General Atomics builds a new rail gun capable of 200 Nautical Miles

In answer to your question as to whether this system can fire nukes.

The answer is absolutely yes, battlefield tactical nukes are fired from Artillery pieces.

I was in the Royal Artillery during the cold war, delivering tactical nukes using howitzers was how we planned to stop 500 divisions swamping Europe.

I don't see any problems in switching to rail guns, not from EM Fields or High G's.

I do see problems with possible treaty obligations as to whether the system would be allowed a nuclear projectile.

It will probably be fitted to tanks, firing DU devastator rounds.
Or ships firing DU needles.

Originally posted by Silver Shadow

Originally posted by Bedlam
reply to post by Silver Shadow

 

I'm pretty sure some of the new Navy rail gun loads have active steering. I'm not sure who does the guidance package.

And you really think you could hit a moving target 200 miles away from a rolling ship through 200 miles of constantly varying wind gusts?

Draper and Boeing think they can hit a 2 meter CEP at 200 miles. I have heard tales that the end product will be able to blat out a number of rounds that will arc to different end targets that are sort of close to but not necessarily on the line of fire. You didn't hear it from me.

.... The projectile that is fired from a Rail Gun does not need to be explosive. Its the speed, the kinetic energy of the round that would destroy its target.

Originally posted by Bedlam
reply to post by Silver Shadow

 

I'm pretty sure some of the new Navy rail gun loads have active steering. I'm not sure who does the guidance package.

Have you got a source for this claim about active steering on a rail gun projectile?

As silver shadow says there are tremendous electrical currents and g-forces that might have a tendency to destroy things like a guidance system during launch.

I did find this link from the ONR:

U.S. Navy Demonstrates World’s Most Powerful Electromagnetic Railgun at 10 MJ

Science and technology challenges met by ONR in the development of the rail gun include development of the launcher, pulse power generation and the guided projectile design. The program´s goal is to demonstrate a full capability, integrated railgun prototype by 2016-2018.

So they admit having a guided projectile will be a "challenge", it certainly will be!



[edit on 11-5-2010 by Arbitrageur]

Assuming this is a rail design that incorporates plasma as the propellant that gets accelerated behind the projectile.
Then it has dual use.
Feasible for use at close range as a plasma cannon firing at 4Ghz.
For use at mid to long range as a projectile accelerator firing at however fast you can load the kinetic mass.
Energy weapon, Kinetic mass weapon, high speed, ultra high rate of fire.
Given the systems high rate of fire, guidance seems kinda unnecessary.

[edit on 11-5-2010 by Cosmic4life]

reply to post by Cosmic4life
There is no "propellant" in a rail gun firing. If plasma is generated it's a side-effect and not a propellant.

The projectile is accelerated because it is conductive and subjected to large amounts of electric current that move it.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I beg to differ, i have seen designs that accelerate small packets of plasma behind the projectile.
The rail gun accelerates the plasma,
The plasma pushes the projectile.

Originally posted by Cosmic4life
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

I beg to differ, i have seen designs that accelerate small packets of plasma behind the projectile.
The rail gun accelerates the plasma,
The plasma pushes the projectile.

Then please backup your claim with a link or two.

The closest thing I was able to find is plasma generated when a piece of thin foil serving as an armature is vaporized, that's not a propellant, it's just a conductor to facilitate the flow of electricity, maybe that's what you were thinking of?

Rail Gun Basics

The armature bridges the gap between the rails. It can be a solid piece of conductive metal or a conductive sabot -- a carrier that houses a dart or other projectile. Some rail guns use a plasma armature. In this set-up a thin metal foil is placed on the back of a non-conducting projectile. When power flows through this foil it vaporizes and becomes a plasma, which carries the current.

By the way I found this video of a test firing of the most powerful rail gun at the time:

What I was trying to get to before was the kind of targets a weapon like this would be most suited for I am sure that it would have great uses as an anti armor weapon, anti sea vessel and possibly anti structural but do you think it may be possible to shoot down a satellite if this technology is honed better. I understand the difficulties in firing a weapon over long distances without computer aided guiding systems.

reply to post by Brotherman

Shooting down a satellite from a ground based system won't be possible with the first generation systems under development. Maybe 2nd, 3rd or 4th generation systems decades from now will have that capability:

www.onr.navy.mil...

At full capability, the rail gun will be able to fire a projectile more than 200 nautical miles at a muzzle velocity of mach seven and impacting its target at mach five.

Mach 7 isn't fast enough to take out a satellite. Mach 30 might do it but there's no way first generation guns can reach that speed, I'm not sure successive generation guns can. Now maybe a combination rail gun/rocket system could be used for space launches in the future:

"Rocket Performance Analysis Using Electrodynamic Launch Assist"

So it would be nice to see a peaceful application like that. There are numerous problems with a space based rail gun system to take out space targets but it's theoretically possible, just not very practical.

