SILENT MACHINE-GUN

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 September 1933, Page 6

SILENT MACHINE-GUN

JAPANESE CLAIM. TOKIO, August 11. A machine-gun, described as being silent and working without gunpowder, has been invented by a man at Nihombashi. The inventor is a Mr. Shimizu, and the gun is stated to be capable of firing at a tremendous speed. i It is stated that the projecting force of the new machine-gun is the centrifugal energy of a revolving disc set in motion at a great speed by a small petrol engine. BRITISH BOY’S INVENTION LONDON, August 16. A 16-year-old Brighton boy is engaged on the invention of a silent machine-gun, of which the projectiles will be propelled by compressed air. The young inventor, Ronald Joseph Smith, of Brading-road, has already succeeded in making a working model from scrap material. It will fire 600 pellets of lead a minute with sufficient force to penetrate three thicknesses of cardboard.

In the present model the compressed air is obtained from a cylinder of tins soldered together and pumped full with a bicycle pump. This gives the gun the additional advantage that there is no flash or spurt of flame as the stream of bullets leaves the muzzle. 3

The chief feature is that the gun is practically silent. Complete silence has not yet been obtained as the model i's driven by clockwork and its action can therefore be heard, a few feet away. Ronald Smith is therefore working on a larger model to which he proposes to fit an effectively silenced petrol engine, which will render it inaudible. Last week a 13-year-old boy of Wallington, Surrey, invented a gun for' which a German firm had offered £5OO.