Brisbane, Australia -- Defence technology Company Metal Storm Limited has reached another milestone in its weapons testing program with successful rapid automatic firing of high explosive warheads.

Metal Storm is in the process of completing the development of its next generation 40mm high explosive grenade ammunition for its Metal Storm 40mm weapon systems.

As a part of this process, Metal Storm is conducting a series of pre-qualification tests to ensure the ammunition can perform in a variety of conditions and firing circumstances before it undertakes formal qualification.

Metal Storm CEO, Dr Lee Finniear, said today the latest tests, which involved rapid automatic firing of high explosive warheads, had been successful.

Dr Finniear said the test results show the progress being made toward completing the development of ammunition qualified for battlefield use.

“Much of our earlier testing with this ammunition design has focused on firing semi-automatically, i.e. one shot at a time,” he said.

“This test, by contrast, clearly demonstrates we can fire 40mm high explosive ammunition at high burst fire rates. This characteristic is particularly important for our multi-barrel weapon systems that are designed to be able to deliver a swarm of high explosive ammunition instantaneously to a target for maximum effect”.

Dr Finniear said the specific test plan was to fire stacks of three rounds of ammunition from special test weapons equipped with muzzle velocity and internal pressure sensors.

“Most of the firings in the test were of safe-arm warheads, which include fuses but no high explosive material,” he said.

“Safe-arm warheads provide the most effective post-firing data analysis as the warhead is not destroyed. However, stacks of high explosive warheads were also used as the ultimate proof of the success of the tests.”

Test firings included stacks of three safe-arm warheads and three HE warheads at an automatic burst fire rate of 380 rounds per minute, plus stacks of three safe-arm warheads at 1800 rounds per minute.

Metal Storm has previously reported successful firings at extreme high and low temperatures and the completion of a variety of successful electromagnetic interference tests.

The Company is nearing the completion of its pre-qualification testing and intends to commence formal limited qualification testing for transportation and man-firing as soon as pre-qualification testing is complete.

Metal Storm is exhibiting its weapon systems at The National Guard Show, Modern Day Marine Show and the Association of the US Army (AUSA) Exhibition in the USA.

Metal Storm
29.10.2008