Wow, I was away when this started and never got involved here.
I now understand many things…
Anyway, back on topic, can anyone tell apoor Crab what flechette amunition is? Ive heard about it, are we firing razor blades here?
Flechette - diminutive of fleché an arrow.
These have been used in many different cartridge weapons including 12 bore shotguns as they have a considerable increase in penetration over a similar load of lead ball. There was a version nicknamed ‘The Flying Razorblade’ - it was punched out of sheet metal and was a ‘two dimensional’ arrowhead design.
See ‘The World’s Fighting Shotguns’ by Thomas F. Swearengen.
I’ll try to find some pics when I’ve more time.
Of interest to a Crab, the RFC and their opponents used to carry boxes of larger flechettes, (the size of a playing dart or bigger,) to empty over enemy troop concentrations.
You can see some examples of these rather expensive weapons at RAF Hendon in the WWI section.
I believe at one point more than one candidate for the US force’s replacement assault rifle - the ACR competition which spawned several futurustic weapons, among others the H&K G11, but was then cancelled - was slated to fire flechette rounds.
I’m not sure what Colt did, but I think Steyr and AAI both had flechette designs. Again I’m not sure, but I think one may have only been firing a single flechette while the other fired multiple from one round.
The G11 of course was the caseless round design which looks more like a box with a pistol grip. 
Checking on world.guns.ru it seems it was the Steyr-Mannlicher entry to the ACR trials that fired the single flechette round, 5.6mm.
Wild looking weaon :
Pictures from world.guns.ru
http://world.guns.ru/assault/as56-e.htm
The “nutcracker” breech will not work well with caseless designs for several reasons:
It won’t survive high pressures (which is why it’s only really been applied to grenade launchers so far).
Won’t work with caseless due to excessive gas escape.
A similar principle has been used for the “tround” in a revolver, see for example: http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/002987.html but this is cased.
Fair do’s I wasnt ever going to build it, just saw it as a possible solution to overheating in the breech. Never mind.
Ive seen on another forum that the US military has put out a tender for a new rifle, How good a design was the EM-2, alot of people say that the SA-80 was a second rate rifle in comparison, Is there any chance that the future might be a rekindling of this as yet unused design?
when ironman isn´t here,who are you debating with guys?
no-one, it is most enlightening, we are having discussions not arguments, Oh and some of us are posting in every single thread to boost our post counts!
yes,like the last you did 
.
you!
(that´s was easy :lol: )
I remember the guy who said me,i only find interesting the off-topic in ww2incolor,that´s contribute uh?.
arrsehole
just kidding valious member :roll:
The EM2 won’t be re-kindled, since it costs too much to manufacture compared to many modern designs - this was one reason why the Brits adopted the FN FAL in the end instead of a re-chambered EM2. The other reason was that 7.62x51 in a rifle like that (3.41kg unloaded) is not big & not clever. It’s really designed for a previous generation of mfg techniques. It’s also flap locked, and almost everyone’s now settled on rotating bolt as being the best system (the latest HK, the G36 has a rotating bolt - and if HK have gone away from their “signature” roller-delayed blowback, you know that rotating bolts are here to stay).
The US will never adopt a bullpup due to the whole “can’t fire it from the left shoulder without modification, if at all” problem - this means that you can’t fire it around the left side of cover without either exposing too much body, or through contortionism.
Wow! We can debate and discuss without frionscam coming in & spouting incorrect drivel about things he knows little about! Fantastic!
yeah!,you´re right.
Concerning Flechette rounds, where there not some Rules of War problems (something like with Dumdum bullets)? I know that in the 1960s a flechette round was proposed for the M-16, but never introduced.
Jan
Presuming, because I do not know for certain. That a flechette would be “carried” by a sabot type casing, wouldnt the action of losing the casing affect accuracy. I know that fins and drag stabilisers etc can be added to the dart. But as the Large calibre Sabot breaks free of the smaller calibre flechette surely the balance and aerodynamics will be affected?
IIRC, it was not adopted because its long range performance and accuracy was crap.
