Posted by John McHaleORLANDO, Fla., 29 May 2010. Engineers at Cubic Corp. (NYSE: CUB) developed a new weapon simulator that replicates the characteristics of a Gatling-style gun, firing as many as 3,000 rounds a minute. Cubic's defense division received a total of $5 million in contracts to supply the M134D Virtual Trainer and other training equipment to multiple locations in the U.S.Cubic's trainer recreates the ballistics of an actual M134D in a virtual training environment as well as weapon sounds and other characteristics. Two of the simulators are scheduled to be delivered to Department of Energy facilities, where they will be used for facility protection and counterterrorism training along with Cubic's Warrior Skills Trainer (WST), a virtual vehicle trainer that uses high-fidelity graphics projected on large screens for training scenarios. A third M134D virtual trainer will go to Fort Campbell, Ky., as part of a mobile Cubic training system being used to train U.S. Army special forces units.The simulator is modeled after the M134D Minigun, a six-barrel electric-powered machine gun that fires 7.62mm rifle rounds. Its high-rate of fire -- as many as 50 rounds per second -- makes the M134D exceptionally effective at suppressing hostile forces in a wide variety of combat situations, Cubic officials say. The same characteristic, however, also is a major drawback because training personnel to use the M134D with live rounds is incredibly expensive."You are talking a dollar a round, and you are shooting 3,000 rounds a minute," says Tony Padgett, product line immersion training manager for the Cubic Simulation Systems Division in Orlando.
Voice your opinion!
Voice your opinion!
