Railgun on track for 2012 deployment (W/ Badass pic)

[Celephais]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/02/railgun-on-track-for-2012-deployment.html


http://bp1.blogger.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/R6leMXst8dI/AAAAAAAAABE/7T7qj32cvpg/s320/railgun10Mjoules.jpg
Photograph taken from a high-speed video camera during a record-setting firing of a seven-pound bullet fired from a truck-sized electromagnetic railgun at seven times the speed of sound and sent a visible shockwave through the air before crashing into a metal bunker filled with sand.

U.S. Navy has demonstrated World's Most Powerful Electromagnetic rail gun (EMRG) at 10.64 Megajoules

An electromagnetic catapult, or railgun, is on track for deployment on U.S. warships around 2012, according to the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

The Navy's latest test made history with the world's fastest muzzle velocity of 5,637 miles per hour--generating a record 10.6 megajoules of energy (1 joule = 1 watt-second).




If the Navy decides to deploy the railgun, it plans to have a final design in place for approval by 2012. Initial prototypes will probably shoot a single projectile, but plans for rapid-fire versions are already on the drawing board.

The final design specification calls for a muzzle velocity of 5,760 mph for a weapon that is capable of launching a projectile in a parabolic ballistic path 94 miles high. It must strike targets within six minutes at 3,840 mph.

Initial tests showed that targets can be obliterated by the kinetic force of the impact with pinpoint accuracy without shrapnel, which is the most common cause of collateral damage when using high-explosive munitions.

At full capability, the rail gun will be able to fire a a 40-pound projectile more than 200 nautical miles at a muzzle velocity of mach seven and impacting its target at mach five. In contrast, the current Navy gun, MK 45 five-inch gun, has a range of nearly 13 miles. The high velocity projectile will destroy its targets due to its kinetic energy rather than with conventional explosives.

The safety aspect of the rail gun is one of its greatest potential advantages, according to Dr. Elizabeth D'Andrea, ONR's Electromagnetic Railgun Program Manager. Safety on board ship is increased because no explosives are required to fire the projectile and no explosive rounds are stored in the ship's magazine.

Science and technology challenges met by ONR in the development of the rail gun include development of the launcher, pulse power generation and the guided projectile design. The program's goal is to demonstrate a full capability, integrated railgun prototype by 2016-2018.

[Stanley Burrell]

They're supposed to use this for LEO sniping and it embarrasses every single rocket scientist every single time.

In conclusion, warheads. Or perhaps even not killing people.

[Gan]

Electro-magnetic railguns were initially developed for the anti-satellite satellites right?

My dad was on one of the teams that worked on some of the intiial testing back in the early 70's. He's got a railgun projectile in his house as a doorstop.

Thats some cool shit.

[Stanley Burrell]

Electro-magnetic railguns were initially developed for the anti-satellite satellites right?

My dad was on one of the teams that worked on some of the intiial testing back in the early 70's. He's got a railgun projectile in his house as a doorstop.

Thats some cool shit.

Supposed to use plasma shells for cooling. The whole thing is overworked and dumb.

They've literally pondered placing these on the moon as huge rail batteries. The problem is that it could literally effect the moon orbit.

[Latrinsorm]

The precision required to aim one of these things is ridiculous. .01 degree error laterally would result in being off by over 400 feet. 400 feet!!! You could barely hit a Nimitz-class carrier with that kind of accuracy, and my guess is the Navy wouldn't be too interested in a weapon like that, so how precise must it be? A hundredth of a degree? A thousandth? Jesus.

[Tolwynn]

The precision required to aim one of these things is ridiculous. .01 degree error laterally would result in being off by over 400 feet. 400 feet!!! You could barely hit a Nimitz-class carrier with that kind of accuracy, and my guess is the Navy wouldn't be too interested in a weapon like that, so how precise must it be? A hundredth of a degree? A thousandth? Jesus.

Think shore bombardment. Most buildings and hardened structures (that could often, coincidentally, resist damage from conventional warheads) aren't going to be able to dodge very much.

[Celephais]

Yeah this certainly isn't being made for hitting ships.

[Parkbandit]

Yeah this certainly isn't being made for hitting ships.

Why wouldn't it be? It does take extreme accuracy.. but what Latrinsorm didn't mention.. it's because it can travel 200 miles.. not the 13 we are currently shooting. It doesn't mean you HAVE to shoot it from 200 miles... that's it's current max range. If you want to shoot it 13 miles.. it takes the exact same degree of accuracy that a current gun takes.

[Daniel]

This is exactly what we need to win the war on terror.

[Stanley Burrell]

Why wouldn't it be? It does take extreme accuracy.. but what Latrinsorm didn't mention.. it's because it can travel 200 miles.. not the 13 we are currently shooting. It doesn't mean you HAVE to shoot it from 200 miles... that's it's current max range. If you want to shoot it 13 miles.. it takes the exact same degree of accuracy that a current gun takes.

