It seems to me that the only ‘area weapon’ that may come close to equaling the rate of fire and indiscriminate fire-control system of Metal Storm (as described in her article) is Wanda Fish’s writing.
I’m sorry but I just don’t have the time to address the sheer scale of the inaccuracies, untruths and abundantly creative nonsense in her article.
I am unsure what surprises me more: Wanda Fish’s uninformed, alarmist, exaggerated and distorted hyperbole or that such a tirade survived On Line Opinion’s editorial scrutiny.

Well Wanda, what a disturbing article.

The content is disturbing - and even more disturbing is lack of substantive evidence to support your alarming assertions. The role of terrorists is to instill fear. Is that the aim of your article?

Your parting shot is a total give-away.

I agree with the previous posters. They are more eloquent than I am.

Cheers
Kay

PS: Wanda, when we experience a terrorist attack in this country - which could be the place where you live - what do you want the Howard Government to do in order to preserve your life and the lives of your loved ones?

Metalstorm, accoring to Ms Fish, is capable of firing a million rounds a minute. The difficulty is that it runs foul of Newtonian physics, in that one million rounds a minute provides for massive recoil, so either the projectiles are tiny, or are of very low velocity, or are a very short burst. It would be feasible to create 'shotgun' ammunition capable of being fired from standard rotary gattling type weapons, such as the Vulcan cannon, to produce half a million projectiles per minute, but there is no military effectiveness in doing this.

Firestorm uses a series of projectiles and propellant already loaded into barrels, which can of course be clustered together. Each barrel does not have 'traditional ammunition feed, ejection system, breech opening or any other moving parts' however, once each barrel has been expended it has to be replaced. In effect each barrel is like a gun's magazine that must be replaced when empty. This replacement process will take time, which will reduce the average number of rounds per minute capable of being fired to around the same number as those capable of being fired from a 'traditional' automatic weapon.

Metalstorm fires lots of small projectiles at a high rate of fire from a weapon of a certain weight. Another weapon, of the same weight, may fire one projectile weighing the same as all those little Firestorm projectiles put together, and may have a greater effect on the target. The weight of projectile and the amount of propellant will be the same, except the larger projectile may be better at penetrating an armoured target or carrying a load of high explosive than Metalstorm will ever be capable of.

Being hit by one or two bullets results in same military effictiveness as being hit by 100, or 1000, or the proverbial million.

Dear Wanda,
I provide this advice, not in any way to insult or denigrate, but rather, out of sincere concern for your well being from one who had a very well misspent youth in the mushy fields and freak trails and can recognise your signals.

Your thought processes appear to mimick those of schizophrenics and those with a history of heavy hooch use in teenage years. You extrapolate to totally improbable extremes and then take that extrapolation on board as self evident, incontestable, evidence of demon status. Simple medical MRI scans can establish the presence of this condition quickly and rather cheaply. It is treatable. We only have one life, sweetie, please get it checked. You deserve better than this.

Now,all you right wing [deleted for innapropriate language] have to go a bit easy here,you are offending the sensitivities of the the left who know full well that all Anglo Saxions are responsible for all the world's problems of pollution,poverty, corruption,and wars.It is so simple and written in leftist black and white.

What happens Wanda if the US pulls out of the Middle East and you no longer can afford the petrol for your car or the cost of the groceries because of the lack of fuel?

The existence of the US in the Middle East is about self interest,but any nation who buys it's oil is also benefiting.Those who buy Middle East oil and bag the US,are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.The US is doing the dirty work for many nations who benefit and just snipe from the side lines.

Yes,it all smells a little bit fishy,and does make us wonder.

This is a Year 12 essay if I've ever read one. Written in journalese and replete with all those baddie white men concepts such as fat US generals making obscene profit from war,"innocent" civilians being killed and its all coming from an Aussie backyard inventor. Its enough to make me stand in front of one out of pure guilt!. But no, there are already human shields there is no need for more.

This simplistic emotionally based nonsense is thankfully rejected by the majority of rational people. Some might swallow it hook,line and sinker but then they would all be Fish wouldnt they?.

