Chain gun
A chain gun is a machine gun that uses an external drive for the loading process instead of the energy of the high- tension powder gases - as with gas pressure chargers . With the “Chain Gun”, the drive is accomplished by means of a motor and a roller chain .
construction
The most important advantage of the chain gun over the gas pressure loader is their high reliability and controllability. Instead of being dependent on the difficult-to-control powder gases, as is the case with the self-loading process, the chain gun is charged with an electric motor. The motor drives the chain, the chain in turn is stretched square over four toothed wheels, whereby a chain link with a control cam moves the lock. This moves the breech back and forth to load, fire, and eject the case. Like other externally powered automatic weapons, this system is very reliable because misfired cartridges do not block the weapon, but simply eject it.
The dependency on an external drive can prove to be a disadvantage if the drive fails, since the weapon is then no longer ready for use, unlike gas pressure chargers.
By changing the engine speed, the rate of fire of the weapon can be changed. Chain Guns can be operated with any rate of fire from a single shot to the highest rate of fire. The maximum rate of fire is determined by the limited gas pressure in the pipe, mechanical tolerances, and other factors. In practice, chain guns are equipped with three fixed cadence levels.
Examples
The most famous chain gun is the M242 Bushmaster . Various versions of this weapon can be found on ships ( Mk-38 automatic cannon ) and armored personnel carriers ( M2 Bradley , LAV-25 ). Other chain guns are the M230 cannon used in the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, as well as the Bushmaster II 30 mm and the Bushmaster III 35/50 mm chain gun .
A chain gun in NATO caliber 7.62 × 51 mm (.308 Winchester) was installed in some armored vehicles as a coaxial machine gun, as only very small proportions of the spent powder gases penetrate the interior. A development version of this weapon was the EX-34. It had the same structure as the later Bushmaster.
Chain Gun vs. Gatling Gun
A common mistake is to refer to Gatling cannons as chain guns. This picture was drawn in particular by the software games industry, when the minigun - a small-caliber Gatling cannon - is referred to as a chain gun in various first-person shooters . Gatling guns are likewise externally driven machine guns, but these have a plurality of tubes, whereas a chain gun has only one tube (see automatic cannon ).
Examples
| Surname | country | caliber | cadence | Muzzle velocity |
Gun weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mm | rpm | m / s | kg | ||
| Chain guns | |||||
| M242 Bushmaster | United States | 25th | 200 | 1100 | 110 |
| Bushmaster II | United States | 30th | 250 | 1405 | 154.6 |
| M230 chain gun | United States | 30th | 625 | nn | 57.5 |
| Bushmaster III | United States | 35 | 200 | nn | 218 |
See also
Web links
- US Army TACOM-RI (English)