Still Prefer The Phalynx

Phalanx

Two different systems for two different types of threats.

PHALANX = sequential "shotgun"

SEARAM = single-shot "missile"

shot gun? not exactly. this weapon system was designed as a last moment defense against incoming missiles attacking ships, depending on it's application it can easily fire over 3K rounds/minute with a flat trajectory over 10K feet!. The rounds are armor-piercing tungsten penetrator rounds or depleted uranium muzzle velocity is 100 m (3,600 ft) per second

I'd say its a bit more deadly than a shotgun

The thought is lots of lead covering a more broad pattern as opposed to a single round, i.e. missile.

I've heard the Phalynx described as an 'angry hornet' (from the sound of the rapid-rapid-fire barrels) and as a 'wall of steel' (as a metaphor for how many rounds occupy a given volume of air downrange of the weapon while firing).

I can see where the 'shotgun' idea comes from, since the bullets do not all follow the exact same trajectory, the target area is hit by a 'spread' of ammunition, which on any conventional video recording device, or MK I Eyeball, would appear like a shotgun blast, even though the rounds are arriving in a serial fashion, instead of the parallel fashion of shotgun pellets.

The way the Phalynx is supposed to work is do detect the incoming threat, and then engage it with what to the naked eye appears to be a billion (with a B) armor-piercing rounds per second, so that even if only one percent hit, that's still ten million metal darts ripping through the housing, destroying the guidance system, disabling or prematurely triggering the detonator, and/or shredding the payload into tiny, harmless bits.

(I don't even want to KNOW if they ever tested the phalynx system on a 'squishy' target. The most my mind will do for visualizing that would be like a video of a side of beef hanging on a hook, then a jump-cut to the empty hook hanging there in a cloud of pink mist.)

Ducks Unlimited.

SHOTGUN = LOTS of lead simultaneously flying thru the air.

PHALANX = Gatling gun where there's also LOTS of lead simultaneously flying thru the air, but they were NOT all launched at the same instant, but rather sequentially launched.

P.S. -- it's Phalanx, not Phalynx, and SeaRAM is a USN adaptation of Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM).