Japanese company Suidobashi Heavy Industries recently unveiled a miniature version of the Phalanx CIWS automatic gun system which fires thousands of plastic BB pellets instead of metal bullets.

Featuring a radar-guided 20 mm Vulcan cannon mounted on a swiveling base, the Phalanx CIWS is one of the U.S. Navy’s most reliable weapon systems, finding itself in use on almost every class of surface combat ship. It’s also the inspiration for what many are calling the coolest BB gun ever made. Kogoro Kurata, the creative genius behind Suidobashi Heavy Industries, the Japanese company that brought us the awesome KURATAS mecha (boardable robot) over a decade ago, recently unveiled the Phalanx BB gun on his Twitter page.

Photo: @koogooroo/Twitter

Kurata has reportedly been working on the Phalanx BB gun since March, and he already has a functional version that can fire up to 3,000 plastic pellets per minute and is powerful enough to cut a piece of cardboard in half, if firing from a close distance.

The original Phalanx weapon system has a powerful radar system concealed in its cylindrical body, but Kogoro Kurata’s version functions as a massive BB Pellet tank that can store around 900,000 plastic balls. That’s enough to keep it firing continuously for five hours, although the designer himself suspects that the motor powering the gun would burn out long before that time is up.

Kogoro got a lot of attention after posting photos of his Phalanx BB gun mounted on the back of his Toyota truck, describing it as the perfect solution against tailgate driving.

It’s unclear whether Suidobashi Heavy Industries will launch the Phalanx BB gun commercially, or if it’s just a wacky one-off project.