Rail Gun

Fingolfin_Noldor SG

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/012007/01172007/251373/index_html?page=1

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_Rail_Gun.htm

Fit these guys on the Iowa and hell have no fury as a battleship with Rail Guns scorned! I mean, heck, the aircraft carriers really have to keep their distance else they have holes through the deck.

sand king SG

The railgun works by sending electric current along parallel rails. It creates an electromagnetic force so powerful it can fire a metal projectile at tremendous speed.

Because the gun uses electricity, not gunpowder, to fire projectiles, it's safer, eliminating the possibility of explosions.

Instead of gunpowder, a powerful electric pulse generator is used.

The basic concept of the weapon demonstrated at Dahlgren yesterday may be familiar to many from science fiction.

Futuristic space man Buck Rogers used a sort of railgun in a sci-fi novel.

In the film "Eraser," Arnold Schwzenegger uncovers a plot to sell a railgun to terrorists.

Railguns are also portrayed in the "Stargate" TV series and in many video games, including "Halo 2."

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

Actually a battleship would be pretty vulnerable to such technology… given no known armour technology would be able to stop it. The best bet is a stealthy platform launching these systems… an Iowa-like battleship would certainly be a prime target once this stuff eventually gets around. It might survive a few hits but it’s a matter of time… with such stuff it’s better not to be seen at all.

hloc SG

The rail gun of today uses to much enegry to shoot a too small projet...... last i heard, only a 20mm shell..... but at a speed of march 5. The present gun is also too big to make it useful.

Rail Gun = Guass Rife in Mechwarrior (BattleTech)

the Bear SG

mach 5??

actual rail guns are supposed to shoot stuff which speed is measured in fractions of c or speed of light Razz

touchstone_2000 SG

1. They have not figure out how to traverse this thing.
2. Nuclear power required to generate electricity.
3. All your future children will be female.

Fingolfin_Noldor SG

They might have to start incorporating some of the advances in tank armour onto battleships I guess. Ship armour hasn't advanced much since I think the current doctrine is to destroy incoming warheads or avoid getting shot at in the first place. A ship is pretty much dead if a warhead explodes on the hull, much less get hit by a projectile that would blaze through the hull like water.

I can imagine the barrel wear and tear to be horrendous. At the moment, I think they can achieve something at least close to the escape velocity of the earth since one use of the gun would be to shoot and have it bounce off the atmosphere back down.

Fingolfin_Noldor SG

Er... existing gas turbines burn enough power on the order of a few MW. That's more than enough for these babies.

spartan6 SG

I think e only problem is its power sorce thou this can be overcome with nuclear power, e fact remains tat it is strictly a dicrect fire wpn tat is u need line-of-sight 2 target even thou e target need not be in visual range. Mad

Example: any1 who play mechwarrior will know tat u cant arc a gauss rifle rd like a long tom

SpecOps87 SG

Well, even a 20mm shell, if u fire below the waterline,I'm sure the round will doa bigger entry damage then its 20mm size, the ship will still go bottom's up

ditzy SG

The projectiles shoot out so fast, they disintegrate into bits the minute they're exposed to air at muzzle velocity. Laughing

the Bear SG

kinetic energy = 0.5 mv^2

c = 300,000,000 ms^-1

say a railgun hurls an 0.1kg projectile at 0.1c

KE required = 0.5 * 0.1 * 30,000,000 * 30,000,000 = 4.5 * 10^13 joules

and that's not counting energy wasted from all kinds of stuff like friction and heat...

so.. you have about 1500 to 2000 of such turbines to launch a 100gm projectile.. that is the magnitude of power needed in a real railgun... to launch ONE 100gm projectile..

p.s. and it'll take about 1 hour for the 1500 to 2000 turbines to generate enough energy for each launch.. if you want more regular launches, multiply accordingly

hloc SG

Saw this show about a working Rail Gun on one of the cable channel..... the machine is room size and shoots a 20mm ''bullet''. They clock the ''bullet'' at around March 5...... how, i don't remember. But in the show, the tester complaint about high power need and size of the ''gun''...... but as we all know, sooner or later, someone will find a way to make it work.

Don't think that even a super high speed 20mm round would sink a battleship...... remember that a 1 ton shell at march speed will not even sink one....... beside, at that speed..... the ''bullet'' will breakdown faster when it hit the ship's amour........ Remember MythBuster Question Exclamation Mr. Green

Fingolfin_Noldor SG

What the.. 0.1c?!?! Look, the weapon that was demonstrated was rated a few MW only. Obviously it can't reach that sort of velocities! You'd need a nuclear reactor to generate that sort of power. The other weblink I posted cited a proposed muzzle velocity of 2500m/s!!! That's way less than 10^8!

Look, rail guns are scalable devices that are governed by Lorentz force (F = q(V + v X B). There is no necessity to even reach those velocities at all. What one needs is the correct potential difference applied and the correct B-field required.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

Actually hor, if it's going very fast more then likely it'll just punch a small and clean hole through the ship in the same way an extremely fast rifle bullet only punches a tiny hole through paper.

The projectiles shoot out so fast, they disintegrate into bits the minute they're exposed to air at muzzle velocity.

How fast? Mach 7 as stated within the articles is certainly well within the ability of a solid projectice to tolerate.

say a railgun hurls an 0.1kg projectile at 0.1c

25,000 km/s? I think the current prototypes are not so ambitious, thinking of doing hypersonic velocities so far... no intentions to launch relativistic projectices yet... not except in particle accelerators that is.

fkh SG

Rail Gun can be stopped by pre-emptive strike..

Remember the games- Real War: Air Land Sea (Rogue State)?

You can prevent Rail Gun from firing by launching air strikes.. Laughing

moca SG

So the rail gun is another kinetic weapon. Have they thought of what specific use this gun will have?

Another interesting development is PLA's increasing use of laser beams as offensive weapons.

They have it mounted on most tank turrets and it is supposed to be used to blind enemy pilots attacking the tanks.

There is also a laser beam "rifle" being tested by their police special forces with similar blinding capabilities.

I'm sure the Geneva Convention types would not be pleased...

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

Don't think the Chinese have ever cared.

The yanks have been messing around with blinding weapons for some time now as well.

Fingolfin_Noldor SG

The Russians supposedly blinded the crew of some Canadian Helicopter and I think one of them lost some % of eyesight.

But that goes unsaid. Russians have been toying with all manner of weaponry, and especially EMP.