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

Originally posted by ArcAngel
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.

Meh, not so much. We were mildly interested in flux compression and vircator devices back when Thorn were the experts. The range isn't that great, the effects aren't that conclusive and it doesn't destroy all electronics. Depending on the device and the targets, it may not even destroy MOST devices.

Other than that, it can be useful in some circumstances, but it's not a TEOTWAWKI device it's made out to be by journos.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Well, a few minutes fishing around got me this.

Of course, the other question you have to ask is, if the projectile is a lump of tungsten, then why are Boeing and Draper involved. And the next question might be, what is Draper's big thing, which tends to be wacky guidance systems.

We were developing a quirky SINS based on a twist with the equation for laser ring gyros and found out that DARPA had funded Draper, who'd got a patent app filed for the same damn thing about six months ahead of us. Dammit. Funny story - I got half the idea for it here on ATS posting about something on one browser and sending IM's to the officer on dock watch on a nuke sub. It got chocolate SINS on my peanut butter laser.

reply to post by Bedlam


Very awesome find That PDF was surprisingly enlightening to the capabilities that this weapon is working towards. A rail gun projectile with a guidence system would be hella sneaky and devestating from fire to impact at 250 miles with a 6 minute flight time isn't too bad either considering if you got eyes on this weapon really could be a game changer.

I think I remember reading that the biggest drawback to railguns is the insane kickback due to the high levels of kinetic energy be transferred and the ridiculous amount of energy need to power them.

In fact I think I remember reading that they need the electrical equivalent of a 15 store building or something along that measure.

So a naval platform is pretty much your only portable answer to this. And yep, at Mach 7 - you could hit another ship or a land based target (ermm, like a building) pretty dang easy with computer models doing your aiming for you.

I just feel bad for the poor suckers on the ship losing power every time this thing launches and sucks the generator dry for a few minutes....