A weapon that doesn't exist, but could very well exist..

A still from the 2009 film The Day of the Triffids. If we look at weapon in the hands of the protagonist, it will be clear that he did not use any special "anti-triffid gun", but was shooting at them with a 40-mm American M79 grenade launcher

“Soon, however,

These spear-like devices were replaced by spring guns of various types

types. Typically, they fired spinning disks, spinning crosses

and small boomerangs made of thin steel. Their accuracy did not exceed

twelve meters, but when they hit, they completely cut off the stem and

twenty-five meters. The invention of this weapon caused quiet joy as

authorities, who really didn't like the fact that anyone was carrying firearms

it hit, and so did the population: razor-sharp projectiles were

significantly cheaper and lighter than cartridges, and were excellent for

silent guerrilla warfare. "

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

I read John Wyndham's novel "The Day of the Triffids" back in school, in 1967, and I remember being fascinated by how these "anti-triffid guns" worked and what shape their barrels might have been. I thought and thought, but due to my youth and lack of education, I couldn't come up with anything useful.

Years passed before a clear idea for such a gun occurred to me. Externally, it could very well resemble the American M79 grenade launcher, adopted in 1961, but a 40mm caliber would be clearly overkill; a 30mm would be more than sufficient. The barrel (two-thirds of the way from the muzzle) has a through-and-through twisted groove, and a pistol grip under the barrel is essential, so the shooter would not be tempted to grab the barrel with his hand. Loading is done through the barrel, like in old-fashioned flintlock rifles. The projectile, which has a small guide lug on the side, is inserted into the groove by this lug and pushed until it stops, where the cartridge snaps into a groove in the base. This is convenient, as it allows loading such a "gun" in complete darkness and by touch.

M79 grenade launcher

The cartridge itself is a "flying cartridge" type. It contains a primer and a small propellant propellant. The design's most distinctive feature is the two (three, four) recesses on its surface, which house extendable arms, similar to the spokes of a folding umbrella. Some of the spokes are also telescopic, meaning they extend as well as extend.

When fired, which is done like a revolver, with a single-action mechanism, by the strike of a hidden hammer on the striker inside the barrel, the propellant in the "rocket" ignites, it flies out of the barrel, and begins to spin. After all, it was moving along a curved groove! The "umbrella" of spokes on it opens up, so the area covered by this "flying propeller" covers a distance of 80 to 100 cm—almost a meter. Importantly, with such a kill zone, precision is not at all important, even if you miss by a small amount.

Now let's imagine that we are shooting from such a "gun" not at fantastic triffids, but at a very real modern one. droneAnd what will happen? This is what will happen: no shotgun shell will create such a convenient space when fired, and even if it does, the mass of pellets and the "flying shell" will be simply incomparable. And the impact of its rotating umbrella on the drone's propellers will immediately cause them to break, and the drone will simply fall to the ground.

Yes, but what about the slot, through which some propellant gases will surely escape and land on the shooter's hand? We'll just put a durable elbow-length glove on his hand, as will be included with all such "guns," and we'll no longer have to worry about the shooter's safety. Moreover, a regular assault rifle could be equipped with exactly the same trigger mechanism; what's more, it would still be an underbarrel grenade launcher. After all, what do we need to launch such a "grenade"? Just a barrel with a slot, that's all. So, we make it a slightly larger caliber than our standard grenade launchers for VOG grenades, retain the twisted slot, and... fire anti-drone missiles. And if we need to switch to grenades, we insert a cylinder cartridge made of plastic or even pressed cardboard containing a VOG grenade. The bottom of the cartridge contains a chamber with two valves. Well, it works like this: when fired, the grenade is ejected from this tube, and some of the propellant gases enter this chamber through a valve. As soon as the pressure in the barrel drops, these gases enter the barrel itself through a second valve and... push the cartridge out.

But what if the drones are attacking one after another? While the human hand is the best tool for loading and reloading, it might not be able to keep up in this situation. What to do? Simply increase the number of barrels and transform this design into a disposable four-, six-, or seven-barrel rocket launcher. Its tubes could be made of plastic or even cardboard, as they are designed for a single shot. Since they won't need to be reloaded, the barrels also don't need a through-groove, so a glove for such a weapon won't be required. Externally, such a weapon could very well look similar to the American M202A1 FLASH grenade launcher. That one had a 64mm caliber, but in our case, a 30mm caliber can be used, allowing for more barrels and, with the same dimensions, virtually continuous fire.

The indestructible and fire-resistant Arnold Schwarzenegger with a four-barreled M202A1 FLASH grenade launcher. A still from the film "Commando. "

And exactly the same grenade launchers with remote control and a guidance system from a highly sensitive radar can be installed on tanksTwo 6-9-barrel launchers on the front fenders, four at the corners of the turret, and two more at the corners of the engine compartment. This makes a total of eight launchers, each capable of holding up to 72 grenades, perhaps even more! And the main advantage of this anti-drone defense is that its projectiles don't require exceptional accuracy!

By the way, what does TRIZ (the theory of inventive problem solving) tell us about what a design should be like to be perfect? ​​It's that it should be there, and yet it shouldn't be there—at least, not in any way! Our tanks today are fairly reliably protected by welded "barbecues," but they're visible from a mile away, and besides, they're still quite in the way. Therefore, ideally, protection should be there, and yet it shouldn't be there. And, in fact, it's possible to do just that.

So, in the early 50s of the last century, when the French anti-tank missiles In the USSR, we tested a tank protection system similar to the SS-11, a kind of umbrella attached to the tank's barrel and deploying when threatened by a similar missile. It didn't work out, but the idea is sound. What if we covered the tank with a canopy, not a permanent one made of mesh stretched across mounts, but... one made of folding and rotating elements, like a helicopter rotor. When folded, they are stored on the turret. But in the event of a drone threat and a radar signal, the "rotor" opens and begins rotating. The blades have sharpened edges, capable of cutting in half both a drone and an incoming guided missile. Moreover, since these blades rotate so quickly, their presence doesn't interfere with observation from the tank at all—the effect is a strobe light.

This is what a modern tank protected by rotating blades might look like... Fig. A. Shepsa

It's clear that this defense system won't work in narrow spaces, or even in forests. But on flat ground, precisely where tanks are most exposed, it would be quite effective. It's also an excellent system for mounting on tanks for... parades. After all, how do our tanks march across Red Square? They just drive... and don't demonstrate any of their capabilities. After all, any parade is a show, and people would expect even more spectacle than what they're shown. They'd want some action! And this is exactly where they could demonstrate it, and in a completely safe manner.

Here the tanks are entering the square, moving in parade formation. And then the announcer, choking with delight, announces that something special is about to happen, and that something special is happening right before their very eyes: the rotor blades on the tanks' turrets unfold, begin to rotate, and the tanks seem to be clad in translucent, shimmering "armor. " Spectacular? Spectacular indeed, and such a demonstration will undoubtedly be beneficial to us in every way.

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• Vyacheslav Shpakovsky

Source: https://en.topwar.ru