for reconsiliation, all you need is to watch "Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner"

 

Plus firing from a drone in the sky would give it 10 to 20 times the range because it would have its natural velocity of falling. Like when the rednecks fire their guns up in the air and it actually makes a big arc and hits some full speed coming down.

Sorry the bullet will reach terminal velocity when falling. It doesn't reach any where near the velocity as when it left the muzzle.

 

Mythbusters had done one on this, I think.

 

http://mythbustersresults.com/episode50

I didn't remember the results. It wasn't that clear after all.

 

Sorry the bullet will reach terminal velocity when falling. It doesn't reach any where near the velocity as when it left the muzzle.

Shot at a downward angle it does. You get a double whammy effect.

 

From a few thousand feet up, the time of flight is about 2 seconds, so gravity gives the round a boost of roughly 65 fps if fired straight downward, enough to make up for part of the paths wind resistance.

The steering on the bullet needs improvement, they are using the same "on-off" flaps that the original AIM sidewinders used, hence the name "sidewinder". I suppose there isn't enough room in a bullet for proportional control of flight surfaces. They are either deflected or not.

I'm wondering how they decided on a 30Hz guidance update, though. It's not like a huge change would be needed for 60Hz updates if it is following the laser. Unless, of course, the laser's code only changes bits every 30th of a second for IFF ID/anti-jam.

 

Shot at a downward angle it does. You get a double whammy effect.

Huh? How can you shoot at a downward angle firing up?

Unless you mean fire from an elevated surface and if so, no the bullet is only going to travel so fast (I would think).

As far as the Mythbusters assessment, of firing at an angle. I am no ballistics expert but I think it is wrong. As the bullet leaves the barrel it starts to spin. It would lose it's spin at the end of it's range (actually somewhat before it) and start to tumble. This would occur at the bullets apogee so it would tumble on the way down and reach it's terminal velocity.

 

It would lose it's spin at the end of it's range (actually somewhat before it) and start to tumble

I don't think that's necessary.

 

Swarmbots + Smartbullets = Scary

 

I don't think that's necessary.

What is necessary?

The bullet has to stop it's spin at some point. When it stops its spin it will start to tumble. It is simple physics. Traveling in a straight line is the whole reason the barrel is rifled in the first place.

 

Why does the bullet have to stop spinning before reaching its target (while moving forward)? Do we have any indication or data on that?

 

Why does the bullet have to stop spinning before reaching its target (while moving forward)? Do we have any indication or data on that?

I didn't say it won't keep spinning if the bullet is shot in a straight line. What I said is it would stop spinning at the end of it's range. When shot into the air and it reaches apogee, it is no longer traveling in a straight line, it is falling. What is going to keep it spinning?

Though after thinking about it, an American football continues to spin after it reaches it's apex so perhaps it would have to do with the trajectory so maybe that is what they were referring to. But I would bet it is something less than straight up as they describe in the article.

 

But if its spinning so fast it doesn't loose its spin it continues forward like a spiral on a football. I saw the myth busters your talking about. They droped a bulled at at terminal non spiral velocity was like 82mph tumbling. But they researched and talked to doctors and they said that the bullet must be fired straight up any angle at all will produce an arc and the bullet won't loose its speed and comes down hitting some lady in the leg at 2000ft per second.

What I'm talking about is attaching this guided bullet to a Drone instead of a hellfire or tow missle. This way if they see a group of "insurgents/civilians" we could have the option of just taking 1 person out. Say flying at an altitude of 1 mile up. Pretty much I'm just saying you'll get more range firing from a drone/heli. I imagine whats limiting it to a mile is the bullet just runs out of steam with the control surfaces slowing it down. I don't think it has a booster in it. (But that may be a good idea)

 

The bullet could also produce a spiral with its control surfaces too.

 

I didn't say it won't keep spinning if the bullet is shot in a straight line. What I said is it would stop spinning at the end of it's range. When shot into the air and it reaches apogee, it is no longer traveling in a straight line, it is falling. What is going to keep it spinning?

Though after thinking about it, an American football continues to spin after it reaches it's apex so perhaps it would have to do with the trajectory so maybe that is what they were referring to. But I would bet it is something less than straight up as they describe in the article.

This has been tested a lot by the .mil.

Tests on a beach, shooting a bullet perfectly straight up, ended with the bullet coming back down base first, still spinning. The grooves cut do not make the bullet spin, being pushed down a rifled barrel makes them spin. The rifling impressed onto the bullet isn't deep enough to act like fin or a partial screw for air to cause it to spin.

Bullets come out of the barrel at several thousand RPM, and there isn't really much to reduce that angular velocity the air passing the bullet in the supersonic stage doesn't touch the grooves in the bullet, and for the brief transonic period, very few RPM are lost. The total flight time was around 12 seconds, IIRC, and the bullet spun a while after hitting the sand pointing up (landing base first).

This is similar to the video of the bullet being shot at an angle onto ice, it will bounce, then settle either point down or base down and keep spinning, there's many YouTube videos of it, and I think mythbusters also did a piece on it.

 

They did the experiment with the spinning bullet on ice too. At first they didn't believe it, and neither did I, but after we saw it with our eyes we did.

 

So shot from an infinite height (on a planet with infinite Earth type atmosphere), the bullet would spin infinitely?

 

I think the point is it will spin longer that flight time.

 

This has been tested a lot by the .mil.

But thats just subcontracting the project out to a farm company of Raytheon, or GD, ND, and other large players.

 

I think they'd be too cost prohibitive for mass use anytime soon.