Author Topic: Navy has workable Railgun (Read 1103 times)

StarOfAfrica2 · « **on:** January 23, 2007, 12:51:25 AM »

The prototype is 8 MEGAjoules, whereas the functional gun they will have delivered for testing next will be 64 freakin megajoules. As a comparison, current navy guns deliver about the equivalent of a 9 megajoule gun in muzzle energy.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/012007/01172007/251373

I'd imagine the thermal image on these badboys will make em glow like a beacon at night to anything with IR sensing capability, and it'd surely need a nuke powerplant to fire the dang thing. In return though there's not armor made that could stand up to one of these babys. It'd punch a hole in the most heavily armored battleship through and through with no prolem.

Hap · « **Reply #1 on:** January 23, 2007, 01:47:12 AM »

Star, what's the ideal target for such a weapon, and what can it be used for on the less than ideal side?

~~hap~~

Sundowner · « **Reply #2 on:** January 23, 2007, 05:11:03 AM »

Heck, with this bad-boy (the 65Mju) you could bombard targets 250 miles inland.
Looks like any target you would use a cruise missile against could be hit at a fraction of the cost and reduced response time as well.

Saw no mention of recovery time to fire another projectile. But I bet it would be low. Many projectiles in a short time could produce a withering rain of hyper-sonic projectiles.

I thought this quite astounding:

Quote:

"At the peak of its ballistic trajectory, the projectile will reach an altitude of 500,000 feet, or about 95 miles, actually exiting the Earth's atmosphere."

Whoah! Thats some hefty kinetic energy there, bucky!

Nice read, Star.

Regards,
Sun
(Woot! Post 400!:rolleyes: )

lasersailor184 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 23, 2007, 07:45:43 AM »

But wouldn't an entirely ballistic projectile be subject to winds and other things?

mussie · « **Reply #4 on:** January 23, 2007, 08:03:15 AM »

A railgun.... Cool

Man this was the stuff of SCI FI when I was a kid

now all we need is for the USAF to build the aluminum falcon...

soda72 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 23, 2007, 09:19:11 AM »

hmm,,

I wonder if this technology will make it in the army to be used with howizters or maybe tanks....

Debonair · « **Reply #6 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:21:49 AM »

i bet if it wasn't half a mile long, they'd have shown a pix of it

Chairboy · « **Reply #7 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:36:07 AM »

Here's something I wrote here two years ago on the same subject:

Another use of railguns that I anticipate is anti-aircraft.

Modern aircraft can detect missiles a few different ways. If the missile is radar homing, it's easy, but even infrared homing missiles can be detected because of the rocket plume.

Imagine this, put an infrared or image tracking seeker and warhead on a rail-gun launched projectile and fire it. A current day fighter would be defenseless against it because it doesn't know it's being fired on. There's no plume warning, no smoke trail for the pilot to see, nada.

I'm betting this technology will also show up in main battle tanks. 30 years from now, I predict that the MBT of the US military will mount a railgun, will perform both anti-armor AND artillery roles, and each tank will be part of a battlefield network that uses distributed sensors to also perform anti-aircraft roles.

Imagine you have fifty of these tanks in a battlefield. Any that are at the front are guns down, taking out armor and defensive positions with direct fire. They can fire hundreds of shots because they're using inert railgun rounds that are tiny compared to modern projectiles (which are huge because they carry their propellent). Any tanks that are more then a few miles behind the current front can be both artillery to hit targets that are out of reach (eg, behind a mountain) of direct fire. All other tanks can be part of an autonomous 'No fly zone' enforcement that fire guided anti-aircraft munitions at targets flying anywhere from NOE to tens of thousands of feet up.

Since this is a pretty straightforward extrapolation based on current trends, I think this is another reason why manned aircraft will be exiting the battlefield of the future. Your standard $50 million fighter will be replaced by 100 $500K fighter drones. Instead of mega planes that dominate everything from angels 30, you'll have hundreds of NOE drones that will dart around, over, and under landscape features and fight it out at 30 feet. Anything else will be easy pickings for the integrated fighting net.

lukster · « **Reply #8 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:38:53 AM »

That thing does leave a smoke trail Chairboy but I've no idea if it's for the duration of the flight.

Exhibit A:

soda72 · « **Reply #9 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:43:24 AM »

Have they ever tested/developed any missile using stealth technolgy?

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #10 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:45:48 AM »

I remember several months ago someone had a thread up about the navy investigating the use of railguns as the new weapon of choice, and how they didnt think it was feasible. I thought it was really cool that they've managed to push the technology this far. I mean, the basic gun itself has been possible for a long time, we've even had nuclear powered ships available that could run one. Getting a proper control system and making the package small enough to be do-able in the real world, as well as cooling the gun have been the biggest things holding it back. The army all but gave up on railgun research because they couldnt make it small enough. Ships though are the perfect platform for this. With the range of the higher powered gun, a ship could stand off the coast of a hostile landmass and reach 10 times the range of the old 16 inch Mk. 7 guns the Iowa class battleships and less collateral damage. Also figure that for most operations, they dont have to use even conventional explosive warheads, the kinetic energy of the "bullet" from the railgun is enough to do alot of damage. With good enough cooling, rate of fire would be limited only by how fast you could get the next projectile in place and build up the charge to fire the gun. Only limiting factor I can see is the power supply. Even a nuclear reactor cant put out infinite amounts of energy, and 64 megajoules is alot of umph. Even if size isnt a factor, how many such guns could say a destroyer pack and expect to fire? Then you have to figure nuclear powered navys armed with railguns become a new kind of danger. With a projectile that could pierce even the heaviest armor-clad ships through and through, how do you protect the reactor? That has to become the target of choice. Take out the reactor, take out the power for the weapons and take out every living thing on the ship.

lukster · « **Reply #11 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:45:49 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by soda72
Have they ever tested/developed any missile using stealth technolgy?

If we tell ya we have to kill ya.

There are passive seekers of course and missiles that are guided by remote active radar.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:53:31 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by soda72
Have they ever tested/developed any missile using stealth technolgy?

The Indian guy who was arrested on Maui last year for selling tech secrets to China was charged with (among other things) helping them develop missiles using B-2 stealth technology. Mainly in materials lists he sold them and low-impact radar design.

Given that, I'd say yes, someone has developed missiles using stealth technology.

indy007 · « **Reply #13 on:** January 23, 2007, 10:56:45 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by soda72
Have they ever tested/developed any missile using stealth technolgy?

With modern advances in terrain following and no pilot on board to risk, I wonder how much that would actually be necessary for cruise missiles?

btw, here's a 36 megajoule railgun firing. (9 megajoules of KE)

The engineering challenges are amazing. Capacitors able to dump that much electricity that fast. Being able to recharge them fast enough... keeping the rails from welding to the projectile. Powerlabs.org has a great section on it.

Powerlabs v2.0 gun, completed

Chairboy · « **Reply #14 on:** January 23, 2007, 11:16:07 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by lukster
That thing does leave a smoke trail Chairboy but I've no idea if it's for the duration of the flight.

Hi Lukster,

Looks like either atmospheric vapor or some ablation because it's traveling so fast. It's nothing compared to the big smoke plume of a modern anti-aircraft missile launching, and I'm pretty sure it'd be essentially invisible at altitude. Also, the missiles might take 20-30 seconds to get up to the flight levels, while a railgun projectile, leaving the barrel at high mach, might take a couple seconds.