Former A10 maintainer here, and while I was not munitions myself several friends were and I am intimately familiar with the GAU-8 30mm rotary barrel autocannon system from helping them service the guns. First is barrel heat management. The more rounds you fire through a barrel in succession, the more heat is built up in the barrel. Managing this heat build up is a major limiting factor for fire rate from the gun, as if you build up too much heat, the barrel loses integrity and can either begin to expand from the pressure of the propellant powder combustion or begin to melt and sag, both of which will lead to very catastrophic failure. This heat build up can be managed with good gas recirculation design, but you can only fire so many rounds through a single barrel at a limited rate of fire before the barrel fails. With a rotary barrel, you’re firing a round through the first barrel, then it moves out of the way to fire the next round through the next barrel. So if you have a 7 barrel weapon like the 30mm, you’re giving the first barrel 700% longer to cool to achieve the same rate of fire. Also, barrel cooling is greatly improved from the barrels spinning. Single barrel weapons can only fire continuously in the 500-800 round per minute range, and can be upcycled to around 1000 with increased barrel wear. Most rotary weapons fire in at least the 2500 rpm range and many can be over 4000 rpm continuously. Also, you can divide tasks amongst the separate barrels. You can load each barrel in one station, fire it at the next, and extract the spent casing at the next. So instead of having to wait to do all three before moving to the next round, all three can be running at the same time in separate barrels. But the primary reason for multiple rotating barrels is barrel heat management for increased rate of fire.
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