ok then, I've heard of these and know a little about them as they basicly operate along the same lines as larger recoiless weapons, really i wrote them off as an oddity and thought no more. but i'll address some of your points then give my summary...
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Though you'd think ammo would be pretty easy to get hold of since nobody used it and they cranked out millions of cases of the stuff.
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Ammo and moisture = bad thing. In humid weather or after submersion in water, there were isolated incidents of gyrojet ammunition either having sub-optimal performance or simply not working at all. Occurences of ammunition damaged by moisture were rare, but could be a potential problem, much as caseless ammunition is experiencing a similar difficulty.
ammo has a very limited shelf life, especially government owned ammo and it's regularly dumped/recycled. so stuff from 30+ years ago is most likely well past it's sell by date if it's available at all, and short run production of it would be haphazard at best, especially with the various gun/explosives (it's a rocket) laws in the US. Caseless ammo (for the German G11 etc) is actually better in general than cased ammo for all of these by the way.
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In any case, they were much lighter than most handguns of the time, weighing about 22 ounces. Compare to this to metalframe and synthetic handguns of today and see if they're still favorable.
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The pistol held only six gyrojets in the magazine at the time. I'm sure that this can be addressed with a larger capacity magazine,
ok, using your numbers and mine:
Colt 1911: 7 .45 ACP rounds weighing in at 1.105kg
Beretta M92: 15 9mm para rounds weighing in at .850kg
Glock 17: 17 9mm para rounds weighing in at 0.620kg
The generic Gyrojet: 6 rocket rounds weighing in at 0.625kg (approx)
thus the gyrojet is slightly heavier than the Glock 17, and even the clunky old 1911 is less than twice it's weight, all, even the 1911, have a higher ammo capacity, up to more than 2 times
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Low maintenance. The guns had nearly no moving parts, making them much simpler to keep in working order.
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Fouling of exhaust ports. Any of the holes along the barrel of the gun could get dirt or grease in it, clogging the hole. This means that the spin and velocity of the projectile are affected, which may result in the gyrojet going anywhere BUT where you aim it.
kind of a contradiction there, this is what screwed up the initial deployment of the M16, it was claimed to be almost maintance free so naturally the soldiers didnt' maintain it, and it failed critically in combat because of that. it's not the 'moving parts' that get messed up, it's the parts that get fouled by the environmet and the propellant of the round being fired. also if your'e issuing these to untrained idiots you'll end up with an unworking weapon very fast.
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Noise reduction. A typical firearm makes a shitload of noise when it goes off, am I right?
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Exhaust contrail. The gyrojets of Vietnam left a tiny trail of smoke behind them that rapidly dissipated
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[qupte]Every round's a tracer. Rockets tend to have a nice flame right behind them as they go off[/quote]
again, self defeating as it is, and why build a weird rocket gun when you can have a silencer screwed on to your gun? Tracers are only really of use in machine guns, otherwise thery're more trouble than they're worth, but you shouldn't have a 'flame' at the back of it as rockets usually use up their propellent within the barrel and coast all the way to their targets. thats' why RPG gunners don't have their faces set on fire when they fire one off etc. Smoke is also less of trouble in the same way, tho the location of the firer is easily given away by the backblast throwing up debris around the barrel, more depending on how powerful the round/rocket is
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Firepower. At 100 yards, the 12mm gyrojet has 50% more firepower than a bullet fired from a .45 pistol.
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Low initial velocity. At close range, the gyrojet is still building up speed and doesn't have nearly the firepower it does at longer ranges.
again, depends on the type of rocket burn, if it's all expelled in the weapon (usual) then it leaves the barrel at it's top speed and slows with air resistance, like a 'normal' bullet. As for 'firepower' thats' a hard one to calculate, depending on the speed and type of projectile, it's ballistic properties and composition etc, sometimes a smaller, slower bullet is more terminally effective than a larger faster bullet, some more facts and figures (and drawings) would help here
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Nearly no recoil whatsoever. Because the projectile contains the propulsion and not the weapon itself, less recoil is passed on to the hand of the person firing. Instead of rifling grooves, the barrel of the pistol/carbine has positioned exhaust ports that not only give the projectile its spin and greater velocity, but bleed off most of the kick it would. Excellent in any situation, especially where accuracy is required for the second shot or any following.
there is always recoil, especially for a larger round, 12-13mm etc. however much is 'bled off' there will still be quite a bit of a recoil, and as regards accuracy, well, you need good materials and training to fire accuratly with
anything
Right, my bit:
this 'gun' is fatally flawed in a number of places
1. it's new: armed forces don't like new and unproven weapon systems, especially those that don't use established ammo, manufacture or training in any way whatsoever, kind of like getting a Lion tamer to tame a shark, sure it's the same sort of thing, but the specifics/ sheesh...
2. Maintance of 'gun' and ammo: if the material is crap, it will fall apart and/or corrode with a short amount of use and age. Also if it is meant to be issued to a poorly trained force these problems will be compounded. Also any type of chemical fired projectile will leave some chemical residue in the weapon that needs to be cleared, especially a recoilless gun
3. Actual combat effects: possable problems with low velocity (nothing is as fast, in general, size for size as a bullet) and issues with smoke/backblast that tend to give away the position of recoilless weapons.
All of these points have to be balanced against the terminal effects of the round it fires, ie if it's actually any good. Most recoiless weapons are now phased out of frontline service in favour of normal weapons and cannons (all at 75mm+ calibers usually) Also when the current technology is as good or better it's really not too likely anythign will be mad eof it, i mean you can have a silenced Glock 17 with over 2 times the ammo and a proven reliability and ammunition manufacture/use behind it. And if your'e planning to issue these to a bunch of untrained idiots anyway, why develop hi-tech stuff then a good old pistol is far better today then the gyrojet might be tommorow? In an ambush situation you want as much noise as posable, in a sniper situation you don't, snipers are highly trained, ambushers just need to be told what to do on the spot (it helps if they are trained tho)
in summary, it's a novelty, a recoiless weapon taken to it's logical smaller end, i feel that it's worth lookign at, but not worth abandoning all conventional weapons for. Also the various international weapons laws need to be looked at before you start firing rocket sat people
anyone else?