The next stage of gun technology

[Black Aeronaut]

I saw a TV demo of Metalstorm on a navy ship during an exercise. The point was made that the remote-controlled Metalstorm with it's ammo already inside the gun made it ideal for situations where gun crews would be subject to sniping or shrapnel. At least until all the ammo was fired off and then you had to take the gun totally apart to reload it.

I'd say that's the biggest issue right there.  Even with the current CIWS setups, you have enough ammo for about six to eight engagements, and then reloading can take about fifteen minutes as long as you got a well drilled gun crew working on it.  On my ship, it'd always take a while to get the dummy ammo changed out for the live rounds, but in real world ops?  Heh, you can bet they won't waste time with that.