) in the air-to-air, air-to-ground
and AAA realms, as a ship-vs-ship weapon the slight delay would be of little concern. Especially as, if you are close enough to use it -
you probably have bigger problems. Frankly I don't see a vessel so armed getting close enough to a potential target for the weapon to
be effective.

As to pirate deterrents, well .50 MGs and mini-guns are enough for that purpose as the pirates aren't exactly bopping around in warships. 

Gatlings are cool, however the concept does have limitations and they are very wasteful.

[Weaver]

Good points all.

Another thing: just because a Gatling can fire very fast, doesn't mean it has to: the fire rate of an electrically driven one can be infinitely varied (up to the physical maximum) by varying the speed of the motor. Something that's struck me is that slowed-down Gatling would be a good weapon for an Remote Weapon Station on an AFV, because it's extreme reliability (spits out misfires without stopping) and continuous ammo feed would minimise the need for crewmen to clamber about on the roof re-loading/un-jamming it. The fire rate could be linked to the burst selector: pre-set bursts of 10, 20 or 50 round would be fired at 3000rpm, but continuous fire would be at 300rpm (for a rifle-calibre weaponj): about the same as a normal MG.

One problem with most of the Gatlings on the market is that they're basically designed as aircraft weapons and then adapted to ground use, so they're smaller and more compact that they really need to be, because those qualities matter in an aircraft application. This means that barrels are often shorter than the optimum for accurate long-range fire (look how the Phallanx's barrels have been extended in successive versions) and more problems with accuracy come from barrel-cluster flex and vibration. Both of the latter could be cured (or at least reduced) by having a really hefty axle up the middle of the barrel cluster linked to an external support frame in a purpose-designed ground weapon (again, later Phallanxes and Goalkeeper have an external barrel brace).

[rickshaw]

The spin-up delay of an externally powered Gatling weapon is only really an issue (or supposed issue) in the air-to-air, air-to-ground and AAA realms, as a ship-vs-ship weapon the slight delay would be of little concern. Especially as, if you are close enough to use it - you probably have bigger problems. Frankly I don't see a vessel so armed getting close enough to a potential target for the weapon to
be effective.

Actually, Gattlings are considered to have real problems with Air-to-Air use, by many.   The lag time required in spinning the gun up to speed is such that it does complicate firing solutions because of the very high speeds and sharply manoeuvring targets.  Its high rate of fire though, somewhat offsets that disadvantage in the eyes of its main users - the USAF and USN.   The lag time isn't such a problem in air-to-ground, ground-to-ground or AAA applications.