A recent Navy Times report (30-May-12) stated that of 840 rounds fired from LCS-1's Mk110 gun, there have been 2 misfires. That's a misfire rate of 1 every 420 rounds or 0.2% which, on the face of it, seems pretty good. However, thinking about it a bit more I wonder if that's acceptable.
The Bofors data sheet credits the gun with a rate of fire of 220 rounds per minute. If a misfire occurs every 420 rounds, that means the gun will misfire every 1 min:54 sec of use. If an anti-ship missile (the data sheet claims this capability) or small craft swarm is inbound and the gun has to be stopped and cleared every 420 rounds (less than 2 min of firing) that's potentially a good way to have a bad day.
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| Mk110 57 mm Gun - Hit or Misfire? |
Now, before anyone, myself included, gets too wound up about this, let's note that this is a very small amount of data to be drawing conclusions. Greater experience with the gun may show better performance; on the other hand, it may show worse. Also, the amount of time to clear the gun is unknown to me. If the entire clearance procedure takes one second and happens automatically, that's not too bad a problem. If, however, it takes several seconds or minutes or longer, or requires manual intervention, then this is a potentially serious problem.
Maybe a reader can shed some light on this?