Here are some weapons applications:

Rail Gun Applications

Rail guns are of particular interest to the military, as an alternative to current large artillery. Rail gun ammunition, in the form of small tungsten missiles, would be relatively light, easy to transport and easy to handle. And because of their high velocities, rail gun missiles would be less susceptible to bullet drop and wind shift than current artillery shells.

So basically it would make a good tank-killer. there are other applications listed at that link but a replacement for artillery shells seems the most obvious application.

reply to post by Master Shen long



What's sad is he will probably instill in his children how "cool" military technology is as well. America's future is pretty dismal.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I just think it would be awesome if it does indeed get further developed and tested on older satellite systems because in the future something like this could possibly be used to break up meteorites and send objects into space.

Maybe wouldn't work so well on a ship, but a properly fitted Harrier would see this turn into one hell of a mean machine.

And if you don't think explosions are awesome, I feel bad for your testicles.

Originally posted by Horza
reply to post by Hypntick

 

Oh, what a big fat straw man.

That's only because that's where the money is.

If the same amount of money that is spent on the military was spent on renewable energy and space exploration, we would be a clean planet and have colonies on the moon and mars 20 years ago.

Yep. We are spending a trillion a year on military. If we did that on Space exploration we would be living in the Star Trek universe already heh.

reply to post by Master Shen long


Tee-hee, just love the stuff that makes a big boom! I'm a guy, can't help but think it's cool! DEATH TO OUR ENEMIES! LONG LIVE THE ....guy who we elected(???) It's not about loving death jeez somebody's gonna build it might as well be us!

I think that we would be wise to put a dozen or so in Orbit so as to concrete our position of Ultimate World Power, no more lowly U.S. Superpower, Ultimate Uber World Power! No more halfhour ICBM flights,

reply to post by Master Shen long


Why does it matter to you? This is cool, it is new and radical in terms of current-conventional technology. And yes he is right, there could be massive civil implications with this device, stop being so pessimistic.

Also, I'm sure there are things you do or like that are not contributing to the benefit of human society, unless you are a perfect human being?

[edit on 11-5-2010 by Clisen33]

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
reply to post by Master Shen long

 

What's sad is he will probably instill in his children how "cool" military technology is as well. America's future is pretty dismal.

No, what's sad is that people like you always seem to have the urge to belittle anything that is American. So you're saying kids in England or European countries pay no attention to military technology? Last I heard, they still have huge airshows and what not, surely that can't be cool?

I'm sick and tired of this anti-anything-American, hypocritical bigotry.


EDIT: Don't forget that there are plenty of radical societies that purposely instill hate, death, violence in their kids towards other societies; essentially brainwashing them. I'm not saying any names, I'm sure you know. And no, don't back-peddle and say America.

[edit on 11-5-2010 by Clisen33]

Four words

E.M.F. bomb

Cheap to make, decent range and destroys all electronics. So here we go again. Just like in the 50's, build jets with no guns because missiles are the future. What happens? Russians gain advantage because they have armed their jets with guns for close in work.

Mark my words.

Originally posted by ArcAngel
Four words

E.M.F. bomb

Cheap to make, decent range and destroys all electronics.

I thought it was called an EMP bomb?

Well I know that nukes create an EMP when they detonate and they have a pretty good range. Non-nuclear EMP (NNEMP) may be a delicate design, they can use capacitors for example and a lot of capacitor designs are, by their very nature, fragile.

Non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) is an electromagnetic pulse generated without use of nuclear weapons. There are a number of devices that can achieve this objective, ranging from a large low-inductance capacitor bank discharged into a single-loop antenna or a microwave generator to an explosively pumped flux compression generator.

The idea of a capacitor is to get two metal plates as close together as possible without touching. So apply some forces to something like that and don't be surprised if the plates touch. And another design uses a vacuum tube, which may be even more fragile.

It might be possible to launch such a device with a rail gun however again the design considerations to make any technical device survive the G-forces it's subjected to by a rail gun are not trivial problems.

So a solid rail gun projectile should be easily achieved. More complicated projectiles like an EMP bomb, I'll believe them when I see them and I'll be interested to see how they overcame the design problems related to G-forces, not to mention the fact that the rail gun projectile itself is subjected to an EMP of sorts, that's what launches it, a current pulse of maybe a million amps. There may be ways to engineer around that problem so I think the g-force problem is the more difficult engineering problem, but both are significant.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I'll see if I can find some open lit on it. I saw the specs for it when Navy farmed out the design, I know that Draper and Boeing both won contracts, we didn't bid on it.

Try googling draper, boeing and rail gun in various combinations - I'm at a customer site and won't be home until tomorrow.