The Navy's Giant New Electric Railgun

originally posted by: cprnicus

originally posted by: HUMBLEONE
More money spent on violence! Why don't you give everyone a place to live, clean water, decent food, fuel to heat their homes and free medical care? Social Security is allegedly in the crapper and we can spend money on better ways to kill our fellow human being?

My thoughts exactly. A fraction of the military costs in development to eliminate these social wrongs and these dicks get the money.

And what happens when the cosmic bullies come by and want to blast Earth with their planet killler to mine its guts? Or maybe htey live in another dimension and their mining indirectly destroys our local space/time. Perhaps we could create a shield or weapon to prevent it. If those aliens get hurt a little, they might think twice when doing mining operations.

I don't have any reason to think violence and/or war and/or sin ever stop, no matter how intelligent something becomes. More likely, conflict is just part of the universe. I think we'd understand it better if we could create a scientific framework to describe it. For example, one physics theory for life is that its purpose is to dissipate energy as heat into a surrounding bath, increasing entropy in the universe. So ti's just a method for entropy to occur. Ironically, life itself is a bubble of anti-entropy which greatly increases the entropy in its environment. (And high entropy btw is just making everything similar or attaining maximum equilibrium.)

Soi that's my take. Lets create a mathematical or phycis theory for war or sin or similar disliked things. The glory of theories of this sort is they do not possess persona. Satan, for example, has persona. It's easy to dislike satan. But what if it's an atom or a force which works upon the atom which causes Satan to exist? It's much harder to hate an atom or a force upon an atom because it's not familiar to us--has no face or agenda or emotions.

Honestly, I'm fairly excited to see this technology reach the point of practicality. It is considerably safer for the crew of the ship, as it significantly reduces the explosive ordinance stored on board. Plus, railguns!

reply to: pikestaff

As much as I respect the threat that ISIS pose, they are never going to capture an advanced warship from any western country. It would be interesting to see them try though.

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
reply to: pikestaff

As much as I respect the threat that ISIS pose, they are never going to capture an advanced warship from any western country. It would be interesting to see them try though.

ISIS utterly failed going up against Delta on the ground. Them taking a warship would be impressive, however, it would be stupid. You have to know how to operate a warship after you capture it, which would be impossible.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

Yeah, I'm fairly certain we learned that lesson pretty well after the USS Cole bombing. ISIS may someday get the technology to fire at a US warship, but they're never going to get close to it. Especially when it has a billion-dollar prototype weapon on board.

originally posted by: pheonix358
Basically it is a long range cannon and as you said, without the need for explosives on board the ship.

This also means that the ship can carry a far greater load of ammunition.

I wonder just how much kinetic energy remains after 200 km though.

These things will get really interesting once the tech matures and they can move to self directing ammo.

Just imagine a steam of projectiles all homing in on a target! Your self defense systems would be overwhelmed very quickly.

Additionally, I think Mach 6 is escape velocity, so with self directing ammo, this weapon could fire ballistically.

This is just the first baby steps.

They are likely much more advanced that they are letting on.

P

The rail gun is a space platform weapon or at the least of a type that would work on a triangle and perhaps even a C-130.
It has been several years, but Dr. Hal Puthoff, of Remote Viewing fame and author of UFO and "zero point" energy papers supposedly came to the University of Texas a few years ago to help develop the rail gun. However, it can be suspected that exact duty, as surely secret as it must be, was really a sham for other work.

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
reply to: pikestaff

As much as I respect the threat that ISIS pose, they are never going to capture an advanced warship from any western country. It would be interesting to see them try though.

The phrase "I wish a mother trucker would!! " comes to mind when thinking of this.

two flags....Welcome to modern man, everybody......we've arrived ladies and gentlemen.....at the modern era....

Hi folks,

Let's clear up a few inaccuracies about the Railguns.

Firstly it's not American technology, it's an extreme progression of the Faraday Effect and it's weaponisation is mainly due to British scientists and tech staff at BAE. The first effective prototypes were tested on the ranges at Dundrennan near Kirkcudbright in Scotland.

I saw some of the initial test firings many years ago but the project was deemed unsuitable for the Royal Navy and offered to the US instead as we have no surface vessels using nuclear power and none are planned.

