dual purpose munition , page-23

First of all let me apologise, for I think the other day I may have said that Raytheon had bougt Tennix when in fact it was BAE who now own Tennix,but they also own Bofors as well, my excuse is that I am getting old LOL, but as you can see there are a few dots to connect here, this is a copy of a post that I sent as a reply to something Patrolly had asked back on the 10/07/08, as you can see the mach 5/50 tech and the AICW CTD2 both come into play here, remember that the patent the adder posted about BAE Bofors related to projectiles ranging from 9mm to 60mm, but the steyr calibre would also be eligible I believe.

PATROLLY, from what I understand, and remember that we aren't told much about what is happening with Mach 5/50 tech,MST and the DSTO consider it "TOP SECRET", there was a little from the DSTO late last year, that they had sucessfully fired 60mm projectiles, two at a time at 1500 metres per second or better, that is Mach 5, now if they can do it at 60mm, then the calibre of the steyr rifle would be a sinch surely? I believe that this new high velocity Austeyr rifle will fire both high velocity grenades as well as high velocity projectiles, in other words this will be in my opinion the first use of the mach 5/50 principle in any weapon system that gets sold.

This firing at high velocity would be selectable, depending on how the weapon was fired? (how many propellant charges are initiated or how many consecutive projectiles are used there are two methods of achieving mach 5) it would depend on the target type, the distance away, and the KE required,this would give the weapon a choice of at "LEAST"
three firing ranges, something that isn't possible with todays weapons!

I liked the bit where it said it incorporated a new recoil mitigation method as well!!!!

Even though it appears that this is under the control of the DSTO and it is! it is still MST tech and they will get royalties from it,
I would hazard a guess and say that BAE (it was Tennix that developed the first AICW) will now be the ones that develop the proto types for this CTD and under licence to MST if they are sold!

This is ONLY the start of Mach 5/50 weapons for the future IMHO as it lends itself to most weapons systems that fire a projectile,and remember that it does it at better than twice the velocity of existing weapons systems including Artillery, I can understand why BAE would be very interested in Mach 5/50 tech, remember they own Bofors!

Things like the Rail gun or Coil gun may compete with mach 5/50, but they won't be anywhere near as portable as the Mach 5 systems or anywhere near as cheap either for that matter!