Gyrojet

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Gyrojet weapons

Gyrojet was a handgun family and ammunition from manufacturer MBAssociates that were developed in the 1960s and produced. The specialty of these weapons and ammunition was the rocket propulsion of the projectiles. The weapons could not establish themselves in the market.

Development history

Missiles were developed in China in the 13th century , but it was a long time before they could be used as a handgun. The Voss Musket Rockt, developed in 1834 and used by the Danish army, was also a signal weapon. The Rocket Ball dates from 1848 and , despite its name, did not have a rocket drive. Nevertheless, the cartridge is brought in connection with rocket projectiles, as the construction is very similar. During the Second World War , the Carl Walther company experimented with a rocket cartridge with a diameter of 9 mm and a length of 30 mm.

In the 1960s, Robert Mainhardt and Art Biehl at MB Associates again developed rocket projectiles and corresponding handguns. The weapons could not establish themselves in the market and to this day remain the only handguns with rocket-propelled projectiles that could be brought to production maturity via the experimental stage.

technology

Instead of a projectile that was accelerated through a barrel by means of a powder charge, the Gyrojet weapons use rocket-propelled projectiles with a diameter of 12 and 13 millimeters. The hot gases exit through nozzles on the edge of the cartridge base and accelerate the entire cartridge, turning it into a projectile as a whole. With a conventional cartridge, on the other hand, the powder charge is ignited, the hot gases then drive the projectile and case apart and accelerate the projectile through the barrel to the muzzle (and a few centimeters beyond). The external ballistic properties of the projectiles have completely different characteristics than those of cartridge ammunition. They mainly accelerate after leaving the barrel until the rocket fuel stops burning.

The recoil of the rocket pistol is much less than that of a conventional pistol of the same caliber, as the acceleration through the rocket drive is significantly slower than when the powder burns off in the conventional way. The significantly lower noise development is also an advantage of these weapons.

The low muzzle velocity leads to considerable precision problems, and the final velocity is significantly lower than with conventional rifle ammunition, which results in a lower penetration power. However, a Gyrojet projectile also reaches this speed in the short-barreled pistol variant and thus outperforms many other handguns.

Manufacturing tolerances and damage to the bottom of the cartridge are significantly more significant with a gyrojet projectile than with a conventional cartridge: The rocket cartridge has two or four nozzles that are slightly inclined to one side, which also set the projectile in rotation. If the nozzles are not exactly aligned or slightly dirty, the projectile will start to tumble in flight, which drastically reduces the precision.

Trivia

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

In the James Bond film You Only Live Twice , the gyrojet weapons are used by the Tanakas team. There they are referred to as weapons with a high penetration rate.

In the Warhammer 40k universe, the Space Marines ' standard weapon , the bolter , based on gyrojet weapons, was introduced. In contrast to reality, however, these are mostly fully automatic assault rifles, whose cartridges carry a small warhead.

See also

Commons : Gyrojet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kevin Dockery: Future Weapons, Berkley Books, 2007, ISBN 9780425217504 , page 146 [1]
  2. ^ British Rocket Data. Retrieved April 1, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Gyrojet, external ballistic comparisons, original documentation from the manufacturer MBA
  4. ↑ Bolt weapons - inspiration from the 20th century. In: Lexicanum - The Warhammer 40,000 Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 10, 2020 .

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