- (AAP) -- James Bond would be impressed. A hand gun that
speaks several languages, broadcasts the conversation to the police, fires
lethal and non-lethal bullets and is activated only by the grip of the
registered owner.
-
- The Guinness Book of Records has declared the gun, officially
known as a Variable lethality enforcement (Vle) weapon, the world's most
intelligent firearm.
-
- It has also named the Vle's big brother, which is 36
times its size and has a potential firing rate of one million rounds a
minute, as the world's fastest.
-
- Both are based on revolutionary ballistics technology
invented by Australian Mike O'Dwyer, a self-taught physicist from a dusty
Queensland outback town near Longreach.
-
- The breakthrough uses electronics rather than mechanics;
instead of moving parts and heavy magazines, it involves a bullet-stacked
cylinder fired by electric impulse.
-
- A solo cylinder can be used as a pistol, while a few
dozen can be used together to create a ballistic system capable of firing
a hailstorm of bullets ó or metal storm.
-
- The weapons are touted as lighter, cheaper and faster
than conventional firearms and, because they are electronic more easily
linked to computers.
-
- The technology is being developed and commercialised
by Metal Storm Ltd, a Brisbane-based public company listed on the Australian
Stock Exchange and the US Nasdaq.
-
- Metal Storm general manager Australia Ian Gillespie says
the company is moving defence into the digital age.
-
- "The future is all about small, lightweight, mobile,
cheap, smart weapons systems, highly technical, and very few human beings
involved," he says.
-
- "Because it's electronic, it can interface with
other electronic systems, intelligence systems that can tell it what to
do and you don't need a person there."
-
- Successful demonstrations prompted once-sceptical US
officials to contribute to research through agencies such as the Defence
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
-
- They were impressed with the system's speed and need
for less manpower.
-
- A standard US mortar platoon has 27 people carrying 120
rounds of 81mm mortar, but this system needed only 13 people to carry 1920
rounds, says Gillespie.
-
- A demonstration will be held in the US mid year to show
how Metal Storm can be used with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), that can
collect intelligence but have no attacking power.
-
- Gillespie says Metal Storm's weapons are light enough
to give the tiny aircraft fire power, controlled by a remote computer,
to protect convoys or return enemy fire.
-
- Against the backdrop of the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq,
the company is hoping the demonstration will inspire defence top brass
or congressmen to fast-track development.
-
- While Metal Storm's target market is the United States
military, that spends more on defence than the rest of the world combined,
it is also developing law enforcement and personal weapons.
-
- The variable lethality enforcement gun is expected to
tap into a growing market for so-called safe guns, that encompasses more
than 700,000 US law enforcement officers and 65 million hand gun users.
-
- The State of New Jersey has decreed that only safe guns
may be sold within three years of the technology becoming available.
-
- The law-enforcement gun can tell the police station when
an officer has drawn his weapon, where he is and how many rounds are fired.
-
- "It can tell both the user and the bad guy what
it's doing ó it can say 'I'm on stun' or 'I'm on lethal', and it
can speak in different languages," Gillespie says.
-
- "If the officer is in an incident, he can switch
the audio on so that the people at the station or the squads on the way
to back him up can hear what's going on."
-
- Metal Storm is working with the New Jersey Institute
of Technology to team its smart gun with technology that only recognises
the registered user's grip.
-
- "That will significantly reduce the incidence of
unintended shooting," Gillespie says.
-
- Gillespie defends Metal Storm against criticism it is
developing and commercialising weapons that will make killing more effective.
-
- "It's technology that can save a lot more lives,
because this is the technology we want people in our armed forces and those
of our allies to have to protect against threat that our out there now,"
he says.
-
- "There are people being killed every day in Iraq
and Afghanistan and other parts of the world.
-
- "We're not about developing specifically offensive
capability ... if our people are going to have to defend themselves, we
want them to have the best."
-
- Metal Storm's weapons are still in the development and
testing stage. None are yet on the market.
-
- Gillespie says Metal Storm is undervalued on the market
at present but admits it could be two years before the company, that owns
50 patents and has more pending, starts generating revenue.
-
- © 1999-2002 News Limited. All rights reserved. http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9120615%
5E15321%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html
|