On Tue, 3 Feb 2009 20:39:49 -0800, "Calif Bill"
wrote:


"cavelamb" wrote in message
om...
Could be the first real advance in hand held weaponry since gunpowder?

The Dread


http://www.defensereview.com/modules...rticle&sid=526


But, what is the DREAD, really? How does it work? In a sentence, the DREAD
is an electrically-powered centrifuge weapon, or centrifuge "gun". So,
instead of using self-contained cartridges containing powdered propellant
(gunpowder), the DREAD's ammunition will be .308 and .50 caliber round
metal balls (steel, tungsten, tungsten carbide, ceramic-coated tungsten,
etc...) that will be literally spun out of the weapon at speeds as high as
8000 fps (give or take a few hundred feet-per-second) at rather extreme
rpm's, striking their targets with overwhelming and devastating firepower.
We're talking about total target saturation, here. All this, of course,
makes the DREAD revolutionary in the literal sense, as well as the
conceptual one.

Not really new. The Civil War era supposedly had a steam powered gun that
used steam to spin the bullet carrier.

IRRC...there was a diesel powered one used in the Trenches in WW1


"Not so old as to need virgins to excite him,
nor old enough to have the patience to teach one."