This module can only be taken as part of the Vehicle and Weapon Engineering MSc.

To describe the fundamentals of direct and indirect fire weapon systems, their ammunition and sub-system design

At a glance

  • Dates
    • Please enquire for course dates
  • Duration5 days
  • LocationExternal

Course structure

Lectures, tutorials, video demonstrations, computer-based exercises

What you will learn

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:


- Categorise and appraise the elements that make up a gun system
- Critically evaluate the current technology governing the design of a gun and its ammunition as a system 
- Critically evaluate the current technology covering the design of cannons, their operating mechanism and ammunition
- Critically appraise the fundamentals of gun dynamics and weapon control applied to guns and their effect on the accuracy of fire
- Analyse and contrast/compare the design principles of both direct and indirect fire gun ammunition (fragmenting shell, kinetic energy and shaped charge round
- Critically analyse and relate the importance of gun barrel heat transfer and wear to accuracy of fire

Core content

- Build-up of a gun, 
- Subsystems such as breech, 
- Recoil and platform stability,
- Target analysis,
- Ammunition handling and autoloaders,
- Gun barrel design, 
- Barrel heat transfer,
- Fire control systems and gun dynamics,
- Propellants,
- High explosive (HE),
- Fragmentation and directed energy ammunition,
- Cannons and their operating mechanism.

 

Read our Professional development (CPD) booking conditions.