Basically they’re miniature FSDS (fin stabilised discarding sabot) rounds - the idea being that you fire a very small & light projectile at a very high velocity, thus achieving an almost flat trajectory. Unfortunately, the laws of physics being what they are, such projectiles lose velocity at an astonishing rate.
Edit to add: there’s no “rules of war” issue I’m aware of.
Not just this, I don’t think that fin stabilisation will work at such small scale. Normally the fins have to be long enough to reach out past the projectile’s boundary layer into the undisturbed airflow to have any efect. I assume that the flechettes tended to tumble wildly and therefore became a Geneva Conventions issue.
Jan
Again from world.guns.ru :
"Steyr ACR is built around a specially designed cartridge of nominal caliber of 5.56mm. This cartridge has simple, cylindrically shaped plastic case. The fleschette, or dart, is totally enclosed in the case. Fleschette diameter is about 1.5 mm (.06 inch), lenght is about 41 mm (1.6 inch), weight 0.66 gramm (10 grains). Fleschette is partially enclosed into discarding sabot, and leaves the muzzle at impressive velocity of 1450 meters per second (4750 fps), still retaining velocity of 910 m/s (2980 fps) at the range of 600 meters. The plastic case had no rim or extracting groove, and priming compound is located annually at the inside wall of the case.To fire such uncommon cartridge, Steyr ACR has equally uncommon design. Barrel of nominal caliber of 5.56mm, has a very slow rifling to give initial stabilisation to the fleschette, which is stabilised in flight by its own small fins. Instead of common linear-moving bolt, Steyr ACR have separate chamber (breech block), which can be moved up and down. The whole action is powered by gas drive, which has annual gas piston, located around the barrel. To understand this system i will explain how it works:
at first, lets suppose that chamber is empty and rifle is manually cocked for the first shot. In this position the chamber block is its lowest position, aligned with the topmost round in magazine. The gas piston with its operating rod is in its rearmost position and under the pressure of the return spring. When trigger is pressed, the operating rod with gas piston are released and started forward under the pressure of the return spring, which is located around the barrel. This movement, at first, via special rammer, feeds the first round forward from magazine and into the chamber, and then, via shaped cam and breech block spring, rises the breech block with the cartridge into the topmost position. In this position the fixed firing pin passes through the hole in the top of the chamber and penetrates the cartridge wall, igniting the primer composition and firing the round. When projectile (fleschette with sabot) passes the gas port, some of powder gases began to move the gas piston back. This movement, via the operating rod and shaped cam, loweres the breech block with empty case out of alignment with barrel and down to the magazine. When breech comes to stop in the lowest position, a separate rammer feeds next cartridge forward and out of magazine, chambering it. At the same time, the fired case is pushed forward out of the chamber by the next cartridge, and when cleared from the chamber, the spent case simply falls down out of the rifle via the ejection port. The ejection port is located at the bottom of the rifle, ahead of magazine, and this eliminates one of the biggest problems of any bull-pup rifle - a non-ambidextrous (or, in this case - fully ambidextrous) ejection.
If rifle is set to the full auto mode, the firing cycle is repeated as descibed above. Otherwise, the loaded breech remains in its lowest position, awaiting for the next trigger pull.
This quite comprehensive action was concealed in sleek and comfortable polymer case with AUG-styled pistol grip and large ventilated upper rib with fixed sights. Optical sights also were fitted. Due to extremely high projectile velocity, flight time was very short at any practical ranges, and trajectory was wery flat, giving the shooter almost ray-gun performance, which allowed to fire withouth prior calculations of point of impact - speaking simply, at any practical combat ranges shooter will hit where it aimed, regardless target movements (projectile flight time to the target at 300 meters is about 0.2 seconds). Due to high velocity, Steyr ACR had good killing power and armour piercing capablities, and due to the low weight of the projectile recoil was low. But it was not enough to double the M16 performance, so, for now, the Steyr ACR remains in prototype or preproductional state and the program is freezed if not abandoned at all."
Hey guys,the time of no allowing ironman here passed?,because he isn´t here. :roll:
No he wasnt allowed back untill the 29th … and today is that day. :shock: Watch out for him. IRONMAN is active again.