How? I literally referred to the 1st image of the quoted post lol
You must be really good with Where's Waldo, I honestly did not see that until looking at it 100 more times, lol
The claimed rate of fire for the Chinese Metal Storm gun (let's just give it a notional name of CMSG for ease of typing) is 450 thousand rounds per minute, with another claimed rate of fire of 7600 rounds per second. From what I understand about the original Metal Storm gun, depending on the configuration or model - The rounds stacked in every barrel can either be fired in selective bursts (i.e. not all at once), or all at once.
Do we know how many barrels are in the CMSG, and how many rounds can be loaded per barrel in the CMSG in one setting? There's also the consideration on the lengths of each round and of each barrel to ease estimation work.
If plenty enough rounds can be fired in such a short duration of time (e.g. around high-10k rounds to 100k-200k rounds per burst), it could result in enough enemy targets that are at close-in distances during the interception session being destroyed, such that the time for reloading the CMSG isn't as big of an issue before the next wave of enemy targets arrive close enough?
There is also the solution of having the CMSG paired with other conventional CIWS weapon types (e.g. gun-based, DEW-based or counter-UAV UAV-based platforms) to provide temporary cover while the CMSG's reloading process is ongoing.
Though, if one entire emptied CMSG module can be swapped with another pre-loaded CMSG module in one-go, then the reload duration shouldn't take too long.
Coincidentally, when looking up if anyone picked up the pieces of Metal Storm, I saw an allegation that China had tried to buy the company, but was not successful.
I did remember that the burst fire was an option as well, but the question in that case became, why this over a regular gatling cannon? Basically gaining one capability (big burst) while losing a more simplified reload and existing logistics.
The counter to the wide kill zone wiping out a whole salvo would be small adjustments to timing such that some number of projectiles will get through.
Pairing a CMSG with a more conventional weapon becomes more expensive and bulky. We see that the Navy has not developed any gun-missile combo mounts despite the existence of equivalent land based ones, clearly happy with the HJ-10/H/PJ-11 on their own mounts.
PLA is clearly looking at the problem of drones/missile swarms from all angles. 7-barrelgun gave way to 11-barrel, then we saw 20-barrel prototypes. The Zhuhai airshow is loaded with all kinds of Lasers, Dazzlers, Autocannon, mini-missile, unmanned chassis, ATV-sized chassis, truck mount, etc.