Since you're a not-liberal; you already know the power schemes needed to fire one low-grade rail gun and why the words "insufficient" "expense" and "Viagra" come to mind.

[Parkbandit]

This is exactly what we need to win the war on terror.

What would you have us do... use sharpened sticks?

[Daniel]

Our already vastly superior military.

[Stanley Burrell]

What would you have us do... use sharpened sticks?

I cannot believe how homosexual you are. And that's before the lack of reading comprehension takes place. And I'm the one saying that. Good God and ballsacks of Bob Saget, FFS.

[Enceladus]

The problem I'd always heard regarding railguns wasn't a matter of accuracy (ballistic trajectory isn't exactly something you need a mainframe to plot these days, unless the Navy is using an ENIAC to handle it), but in getting the thing to remain in a useable state after the first shot. The rails end up suffering an awful lot of stress from both the magnetic force and arcing, which pretty well requires the whole rail system to be serviced and repaired each time the thing is fired.

They've also said that once the system actually does become halfway viable, they could probably manage to make "smart" projectiles for it that could use fins to allow for a bit more precision correction once the projectile is fired. Of course, at such high velocities, I'm not sure how much wind drift the thing would suffer or even be able to counter by using fins. Someone smarter than I am would have to figure that one.

[Stanley Burrell]

Yes. Sharpened sticks. Nuke-u-lar ones, though.

wpeqpowiepowqiepoqieqpwepoqiwpoeoqpwie. Fuck.

[Parkbandit]

Our already vastly superior military.

And so.. because we currently have the superior military.. we should now stop all R&D... because we will automatically always have the superior military.

Short sighted.. but not at all surprising coming from you.

[Stanley Burrell]

You made a stick analogy and accuse Ranger D of being "short-sighted."

BI-FUCKING-FOCALS. Lawd-ah-mighty. Sheesh.

[Daniel]

Did I say all R & D?

[Celephais]

Why wouldn't it be? It does take extreme accuracy.. but what Latrinsorm didn't mention.. it's because it can travel 200 miles.. not the 13 we are currently shooting. It doesn't mean you HAVE to shoot it from 200 miles... that's it's current max range. If you want to shoot it 13 miles.. it takes the exact same degree of accuracy that a current gun takes.
It'll probably sound like Tsa'ahian backpeddling to say this, but I meant they weren't being "made" for firing at other boats... shit you could fire them at anything you wanted, but this sort of thing (in my clearly well informed in the know position) is being built for bombarding inland targets.

[Parkbandit]

You made a stick analogy and accuse Ranger D of being "short-sighted."

BI-FUCKING-FOCALS. Lawd-ah-mighty. Sheesh.


If you weren't in the middle of some drug induced posting vomit.. I would actually try and make you understand. Clearly even sober though.. it probably goes over your mental capacity... so why bother.

[Stanley Burrell]

If you weren't in the middle of some drug induced posting vomit.. I would actually try and make you understand. Clearly even sober though.. it probably goes over your mental capacity... so why bother.

I'm under the influence of reading your retarded shit. That's like injecting yourself in the buttocks with 50cc's of RETARD.

You have Alzheimer's or something? You do. I've decided.

Even before your glial folding degenerated, I still was better than you, bitch.

Come on: Drug analogies. Let's do this to prove how right you are.

[Arkans]

Unfortunately, military might is one very important fact in geopolitics. This doesn't mean you need to invade every country you see to make more liebensraum for your citizens, it does mean that you can use your military might as leverage to make the world a little more receptive to what you have to say and to get that sweeter deal when trading.

This, of course, isn't a panacea, but it does help. I also believe that the defense of a nations borders is less of a worry today due to nuclear weapon capabilities.

- Arkans

[Enceladus]

It'll probably sound like Tsa'ahian backpeddling to say this, but I meant they weren't being "made" for firing at other boats... shit you could fire them at anything you wanted, but this sort of thing (in my clearly well informed in the know position) is being built for bombarding inland targets.


That's what I'd always figured, too. If the Pacific theatre in WWII showed us anything, it was that the best way to take out another battleship or carrier isn't with bigger guns, but with aircraft. These days, guided missiles would probably work just as well, assuming their missile defense isn't all that effective against what we're throwing.

[Celephais]

I guess the more I think about it; from a deterent standpoint these would be nearly impossible to countermeasure. It's not like you can simply detonate it, or fire a wall of bullets from a gattling gun to deter it...

At 13 miles it would only take 20-30 seconds for the round to impact.

[Tolwynn]

The rails end up suffering an awful lot of stress from both the magnetic force and arcing, which pretty well requires the whole rail system to be serviced and repaired each time the thing is fired.