Sorry folks, got caught up with the moment and misnamed the system:

Metalstorm, accoring to Ms Fish, is capable of firing a million rounds a minute. The difficulty is that it runs foul of Newtonian physics, in that one million rounds a minute provides for massive recoil, so either the projectiles are tiny, or are of very low velocity, or are a very short burst. It would be feasible to create 'shotgun' ammunition capable of being fired from standard rotary gattling type weapons, such as the Vulcan cannon, to produce half a million projectiles per minute, but there is no military effectiveness in doing this.

Metalstorm uses a series of projectiles and propellant already loaded into barrels, which can of course be clustered together. Each barrel does not have 'traditional ammunition feed, ejection system, breech opening or any other moving parts' however, once each barrel has been expended it has to be replaced. In effect each barrel is like a gun's magazine that must be replaced when empty. This replacement process will take time, which will reduce the average number of rounds per minute capable of being fired to around the same number as those capable of being fired from a 'traditional' automatic weapon.

Metalstorm fires lots of small projectiles at a high rate of fire from a weapon of a certain weight. Another weapon, of the same weight, may fire one projectile weighing the same as all those little Firestorm projectiles put together, and may have a greater effect on the target. The weight of projectile and the amount of propellant will be the same, except the larger projectile may be better at penetrating an armoured target or carrying a load of high explosive than Metalstorm will ever be capable of.

Being hit by one or two bullets results in same military effectiveness as being hit by 100, or 1000, or the proverbial million.

Hamlet Wrote
"Being hit by one or two bullets results in same military effectiveness as being hit by 100, or 1000, or the proverbial million."

I agree...
1, 2 bullets or 100 to a 1000....
it has the same basic effect... DEATH

What a shame that when O'Dwyer took his initial invention to the Australian Department of Defence, no one there thought it of any value. I am of the belief that O'Dwyer wanted to keep the design in Australia with the Australian Government holding Metal Storm closely against any further international use. I am further of the belief that the weaponry was principally for defence use, such as on Naval ships as a counter to incoming missiles.
That the Depence Department in saying it was not interested is tantamount to absolute failure, and all O'Dwyer wanted was some seed money, a miniscule amount, for further development.
That the Department pushed him in the direction of the US Department of Defence is almost traitorous, even though Australia has a close working, too close, relationship with the US.
What was in tended as a defensive weapon has now gone on the Offense.
Hugh

Re -[Deleted for being inappropiate language]I implied that right wingers like myself had parents that weren't married.The word "bastard"in the Aussie vernacular is often used as a term of endearment.

If it has offended anyone ,I apologise.Sometimes unwarranted censorship can be used as a tool to discredit opinions averse to our own.

The author may be somewhat inaccurate in the technological capabilities of this new type of weaponry, but the article does bring into focus what are the moral or legal weapons that can be used within a military conflict, and what aren’t, and how likely are those weapons to cause civilian deaths.

There are various Gunships that have been used within recent wars that basically send down a hail of lead, often covering a wide area (ie “area saturation”) An example is the AC-130 Gunships used within Iraq and Afghanistan. http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=71

Within Iraq there have also been reports of Cluster Bombs being dropped on civilian areas, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,929368,00.html, as well as the use of a form of Napalm http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030805-9999_1n5bomb.html

In other wars there have also been the wide scale use of landmines, but such weaponry becomes indiscriminate and can kill civilians as well as soldiers. Indeed in most wars, civilian causalities are normally much higher than causalities to armed forces. The Iraq war is no exception, with estimates of up to 20,000 Iraq civilians being killed directly because of the war, and estimates of up to 100,000 civilians dieing because of indirect consequences.

It was initially said (or implied) that this Iraq war was going to be a war using high precession weaponry with minimal “collateral damage”, but that is not how most wars eventually turn out.

It appears that no matter what type of weaponry is used, it does not greatly reduce civilian causalities, particularly if that war deteriorates into a guerrilla type war that is fought within civilian areas.

"but the article does bring into focus what are the moral or legal weapons that can be used within a military conflict"

Timkins has raised a very good point which was probably the point of the article (not sure, not the best written article).

Anyway what is military morality? Is this an oxymoron? Weapons of least destruction? As Timkins says no matter what is used - innocents are murdered.

