Kudu56 sent me this link which I had seen before but forgotten. Got me all wound up again and as acsteele mentioned being low on ammo it seemed appropo to place it today. Makes me a little envious of Dans old job, almost! derf

www.ratpack38.com/mini/gatlinggun.wmv

You new viewers will love this!

How many round per minute, how often the tracers, how big is their ammo box? Very scary for the bad guys and great shooting and flying by our soldiers!!!
Jeff in Texas

RPM: variable on the original guns, but the M134's currently being produced by Dillon Aero is fixed at 3000 rounds per minute.

Tracers: generally they're every fifth round.

Ammo Box: with these ammo hogs, they're never big enough - this is the primary limitation of AC-130 "Spectre" gunships.. As for actual capacity, ask Dan, he used to "operate one of these things a loooong time ago...


Toolmaker

Harumph! Back when men were steel and rotor blades were wood, er, ah..... Back when GE made 'em, Scout yokels got to choose between 2,000 or 4,000 rounds/min. IIRC the minis mounted on the cobras were a flat rate of 4,000 r.p.m. The Air Force boys blazed away at 6,000 rpm from what I recall. Ammo load on the old scout birds was 2,000 rounds, and you had a 3 sec. burst limiter, same with the Cobras but they had a greater capacity for the chin turret. Wing mounted minis for the Snakes in the Scout configuration(weapons designation/XM18, not mission) had a capacity of 1500 rounds.

Tracer mix is 1:5 though on occasion we would delink and feed straight tracer for our amusement. At the same time we would use the ammo left w/o tracers for other special applications that I will not discuss here in the forum.

Odds-n-ends:

I think the original fire rate of the Vulcan cannon was 6,000 rounds per minute but has long since been slowed down to 2,500 rpm from what I understand.

Ammo conservation is a major agenda with the electric gattlings, regardless of caliber or platform. Whilst pissing away vast voulumes of ammo there are a few curiosities attached to successful employment of the weapon. It is/was rare in my experience for a person to be shot just once with a mini. 5-10-20 rounds on target was typical, expecially at the close ranges I employed them at. I'm certain that some survive being shot with them, but in my experience they were as certain as grape cool-aid. At close range a mini gun will chew a hole through a bunker roof 6' thick(log and earth) with 2 bursts if held on target for the duration. I have no idea what happens inside the bunker after it has been violated like that. Never saw anybody run outside for fresh air. At close range they will also cut a person in half when using high rate.

Another thing interesting about minis is the education you can get about ricochets. If you haven't noticed this already, go back and see the video that derf linked and watch for this. 90* ricochets are common, and to my vast embarrassment, 180* events occur as well. Keep this in mind next time you're screwing around with your buddies and guns.

Some Cobras in Nam were configured with twin minis in the chin turret, and a measure of the recoil thrust they generate, when fired perpendicular to the aircraft's flight path, turns into the direction of fire were not practical, and in some circumstances not possible.

in 1970 Cobras in Viet Nam were configured with 3 barreled 20mm cannon, wing mounted on the left stub, with a conformal ammo bay on the right. Rate of fire was 900-950 rounds per minute. This particular weapon was of questionable value for antipersonnel use but is sure as hell took all the sport out of engaging 12.7 and 14.5mm anti-aircraft positions. During the Spring Offensive of '72 they were worth their weight in gold IMO, not only for that purpose, but also for use against light armored vehicles, such as the PT76.

That is all the gattling trivia that comes to mind at the moment. BTW, if you saw "Predator" with Ahnold and company, don't go thinking you can strap one of those contraptions on... biggest load of hooey I ever saw in a Hollyweird film. Figure 200-300 pounds for weapon and a load of ammo, and recoil impulse maybe in the neighborhood of 200#, but that is a guess on my part.

That is all.

Dan answered somethings I wondered about- rate of fire etc as i laid in the rice patties of ICorps Under them and could not count fast enough and was just overjoyed to have Spooky. Inside the bunker was a mess of body parts,bone fragments,wood splinters shoved through bodies etc. A real mess.Much easier to clear. Thank god for the Gun Ship.This old Marine would not be here otherwise

Say, Dan, the original gun used in the movie Predator is currently located at the Naval Special Weapons Center at Crane Naval Base, Crane, Indiana. Also colocated with Lake Greenwood and an awesome hotel for retirees and folks on leave, if you are able to get in the NSPC, they have entire pallets of MAG49s, Swedish Ks, Stoner Weapons Systems, various and sundry dirty tricks that would make James Bond blush, and one of the leading facilities for producing self-defense system for VIPs, etc..

My favorite was the completely concealed weapons mounts for VIP escort vehicles, such as the Chevy Suburban which include pop-up Minis, 25mm chain-guns and 20mm gatling guns. I have the honor to do my 2 week AT there, every third year. They are EXTREMELY careful about X-raying me before I leave the facility, for some reason.

The mini used in 'Predator' and 'Terminator 2' was the same gun. I read somewhere that they loaded up some very reduced rounds, and it was in 5.56 caliber. IIRC, the 'real' minis are 7.62 NATO???

Did anyone see that episode of 'Monster Garage' where the host took a suburban mounted mini to their failed creation. It was in twilight so you could really see the tracers bouncing around...

The Suburban is called a Raptor, it's produced as a security vehicle for Arab oil magnates.

They cut out the floor in the back and replace it with grates so the cases don't pile up inside and pose a slip hazard to the operator.

They are severly modified, capable of over 130mph. They have a 2000rd armored ammo bin and along with the battery boxes for the M134, are the only things armored on it so to discourage users from getting in a stand up firefight.

They manufacturer has a website but only the "splash" page is readily accessible as the rest is password protected. There was an article on them in Small Arms Review a couple of years ago...


Toolmaker

You guys are using the wrong unit of measure for a full auto weapon. It shouldn't be a measure of the rounds per minute, but the cats per minute. Lets see, if a 3 round burst is good for one cat, then an M16 is good for about
200 CPM if you don't figure in time to change
magazines.

OEH, I can see your logic there, but what about the likes of Vulcans and such with HE shell? Wouldn't that queer the calculus a bit?

Dan

Pres., TYHC

www.HighMath.SimpleGoals

What about things like twofer's, not to mention the potential shrapnel of chewing up hard surfaces?

This reeks of High School Calculas!


Toolmaker