Abstract: A liquid propellant modular gun has a main cam which is driven at a multiple of the gun firing rate and which has internal cam surfaces operatively associated with the bolt while the bolt is driven forward to load and fire and backward to accept another projectile.The gun incorporates a control cam driven at the gun firing rate and effective to unlock the bolt after firing of a projectile so that the bolt can be returned to its rearward position under the control of the main cam.The main cam acts to time all the remaining mechanisms of the gun to the bolt motion.The accelerating force for the bolt is provided by hydraulic pressure applied directly to the bolt area.Energy stored in the bolt from the force of the accelerating hydraulic pressure is converted into rotary energy and is stored in the main cam and other rotating devices geared to the main cam.

Abstract: A gun of the kind in which liquid propellant is burned in the firing chamber to fire a projectile from the gun is constructed so that a number of gun modules can be combined in a modular gun. Each gun module is cam controlled, and a common cam is used to control each gun module in the modular gun. The cam can be a flexible cam having a belt configuration to permit the gun modules to be arranged in both circular groupings and in non-circular groupings, such as side by side. The modular gun includes fixed, non-rotating gun modules to eliminate the need for tangential velocity correction factors in the fire control and the need to accelerate the mass of the barrel assembly to operational speed. The individual gun module includes propellant injection mechanism for injecting propellant at high pressure when a non-hypergolic bi-propellant is used as the propellant. One or more hydraulic actuators are used to develop the high injection pressures and to operate other components of the gun, such as the bolt.