mach 5/50

Found this by accident. It's 2007 info. Moosey, this is your area. Any idea what happened to the $81.5mil mentioned. I don't remember MST ever mentioning getting funding like that? What was the furore? Is it dead?

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/naval-forces/41286-phalanx-2.html
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DARPA invested at least US$16.9 Million into 3 studies in 2000. One of these was indeed a CIWS study for naval ops`.This investment was part of a larger deal.
There was a major investment between the DoD US and the Australian DSTO. The dollar value was actually US$81 million. I don`t know the exact monetary split but US investment is actually more than $20 million overall when you consider the initial $16.9 M outlay and add contracts. If you consider the $81 M split and how that was done, it could be even greater...

Here are some Metalstorm contacts..

Contract with US Dept of Energy,-US $216,000
Munitions Development Agreement with US Army-US$549,000
US company StarChase LLC valued at US$1.2 million
USMC-US$331,426
US Army -non-lethal munitions contact- $975,000
DARPA Mach 5/50 program-US$5.8M (Yes, that is a MACH 5 .50 cal round).

These are just a few I have seen. The company has had it`s troubles and DARPA pulled investment at one point, there was a furore over the Mach5/50 project. Metalstorm thought the project was classified, and it was in Australia. DARPA thought otherwise and published the whole project on it`s website, unclassified.
There may be more contracts, but the initial DARPA and DoD outlay within that $81 M is certainly a hefty one. It seems that only the US is investing in Metalstorm, there is even a US subsidiary. This could be more to do with patents and getting a monopoly on the technology, as well as potential.
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There was also a comment from someone on that page as to why MST was not proceeded with as a short range defence weapon for the US navy - due to "dispersion of projectiles". Any comments?
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Also found this on a rather over the top site: www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread45199/pg1

U) Early Metal Storm tasks demonstrated revolutionary weapon concepts for firing small caliber projectiles at very high rates without the need for internal moving parts. The continuing Mach 5/50 tasks extend the concepts and technologies for leap-ahead performance in tactically relevant, lightweight, medium caliber direct fire weapons. The medium caliber projectiles (50 millimeter bore) will have a minimum muzzle velocity of 1,600 meters per second (~ Mach 5) at 600 rounds per minute or greater. Mach 5/50 technology development will provide multiple services with a low-cost, reliable enabling technology to support a wide range of current/future applications including extended range combat vehicle firepower and lethality, full-spectrum future combat vehicle lethality for active protection systems, high engagement rate naval air defense,
critical fixed site defense and improved aircraft self-defense. Portions of the technology development will be conducted under an agreement with the Australian Defence Science and Technology Office.

(U) Program Plans:
- Develop medium caliber concepts, detailed performance simulations and technical analyses.
- Fabricate and test critical technology subsystems.
- Complete integration of pre-prototype components and evaluate against simulation-based interim performance parameters.
- Critical design review and complete fabrication of full-function prototype.
- Complete system test and evaluation of full function prototype and validate simulations.
- Conduct firing demonstration and deliver final report.
- Transition hardware and data packages to DoD laboratories for Service-specific engineering and platform integration.