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CW3 Harvey K.
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Edited 6 y ago
Very interesting.
Besides the weight saving by eliminating brass, there is a potential cost saving as well. The brass case is the most expensive component of the cartridge. Replacing it with plastic should save a lot of money.
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TSgt David L.
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There have been many attempts at caseless ammo. The Germans had some plastic case stuff they were trying when I was stationed there. It saved weight but I'm not sure what the performance was. Maybe technology has caught up enough to make it a reality.
Thanks for the share.
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1LT William Clardy
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"Caseless" technology is always interesting, but there are technical barriers which have kept it from being practical for battlefield use:
1) A lot of heat gets ejected with those brass cartridge cases (as anybody who's been hit by one can attest). Weapons which don't eject lots of little brass heatsinks need to cope with the increased heat retention in some fashion, either by improved cooling or reducing sustained firing rates.
2) Chamber obturation becomes more challenging without that brass case expanding to seal the back door. There are practical reasons for tank gun rounds retaining stub metal casings.
3) Mechanical durability is an issue with polymers. Not only do they have to be as resistant to deformation as metal cases, they have to retain their precise shape and dimensions across a range of temperatures from arctic cold to tropical/desert heat. Nobody wants to deal with polymer-cased rounds which won't fit in the chamber after baking in an ammo can all day under a desert sun.
3) The guys who design telescoped cartridges always seem to forget how helpful that pointy end is at finding its way into a chamber when things aren't perfectly aligned, which the guys designing the weapon need to compensate for. Rube Goldberg had nothing on the insides of the G11.
4) Clearing jams and other malfunctions becomes more interesting, especially when weapon designers omit useful inspection/access paths like ejection ports.
These aren't insurmountable, but weapons designed around polymer/caseless technologies have an 0-3 track record over the last half century.
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