Should Australia be a party to the development of such weaponry? I don't believe we have a choice any more. Now that we are a part of the coalition of the Killing we are in it to the bitter end. The capitalistic minded should support the opportunity to make a quick buck out of the situation.

"...has developed a robotised killing machine capable of firing more than one million rounds a minute - enough to shred an entire building in the blink of an eye"

Completely wrong. The technology allows bullets to be fired at the RATE of 1 million rounds a minute. This could be achieved by firing as many as 2 rounds. Hardly enough to shred a building.

Now think about this. A metal storm style weapon consists of barrels with bullets contained sequentially within. Say a bullet is 1cm in length (that's conservative, each "bullet" consists of projectile and propellant), how long does the barrel need to be to hold 1 million sequential bullets? Oh, just a modest 10 kilometres!

In actual fact they are putting only a few bullets in each barrel, say around 3-10, all of which can be fired in one ultra high rate burst. Multiple barrels allow for multiple bursts, but of course there is still a practical limitation on how many barrels one weapon can posess - the handgun prototypes have about 3 or 4 barrels

The author should have woken up when she herself pointed to an example that consisted of 16 rounds only. Looking at the picture of this device (have a look at this thing http://www.metalstorm.com/05_graphics_40mm.html, straight out of "Robocop") it appears to be a 4 barrel implimentation i.e. 4x4.

BTW, the real beauty of the Metalstorm technology is the stopping power. Despite what you'd think sometimes 1 or 2 bullets isn't enough to stop a person, often not enough to stop them pulling their own trigger if they have a weapon. That's why our police are told to basically empty their weapon into the offenders torso if they need to use it. Well a Metalstorm weapon can achieve the same result in an instant with one trigger pull. Yes it allows people to be killed easier but that's why it's good, you see guns are designed to kill people. If they were making cameras more lethal then we'd need to be worried.

"BTW, the real beauty of the Metalstorm technology is the stopping power. Despite what you'd think sometimes 1 or 2 bullets isn't enough to stop a person"

How beeee-utiful. Really warms my l'il cockles, HarryC, that you can get off on this attribute, but Metalstorm's 'beauty' is not what the topic is about you Gung Ho Freak. Flame me I really don't care I can't believe that someone could get so 'hot' for killing power. And people complain about Islam's penchant for violence.

I take your comments to mean that you're not too concerned about terror or death of innocents then.

I don't really care how many bullets/calibre/girth/length/rigidity or velocity these weapons can ejaculate ...... what I am concerned about (increasingly after reading your post HarryC) is the moral obligation of the military. Did that point somehow escpape you?

This is a reply from the author, Wanda Fish

I don't normally reply to comments on my articles but feel the need to clarify the facts for future readers. All research and statements in this article are verifiable, including the incredible velocity of this gun. Readers may like to check the company's own website where the same statement is made several times. In addition there have mainstream media reports about this invention dating back to twelve months ago. All research and statements were taken from the company's own website, from mainstream media reports, from Stock Exchange information and from the Defense Review. In fact, the company has signifcantly altered its website in the past six months, removing some detailed pages about the technology and its intention to use the weapon in Iraq. It is also a fact that ASIO and company agents now roam the alternative sites reqularly and attempt to discredit verifiable information about the truth regarding our "war on terror". Like most sensible and peace loving people, I hope this weapon is never used. Enough innocent people have died in a war that is more about American commercial interests than about freedom. Peace to you all. Wanda

You know Trinity, I was going to add something to the effect that I knew that comment would get up the goat of certain types, though the word limit prevented me. Must admit though that I'm glad to have riled you up.

You write as if you are unfamiliar with the usage of the term "beauty" in that kind of context, though I'm sure you are. How else do you feel one should describe the positive aspects of a device which has the express purpose of killing? Do I need to qualify myself and say "well this may sound callous, but..."? To me that's just emotive clap trap and adds nothing to the conversation.

Maybe one day you'll find yourself in a situation where you are a hostage to a madman and your life is at the mercy of the police and the weapons they posess, in such a scenario do you wish they be equipped with pepper spray or a device capable of ending the offenders life in an instant? It's not a pretty vision is it but this is not an unrealistic scenario hence our police are equipped with lethal weapons. And Metalstorm is very much being considered for civilian use where it's benefits are probably most applicable as the need for immediate threat nullification is most critical (I got an erection writing that).

