The Navy unveils their railgun
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12 Responses to “The Navy unveils their railgun”
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February 12th, 2015 at 10:02 pm
OK. That’s sorta cool, I guess. I suppose it would be impolite to ask what it’s for. I mean, we do have guided rockets and conventional artillery, so what niche does this fill, being that it’s going to take some hefty electrical power? I might could see it as a tank killer, but we have some pretty good tank killers already, in the chemically-driven category.
If this is anything more than a cute toy I’ll be awaiting the explanation.
If it can throw a projectile that far, wind drift is going to make it rather dubious as a precision tool, and if it uses a guided projectile, then why not use a rocket? There may be some very good explanations, but where are they?
February 12th, 2015 at 10:50 pm
The eventual purpose is two-fold.
1. Tomahawks are expensive. This thing, once you get past the initial investment of the launcher, is pretty cheap per round. Well, comparatively speaking.
2. Time on target. The goal is for a ship with one of these onboard to be able to put ten rounds in the air and have them all impact more-or-less simultaneously on the same target.
Plus, like the video says, it also neatly replaces current ship artillery, so you have a multi-use weapon, rather than a weapon for each use.
February 13th, 2015 at 11:29 am
Very long range; a battleship can shell the coast with its 16s, but this thing can shell inland. Very high speed, way faster than a chemical projectile, mach 7 vs mach 1-2. Very cheap per round once you have the gun, you can just hose your target down with projectiles without worrying about the cost. Maybe you won’t hit within 1m at 100km, but fire ten of them and you’ll most likely damage your target effectively. Nuke powered ship? That’s like free electricity, and you don’t have to store powder. This thing kicks so much ass you’d have to borrow some from Kim Kardashian just so the kicking could be done sufficiently.
February 13th, 2015 at 11:42 am
It should be useful against the Invid and other potential ET’s that are not more than an order of magnitude beyond our current tech. A Tomahawk is much more likely to be intercepted by their particle beams and terrestrial ARTY doesn’t have the ceiling.
Attacking them from the air? Forget it. Our aircraft will be swept from the skies by their reflex weaponry.
If we can mount these on our submersible battleships though, they should be able to shoot from just below the ocean surface and certainly destroy enemy pods, and possibly even sensitive blisters on the underbellies of their landing ships.
We mustn’t prepare only for the enemies we know.
February 13th, 2015 at 1:21 pm
It has a much longer range than conventional artillery, while being cheaper per shot than guided rockets/missiles. You can also store more projectiles in the same space since they don’t require gunpowder. The ships that will carry it were designed from the beginning with the necessary electrical power, and I believe there are plans for self-powered units that can be installed in older ship designs. These free up room in the magazines that would be used for powder for a conventional gun, so I assume they could put a standalone generator and fuel in that space.
If I understand correctly, it can use guided projectiles, but they’re still cheaper per shot than any guided rockets.
February 13th, 2015 at 1:26 pm
Add to my above: Tomahawks and other missiles are really friggen’ expensive (Tomahawks run about $1.4 million each). The railgun only runs about $25K per shell.
February 13th, 2015 at 1:49 pm
New sub class.
The deck gun is back.
Surface.
Fire ten rounds.
Submerge.
Just ten subs would wreak havoc on coastal defenses.
Of course, keep all the other goodies on said subs too.
February 13th, 2015 at 2:49 pm
anyone know what that explody stuff coming out of the barrel might be? it looks like powder behind the projectile.
February 13th, 2015 at 3:36 pm
I believe that’s superheated material abraded off of the sabot used to drive the projectile. Mach 7 heats things up pretty good. There may also be plasma from the air in the barrel being ionized by the intense electrical current being used (33 megajoules in the latest test, I believe).
February 13th, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Against line of sight targets, wind drift would be a negligible effect, due to the short time-of-flight. AA shots should be easy and very effective, although I’m thinking that some variation on the tungsten grapeshot load would be optimal for those distant horizon aircraft/cruise missle targets.
February 14th, 2015 at 1:38 am
After you fire your first shot, radar will show you the wind drift, which can then be corrected for on subsequent shots.
February 15th, 2015 at 1:08 pm
The officer at 1:03 has a sweet Jack D. Ripper thing going on with the crazy eyes.