Coilguns, which are the next logical step, solve this problem nicely - charge is driven down a series of induction coils rather than along a quickly warping pair of rails.

As for the 'this is too much,' viagra, and such comments, try a little research on the effectiveness of conventional (non-nuclear) warheads against hardened targets, reinforced structures, or even good old-fashioned low-tech dirt.

[Lucas]

This is exactly what we need to win the war on terror.

Yes exactly... we need a monster of weapon that can decimate a small city. Because thats how we'll get those sleeper cells! Yes!

[Lucas]

And frankly the 500 billion dollars in taxpayer money going into the -regular- military budget is insane (that doesn't include Iraq and Afghanistan). We don't need that much to defend the US, China's got far more people and just as much land and they do it for a 10th that. So why the big budget? We need it to run our empire. And it is an empire. We need to roll back on all this crap and worry about issues at home. Immigration and fiscal conservation primarily.

Ron Paul 2008.

[Gan]

Ron Paul 2008.

Thats really all you had to say.

Put that in your sig and folks will automatically understand where you're coming from (far out in right field). :yes:

[Warriorbird]

See, Daniel... we're using the "We're the Empire, not the Rebels." strategy for the War on Terror.

Me... I think it's great. I love cool tech.

[Blud]

The problem I'd always heard regarding railguns wasn't a matter of accuracy (ballistic trajectory isn't exactly something you need a mainframe to plot these days, unless the Navy is using an ENIAC to handle it), but in getting the thing to remain in a useable state after the first shot. The rails end up suffering an awful lot of stress from both the magnetic force and arcing, which pretty well requires the whole rail system to be serviced and repaired each time the thing is fired.

This is the primary problem. I don't see this being the "end game" for this type of technology. Me and a friend of mine are building a smaller "home grown" rail gun, and the power supply is incredibly complex, but the bigger problem is we actually destroy the rails we are forced to use due to cost.


Coilguns, which are the next logical step, solve this problem nicely - charge is driven down a series of induction coils rather than along a quickly warping pair of rails.

This is a good solution, but timing is everything (literally in this case). I would rather see the research going in this direction.

[Latrinsorm]

Think shore bombardment. Most buildings and hardened structures (that could often, coincidentally, resist damage from conventional warheads) aren't going to be able to dodge very much.I was talking about a stationary object, using an aircraft carrier to give a reference for the size.
If you want to shoot it 13 miles.. it takes the exact same degree of accuracy that a current gun takes.And if you want to shoot anything, I would expect you to be pretty sure you're going to hit what you're aiming at. Hence my being impressed at the precision.

[Tolwynn]

You'd probably be fairly impressed by the Paladin artillery system that saw my old reserve unit's guns turned into scrap. Not only can it calculate artillery plots and counterbattery fire to a range of 24 km with its computer systems, it can also compensate for the unit moving at speed (~ 35 mph), unlike our conventional pieces which had to park and dig in to fire.

That from a system first fielded 14 years ago, no less.

[Slider]

This is a really big advance in Naval gunfire but I also see a few problems with it. First off the very large amount of power needed to fire it, as well as the huge capacitors that are needed to store that energy before firing it. Current generators do not have a high enough output to power this thing thus a (long?) charging cycle while the capacitors are brought up too full charge. On the program that I recently saw about this beast it took quite a while for this charging cycle to occur, thus lowering the amount of rounds you can put on target.

In comparison the MK 42 5" 54 cal gun mount can put out 32-36 rounds per minute, and the Mk 45, which replaced it, can fire 17 rounds per minute, with a cruiser typically having both a fore and aft gun mount. The Mk 75 76mm (POS) has a rate of fire of over 90 rounds per minute. This is actually lower than it's maximum of 120 rounds per minute but I myself personally would not want to be anywhere near this POS (did I mention that I worked on these, and that they sucks balls?) firing that fast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%22/54_caliber_Mark_45_gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otobreda_76_mm

About the capability of hitting targets, in WWII we did not have radar support for our gun mounts, and where basically firing over “iron sights” at the target. With Radar support, trust me, it ain't a problem. Hell you could probably choose which porthole you wanted to put a gun round through when firing at anything within LOS, and it’s only slightly less accurate when firing over the horizon. As far as time to target...eh, at the listed speed of this thing the round would impact the target in roughly .138 seconds if fired at a target at 13 miles...drift is NOT a problem.