There is nothing unworldy about them, they require HUGH amounts of electrical energy to fire and so the only practical platform are nuclear naval vessels currently (generator / supercapcitor versions also made it to the test ranges - 5MJ approx)

Guided ammunition is most unlikely due to the exit velocity of the sabot round and the subsequent forces applied, they don't actually have a 'muzzle' as they use dual rail to direct and propel the round which is a solid lump of metal, various compounds have been used (Alu, tungsten, Steel, titanium and a ceramic / alloy mesh which had a habit of exploding beautifullly on the ranges)

They're designed to be a simple cannon, massive kinetic energy in the round results in good energy transition in target, there is no type of armour for ships, tanks etc that has any hope of withstanding a direct hit. On the range the small prototypes were punching holes in 20ft of reinforced concrete, the ones being publicly shown aren't the most powerful so far fired but they still hit hard!

There's no currently practical way of using them on a flying platform as the power requirements are huge, and there is no real need to, the general idea is to use a nuclear powered Destroyer or Cruiser, get to within fully effectuve range (100-150km) and decouple the reactor and use it's energy to discharge the railgun, rate of fire is not quick and neither is the lifespan of the firing rails although they're being improved constantly. Another advantage is that the kinetic energy of the sabot round is transferred directly to the target without messy explosive effects and this is characterised by the round's impact being more of a dull thud with little explosive effect but massive damage.

There is a separate project still in the planning stage to launch hardened space payloads into orbit using a much larger gun, main problem being the initial launch G's being over 100 times that of any rocket and thus it means payloads must be heavily insulated.

The Russians also have an active project for a similar rail gun, although I hear currently they are looking at using a sub as a platform which makes even more sense as they have a couple of large Typhoon's sitting around doing nothing right now.

Electromagnetic guns to give them their real name will be in full service soon, and they should become an effective weapon.

I imagine them using this technology for directed energy at some point in the future.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

Electric ????

The extension cord must be a real bummer........

originally posted by: pheonix358
Basically it is a long range cannon and as you said, without the need for explosives on board the ship.

This also means that the ship can carry a far greater load of ammunition.

I wonder just how much kinetic energy remains after 200 km though.

These things will get really interesting once the tech matures and they can move to self directing ammo.

Just imagine a steam of projectiles all homing in on a target! Your self defense systems would be overwhelmed very quickly.

Additionally, I think Mach 6 is escape velocity, so with self directing ammo, this weapon could fire ballistically.

This is just the first baby steps.

They are likely much more advanced that they are letting on.

P

Rods from God fired from earth...hmmm

originally posted by: TheBogmonster
Hi folks,

Guided ammunition is most unlikely due to the exit velocity of the sabot round and the subsequent forces applied, they don't actually have a 'muzzle' as they use dual rail to direct and propel the round which is a solid lump of metal, various compounds have been used (Alu, tungsten, Steel, titanium and a ceramic / alloy mesh which had a habit of exploding beautifullly on the ranges?)

The reason that guided ammunition is impractical is the fact that the railgun creates a small but very very powerful EMP pulse field around the projectile.
This would burn out any electronics in the guidance system.

a reply to: ANNED

Well yes and 50 years ago the idea of laser guided bombs was the stuff of sci-fi, let alone missile defense shields etc etc.

It is only some new tech that needs inventing and in fact modern electronics is not at all fragile. Think of the number of Gs pulled by fighter jets and there we are talking about networked computers and such like. It is not a big ask to survive G forces. With surface mount tech I would not be surprised if we were already there.

I will give it a decade.

The Chinese already have hypersonic ballistic missiles thought impossible a decade ago.

Just wait, it will come.

P

a reply to: pheonix358
Muzzle velocities, yes a railgun does have a muzzle unlike a previous poster implied, of the rail gun are more than 2500m/sec.
That projectile will see an acceleration of 255 G's that is a wee bit more than the 6-8 G's a fighter might see.

originally posted by: johnwick

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
reply to: pikestaff

As much as I respect the threat that ISIS pose, they are never going to capture an advanced warship from any western country. It would be interesting to see them try though.

The phrase "I wish a mother trucker would!! " comes to mind when thinking of this.

wait a minute. this sort of already happened. didn't somali pirates mistake a military ship for some sort of civilian transport and lose a couple of ships and several boats? and have to be tossed some of those swimming pool rings?

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord
I imagine them using this technology for directed energy at some point in the future.

this is already happening laws. in operational but it will be upgraded to 150 KW then 300 KW.

I remember seeing something on a plasma weapon which was a rail gun, I think it was a Russian weapon.

SO I am wondering if this could be done with a hand held weapon?

a reply to: FormOfTheLord
Umm , no
Unless you can carry a 100 mega watt generator around , along with car sized capacitors.
Then there is that pesky thing called Newtonian physics, for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Can't get around that