FOX NEWS
A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And it’s quite real too, as the U.S. Navy has proven in a record-setting test today in Dahlgren, VA.
Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, the technology uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile zips along a set of electrically charged parallel rails and out of the barrel at speeds up to Mach 7.
The result: a weapon that can hit a target 100 miles or more away within minutes.
#20
I believe you mean mass times acceleration. Also, the forces being generated are magnetic in nature and act differently from those of an explosive projectile.
Big deal. Unless the projectile can be “steered” then it is worthless. Why do you think we get rid of all the battleships, they couldn’t hit shit.
# 17 Cap’nKangaroo – I do not believe a rail gun has any kickback.
Doesn’t this violate the laws of physics? Where does that equal and opposite action occur?
# 22 RexOfRome, “Unless the projectile can be “steered”
The article says:”And with current GPS guidance systems it could do so with pinpoint accuracy.” So, apparently, they aren’t planning to throw big dumb chunks of depleted uranium but something more intelligent. If #10 is reporting accurately, hitting a 20′ target from a couple hundred miles is pretty good.
I wonder if they are planning any smaller, crew or man serviced weapons. I suppose electrical requirements would hamper portability but imagine if you could get something down to the size and weight of an assault rifle and then didn’t force the soldier to carry all that weight in the form of cartridges. I imagine the weight of .223 bullet is probably about a third of the total cartridge weight. You wouldn’t need (or want?) the same velocities of the bigger rail guns. Keep it subsonic and you’d have a nice, quiet weapon with a lot of power.
#24..
INTERESTING IDEA..
HOW about we use the POWDER as the ignition to a Mag gun, generator. The power is only needed for a short duration.
Think it would be better on a mini gun, Mag gun…use a different propellant and you could fire forever.
Battleships were outdated in WWII. Not because a 16 inch gun wasn’t accurate, but because of aircraft. Carriers won the day. Ships aren’t built anymore to take fire, you need active defenses. One hit with a missile or torpedo and you’re toast. The days of major sea battles are over. It’s over the horizon and out of sight. We need fighting vessels just to get missiles and aircraft within firing distance.
#23. When you throw a baseball does your hand and arm have any recoil? There is no equal and opposite reaction by your hand at the instant you release the baseball. The hand transfers energy to the baseball while the magnetic rails transfer energy to the projectile.
The best efforts of the Feds always seem to be an accident. Check this out -
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html
Search for “Thunderwell”
golly gee , it’s almost as good as the ‘BB’ gun i made when i was 13 (1963).
i got the idea from a sci-fi story from the 50′s !
come on , that technology has been around for 50+ years !
i guess the ‘stupids’ are just behind the ‘humans’ in EVERYTHING .. . .. .
what next , a mag lift spinning globe of the world ? (like my sci-fair project from 1964)
#27 if you threw a baseball while standing on a frictionless surface (or floating in space), you would most certainly be propelled backwards.
The energy involved in a pitch is distributed more slowly than that of a gun (to say nothing of a railgun). The “recoil” of a baseball pitch is absorbed by the pitcher who leans into it. If he made the same motion with no ball, he’d stumble forward.
#23. The more I thought on the matter, a better response occurred to me. Because of the vast difference in mass you can simply ignore conservation of momentumin in this context unless you are extremely OCD.
#27 – You might want to go back and study some high school physics.
Make them bigger so the projectile could reach orbit and we could hit anywhere. Couple that with a nuclear pkg. in the projectile and you’d really have something.
As for why, anyone who would try to lower the American standard of living needs to be exterminated for the good of mankind.
Reaction effects in baseball throwing. Three step experiment:
Step 1 – Throw baseball as hard as you can.
Step 2 – Repeat Step 1 exactly, but without baseball.
Step 3 – Consider medical attention.
The difference is the reaction effect.
#18 & #33: Not LEO, but reminds me of Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (1966).
A moon colony revolt. A huge Electromagnetic gun, built for sending supplies to earth, needs a mere 5300 mph for the moon’s escape velocity & no air interference. Earth’s gravity adds another 20,000 mph.
Turned into a weapon by the revolutionaries. Loaded with huge rocks in a projectile configuration rather than recovery, near atomic weapon strength (according to the book).
I’m doing this on a napkin, so be kind. The numbers are round and not accurate for the test. Please pardon me if my “metric” is off. I’ve used english units since exiting college and working on 20 years of memory for Newtons.
Force involved depends on the acceleration. If they are accelerating a small warhead (say 100 kg) to a speed of Mach 7 (~2 km/sec I believe) in 0.1 seconds, they need to be employing an acceleration of 20 km/sec^2 (v=at). Total kinetic energy would be F=ma=2M Newtons.
That is a lot of energy that has to be absorbed by the gun, but looking at the gun I’d say it’s easily 2000 kg, plus if it has 1,000 anchor bolts capable of each taking 2,000 Newtons (not that big a deal) of force into an enormous foundation, it doesn’t move much at all.
The gun in my example is 200m long (from x=at^2). I assume the gun is probably more like 50m long which would vastly increase the actual force on the gun.
I don’t get the point. This thing is not portable. Meh, a proof of concept.
# 35 springfield_tom – Thank you. That is, indeed, the novel I was remembering.
This product isn’t ready to stick in a ship or or in a tank yet.
I think they are also working on getting a version with some degree of guidance but missiles can do the ground hugging/radical direction change bit and normally artillery can pull the from behind the hill bit using guided ammo.
This thing may be able to do over the horizon but you are going to have to stick with a relatively flat trajectory because if it slows down to much it’s pretty much stops being a wonder weapon.
These things are for use in space ’cause them aliens dun’ worship Jesus.