Metal Storm has NOT set a new speed record for 40mm, as was...

Metal Storm has NOT set a new speed record for 40mm, as was claimed in their release of 15 June.

A DSTO video on the Metal Storm website, dated Sept 1999 (yes, that's over a decade ago), confirms that 40mm inert rounds were fired by DSTO at that time, at a burst rate of 20,000 rounds per minute.

That is double the 10,000 rpm burst rate now being claimed as a 'record' rate in the 15 June release. To confirm the DSTO firing, click 'Media' on the MS website, then 'Video Gallery', then after selecting the bandwidth, click on to the red 'down' arrow to bring up the videos from 2000 to 2003. Click on '2001', where the 1999 video is (incorrectly) located. It is the thumbnail on the left.

The DSTO video includes slow motion footage of a two-round 40mm burst at 20,000 rpm. The firing was released to the market on Tue 21 Dec 1999. The DSTO firing effectively dealt with any potential issues to do with the proximity of following rounds in flight at ultra-rapid rates of fire. As a follow-on from the tests, It stands to reason that if two 40mm rounds can be successfully fired at 20,000 rpm as DSTO demonstrated, then so can another and another etc.

The recent MS firing did no more than confirm that discovery, and at only half the DSTO rate of fire, and over a decade later.

It was improper of the company to ignore absolutely the DSTO firing, to omit any reference to it in the recent release, and to claim outright that they have set a new speed record, when they have not! The release reads as though the company may well have lost all knowledge of the DSTO firing, and it follows that MS staff are now wastefully repeating and rediscovering (very old) technical progress.

In the absence of any reference whatsoever to the old DSTO firings in the release, any reader is drawn to believe that the new disclosure is in every way something entirely new, when it is absolutely nothing of the kind.

The release should have read entirely differently. The earlier firings should have been referenced, along with a comparison and an explanation of differences, and of any improvements. Without that, the announcement acutely undermines trust and confidence. Unfortunately, that is something this lot at MS are best at doing.

The Company needs to now properly explain; exactly as it should have done in the release itself.