WaterWar.net

The XP Backfire is a fair bit of a joke, but the idea of shooting backwards actually appears in real weaponry.

Recoilless rifles fire something (sometimes water) backwards to counteract recoil. I saw a talk on them at the engineering conference where I presented my work on water jet trajectory and range. This is an intriguing concept.

Not sure if this sort of weaponry has any applications to water guns, but I thought it was interesting and worth sharing.

Ben wrote:Not sure if this sort of weaponry has any applications to water guns, but I thought it was interesting and worth sharing.

I can't conceive of a use. At pressures and volumes where recoil is actually a concern (like, high end firehoses), backfiring to counteract it would be incredibly wasteful. Something else needs to generate the thrust to counteract, and at that point you might as well just use a stable platform.

Makes me think of those water rockets from back in the day that launched up really high from water pressure.