Splash, Splash, You're Dead: The Military's Next-Gen Water Gun

[Ian David]

Splash, Splash, You're Dead: The Military's Next-Gen Water Gun
David Hambling Email 06.04.07 | 2:00 AM

The next terrorist threat may come from the deep. In recent years, several homeland security alerts have focused on the danger of scuba-equipped terrorists targeting docked Navy vessels or ocean-side nuclear plants. Now the U.S. military is quietly developing a new generation of underwater weaponry capable of warding off undersea trespassers with liquid bullets.

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Normal guns will work underwater, but the drag slows bullets right down. "I have tried it myself in our pool," says Scott Greenbaum, a Certified Glock Armourer and webmaster at GlockFAQ.com. "The bullets only traveled about 15 feet."

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Instead of firing bullets, the UDG "fired a stiletto-type dart that could provide range, accuracy and lethality underwater," says Tom Hawkins of the nonprofit Naval Special Warfare Foundation. To reduce shockwaves, a pusher piston sealed the barrel after firing. Each barrel could only fire once, hence the need for six separate barrels and the weapon's chubby profile.

The effective range was about 30 feet. As a bonus, the subsonic projectile and sealed firing system made the gun virtually silent above water.

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Perhaps the most intriguing hint of where the underwater arms race is headed comes from a 2005 U.S. patent granted to Thomas J. Gieseke, a Navy scientist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. The patent proposes a "high-velocity underwater jet weapon" that fires a stream of high-velocity liquid "bullets" -- fine grains of metal or sand that form a cavity more efficiently than solid rounds.

More:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/underwater_guns

[MadHound]

1. Oh, yeah, more fear mongering, more money wasted.

Geez, and here I thought that the military and CIA had given up the James Bond stuff, I guess not.

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. sharks w/ friggin lazer beams

this is the future folks.

[benEzra]

3. The primary driver for that is point-defense of subs against torpedoes...

not James Bond style small arms. Existing guns/etc. are completely capable of defending against the "scuba diver" bogeyman.

Underwater small arms have been around for many years, but not anything capable of taking out an incoming torpedo at a safe distance. Considering a sub costs billions and carries 100 people or more, there is a strong incentive to develop ways of doing that.

[Ian David]

4. Subs are long and hard and filled with seamen. n/t