Smoothbore
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A smoothbore weapon is one that has a
.History
Early firearms had smoothly bored barrels that fired projectiles without significant spin.[1] To minimize inaccuracy-inducing tumbling during flight, their projectiles required an aerodynamically uniform shape, such as a sphere. However, surface imperfections on the projectile and/or the barrel will cause even a sphere to rotate randomly during flight, and the Magnus effect will curve it off the intended trajectory when spinning on any axis not parallel to the direction of travel.[2]
In the eighteenth century, the standard infantry arm was the smoothbore musket; although rifled muskets were introduced in the early 18th century and had more power and range, they did not become the norm until the middle of the 19th century, when the Minié ball increased their rate of fire to match that of smoothbores.[3]
Artillery weapons were smoothbore until the mid-19th century, and smoothbores continued in limited use until the late 19th century. Early rifled artillery pieces were patented by Joseph Whitworth and William Armstrong in the United Kingdom in 1855. In the United States, rifled small arms and artillery were gradually adopted during the American Civil War. However, heavy coast defense Rodman smoothbores persisted in the US until 1900 due to the tendency of the Civil War's heavy Parrott rifles to burst and lack of funding for replacement weapons.
Current use
Some smoothbore firearms are still used.
Small arms
A
Another smoothbore weapon in use today is the 37-mm
The Steyr IWS 2000 anti-tank rifle is smoothbore. This can help accelerate projectiles and increase ballistic effectiveness. The projectile is a 15.2 mm fin-stabilized discarding-sabot type with armor-piercing capability which the IWS 2000 was specifically designed to fire. It contains a dart-shaped penetrator of either tungsten carbide or depleted uranium, capable of piercing 40 mm of rolled homogeneous armor at a range of 1,000 m, and causing secondary fragmentation.
Artillery and tanks
The cannon made the transition from smoothbore firing cannonballs to rifled firing shells in the mid-19th century. However, to reliably penetrate the thick armor of modern armored vehicles many modern tank guns have moved back to smoothbore. These fire a very long, thin kinetic-energy projectile, too long in relation to its diameter to develop the necessary spin rate through rifling. Instead, kinetic energy rounds are produced as fin-stabilized darts. Not only does this reduce the time and expense of producing rifled barrels, it also reduces the need for replacement due to barrel wear.[citation needed]
The armour-piercing gun evolution has also shown up in small arms, particularly the now abandoned U.S.
Gallery
See also
- Rifling
- Buck and ball
- Cap gun
- Caplock mechanism
- Internal ballistics
- Tubes and primers for ammunition
- Minié ball
- Gunpowder
- Cannon
- Muzzleloader
- Muzzle (firearms)
- Gun barrel
- Projectile
References
- ISBN 0-89689-390-1.
- ISBN 978-94-007-5736-3.
- ISBN 978-0-8018-9981-2.
- ISBN 978-0-12-382242-0.
- ISBN 978-0-398-07656-6.