Aliens: the Weaponry. Are they for real?

From: rac@mdbs.com (Rick Cassady)               
Organization: Micro Data Base Systems, Inc.
Date: Tue Aug 22 18:54:57 MET DST 1995
>Did these weapons exist in 1984-85 when Aliens was
>written, or were they just hypothesized?

        The 10mm Auto ammmunition was introduced in 1984 by Norma (a
        Swedish ammomaker) in the Bren Ten pistol specced by Jeff Cooper.
        By 1987, the 10mm was adapted by Colt into the Delta Elite
        model 1911 pistol, with others following. The full power 10mm 
        has the power between the .357 Mag and the .44 Mag, so it is a 
        very powerful round. This is one of the reasons it 
        isn't very popular because of its sharp recoil making
        it hard to aim accurately, and why the FBI went with a 10mm "lite"
        round. (source: Shooting Times, June 1995)

        Exploding tipped ammo, however defined (hollow point, incendiary,
        etc.) have been around for a while. In fact, in the mid 60's, 
        a small Indiana ammo company, Super Vel, marketed a line of
        high-velocity, jacket hollow points for non-magnum loads,
        like 9mm and .38 Special. Federal, Remington, Winchester and
        others soon came out with their own products. By the mid 70's,
        jacketed hollow points had become the dominant form of handgun ammo.
        (source: Shooting Times, June 1995)

        Caseless ammo, to my knowledge, is relatively new. The article 
        I quoted about the CIA gun didn't give any dates. However, 
        it did mention that the "glass gun" it is fired from 
        is related to the technology used by General Motors research
        into ceramic engines from the mid '80s. My guess is that in 1984,
        practical caseless ammo was still in development. I think
        it still isn't very stable (short shelf life, misfires can
        cause the entire magazine to explode) but it is around.
        (source: Modern Gun, June 1995)
        Of course, to be accurate, caseless ammo has been around since
        there have been guns. After all, a black powder flintlock
        uses caseless ammo, right? :-) I guess you could say we
        are coming full circle with ammo.

>|> About the "smart guns" that Drake and Vasquez use, I didn't think
>|> they were smart guns, just very large, heavy caliber guns riding on
>|> some sort of strap-on gimbal harness. I could be wrong about that since
>|> it has been a while since I watched Aliens. 

       Strapping a machine gun into a harness has been thought of, 
        and I can recall reading about some sort of rig to carry
        a Lewis gun, but I don't think it has ever been very useful,
        and certainly nothing as sophisticated as the rig Drake
        and Vasquez use. If anyone else knows about this type
        of rig, I would be interested to hear about it.
        
>|> The sentry guns could be considered smart, but I just thought they 
>|> were guns directed by motion sensors. Even this sort of setup exists today
>|> in the form of radar directed guns (see Vulcan cannons on naval ships). 
>|> I could see some sort of portable gun being hooked into a motion sensor 
>|> instead of a radar unit.
>|> 
        The radar directed Vulcan cannons have been around 
        since the early '80's, I believe. It is conceivable
        that someone would have thought to mate a motion sensor 
        to a gun, but I think that anything like the ones in Aliens
        are hypothetical.

        This was probably more information then you wanted, but
        you happened to touch on one of my strong interests, as well
        as one of my favorite movies.