As for that little robot thing, well that will take the place of a soldier/s who would otherwise be at risk of getting shot up themselves, I can't see how in the world you could have a problem with that, or would you rather "certain" forces did place themselves at such risk? It wouldn't suprise me coming from where you are.

And sorry I couldn't back up with links but the MS Tech FAQ is offline right now.

Its a sad thing Ms Fish that you are more afraid of weapons developed to fight our enemies than our enemies themselves. Perhaps you haven't noticed that the 'innocent civilians' being killed in Iraq are killed by Muslim extremists??

I must say you are one of the paranoid few who seem more afraid of our own Government than those who seek to eliminate us. You are thus our enemy's friend.

Wanda, I am quoting from your reply here:

"This is a reply from the author, Wanda Fish

I don't normally reply to comments on my articles but feel the need to clarify the facts for future readers. All research and statements in this article are verifiable, including the incredible velocity of this gun."

Wanda, you didn't mention the velocity of the projectiles in your article, you spoke of rate of fire, that is a million rounds a minute. This may seem like a small point, but it is vital, because it is the velocity, when taken in conjunction with the weight of each projectile that matters when it comes to destructive potential.

If I pick up a handful of sand and throw it at someone I will achieve the equvalent of about a million projectiles a second, but the energy delivered at the target would be very low.

So, if someone actually tried to fire even 100 rifle bullet sized projectiles in one second at a high enough velocity to do damage to a target, then the recoil would be far too high for a man portable weapon. To achieve a high enough velocity the barrel would have to be much longer than a normal gun barrel as well, as the rojectiles have to be able to fit into the barrel and still have sufficient barrel length for the projects to be acted upon by the propellant. lastly, each propellant charge would not only fire one projectile from the barrel, but compact the projectiles and propellant behind it, leading to the potential of misfire and distortion of projectiles.

If you are going to discuss firearms you could at least get the terminology right.

Get the idea? The Australian authorities looked at the system, recognised it as a waste of money and moved on. The USA, with more money to waste, decided to try to develop it.

The inventors may conclude their fecundation as progressive. Sadly , the end product adds another dimension to the fecund-hell on earth.
Anyone seen the movie " A Fish Called Wanda " ?

Now Hamlet ,are you just making this up or is the US totallty stupid?
There is no way the US would invest billions on a worthless concept.
Their scientists are a tad smarter than George Dubwua.
I think you should do your homework or produce some scientific proof to the contrary.

Arjay.. I believe this is a true story :)

NASA had a problem with ball point pens not writing in space...
so they invested a considerable sum in developing a pen which 'would'
..
The Russians just got a pencil :)

There’s more heat than light in the debate about Metal Storm.

A couple of points.

Metal Storm weapons in certain configurations are capable of firing at a RATE of one million rounds a minute. But in reality it would fire at this rate for maybe a second, tops (this is about 17,000 rounds – a very respectable number). I don’t know what Metal Storm rounds cost, or what they weigh, but a million rounds would probably be pushing a million dollars cost and you’d need a truck to carry them for loading.

Second, it is indeed a weapon and weapons can kill people. Not nice, but no-one ever said it was. In some formats, though, Metal Storm would actually kill other weapons – eg, as a defence system for a warship or a tank. Its high rate of fire makes it ideal for such applications.

Third – and no-one seems to have picked this up – the technology has important gun control potential in the civilian sector. A conventional handgun, if stolen, can be used by anyone. Because they fire electronically, Metal Storm handguns can be electronically locked (eg to a PIN, a voiceprint or thumbprint). It takes a top hacker to break this sort of security lock. Moreover, in some configurations a Metal Storm gun can even be physically tracked via satellite. If all civilian guns were Metal Storm guns (or used this technology) crims would have a much harder time of it.

It is quite a disturbing fact that a weapon can pump out so many rounds. Wasn't the aim of war to minimise civilian casulaties? There is absolute no need for a machine this destructive to be in production. The aim of terrorist is to create fear but who would be buying these weapons of mass destruction. Haven't Mindstorm done tests in front of the US Defence force?