Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/411

 The "Spinning- Wheel" Gun

��Till-; " spiniiinn-wlu'cl" gun is llic news paptT name which has iiccn j^ixen an odd engine of destruction. The gun consists of a wheel of aluminum and copper construction mounted on ball-bearings supported by a suitable frame. Projectiles are placed in pockets in a groove in the rim of the wheel, which is rotated at a high rate of speed by an electric motor to which it is belted. The projectiles are automatically released by a mechanical device and hurled at the object at which they are sighted.

The new gun has many obvi- ous faults, any one of which renders it worthless as a weapon of warfare. In the first place its operation necessitates the use of electric current which makes field service practically out of the ques- tion. Even with an ample electric current supply on hand the whee could not be rotatetl with sufficien velocity to hurl the projectiles appreciable distance. It has been fig out that a speed of at least eighteen thousand revolu- tions a minute would be needed to throw a projectile one thousand yards. It would be difficult to get a motor or bearings which would stand such terrific strain. The "centrifugal gun" would neces- sitate the use of spherical projec- tiles, whereas the type which has been found most efficient is long and tapered and has a detonator at its pointed end.

The gun is de- signed to supplant hand grenades.

���The Gun Consists of a Wheel Constructed of Aluminum and Mounted on a Frame and Rotated at Hish Speed by a

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��Copper Motor

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