The real problem with this beast is when it is used for gunfire support of ground troops, and particularly when used to fire on targets that are in a reverse slope, i.e. hiding behind a hill. Currently when firing at these targets you just elevate the mount to fire over the hill and the round (basically) falls onto the target. Now the closer you are to the target, the higher you need to elevate the gun mount. This requires a good spotter, and a ton of calculations, but these are all done by computer anyway. However, to do this requires that the round travel a very high ballistic course and then actually falls onto the target. Now imagine firing one of these monsters at that high an angle…hope there are no satellites in the way…

Now if there was some way to “step down” the amount of power applied to the rails and thus lower the velocity of the round you could at least mitigate this problem, but this would also lower the effectiveness of the round when it does impact the target. Most of the damage caused by rail gun projectiles is done through the extreme velocity of the round as they lack an explosive warhead. (Don’t really need one either).

All in all, these things are impressive as all hell, and I would dearly love to get a chance to see what it could do.

[Gan]

I guess that powering such a unit on a nuclear powered naval vessel is something easily done?

I've got a friend who was a navy engineer, I'll ask him tomorrow what the feasability of that is.

1 joule = 1 newton-metre = 1 watt-second

Megajoule = 1 million joules (10^6 J)

10 Megajoules = 10 million joules (10 x 10^6 J)

1 kilowatt-hour = 3.6 ×10^6 J (or 3.6 MJ)

Video of said railgun.
http://gizmodo.com/351467/navy-rail-gun-test-destroys-everything-it-touches-at-5640-mph

[Clove]

Fuck. A 7 lb projectile at 5,600 MPH? That's gotta trump a shotgun for home defense.

[LMingrone]

If only you could mount one of these on an A10. First thing I thought when I saw this.

[Slider]

Eight and 9-megajoule rail guns have been fired before, but providing 3 million amps of power per shot has been a limitation. At 32 megajoules, this new system appears to be the most powerful rail gun ever built, and the Office of Naval Research is installing additional capacitors at the Dahlgren facility to support it. The planned 64-megajoule weapon, if it’s ever built, could require even more power—a staggering 6 million amps.

The Navy’s electrically-propelled DDG 100 Destroyer, Chaboki says, is a prime candidate for the final 64-megajoule system. Around 72 megawatts (MW) of the vessel’s power can be used for propulsion. But during combat, the destroyer’s speed could be brought down, freeing up energy for a rail gun. Chaboki calculates that firing the 64-megajoule weapon six times per minute would require 16 MW of power, which would be supplied by either onboard capacitors or pulsed alternators.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/11/32-megajoule-rail-gun-delivered-for.html

That is a LOT of power Gan, I agree not much of a problem for an aircraft carrier but then, we are not talking about putting these on aircraft carriers are we? With capacitors you can charge them with excess power over a period of time for the initial shot, but once they discharge you are back to providing a sustained 16 MW of power to your gun mount alone...thus taking power away from other ships systems.

Just to put this into some sort of perspective, the GE LM2500 gas turbine engines on the Arleigh Burke class destroyer produces 25.1 MW of energy, and the next generation LM2500+ produces 28.6 MW of power.

[Drew]

http://www.criticalmassinteractive.com/images/Covers%20and%20Small%20Covers/Mechwarrior%202.jpg

[sst]

If only you could mount one of these on an A10. First thing I thought when I saw this.

I had the perverse pleasure of spending a night with A-10's burping overhead down near Najaf. That is still by far one of the most amazing aircraft out there.

thats all i have to add... aside from the fact i think this thing is pretty damn cool...

That and they now have GPS guided Artillery rounds that are accurate to within 5-10 meters.

[Drew]

I know the distinction is pretty fine here, but as far as I'm concerned anything guided is no longer a round.

round = unguided, fast burn fuel (AKA gunpowder)
rocket = unguided, slow burn fuel
bomb = guided or unguided, no fuel
missile = guided, either type of fuel

[Kitsun]

So, if you point that huge ass gun straight up, would the bullet break atmosphere?

[Stanley Burrell]

That depends on the casing and density of the rail projectile itself. I dunno why you'd fire one straight up in the air for no reason.

I'm just going to throw this out here and say that whatever the most mass produced ghetto rail battery is currently, that it can't break ionosphere.

What Latrin' + Gan' said = headache and R&D nightmare.

[Stanley Burrell]

That depends on the casing and density of the rail projectile itself. I dunno why you'd fire one straight up in the air for no reason.

I'm just going to throw this out here and say that whatever the most mass produced ghetto rail battery is currently, that it can't break ionosphere.

What Latrin' + Gan' said = headache and R&D nightmare.

Where everything friction is concerned. Durrr to being able to make objects Earthbound from space and space...bound from Earth. Friction.

[Celephais]

As far as time to target...eh, at the listed speed of this thing the round would impact the target in roughly .138 seconds if fired at a target at 13 miles...drift is NOT a problem.
I'm not saying 20-30 seconds is bad, I'm saying that's incredibly fast... you need to do your math again. (I just pulled the number out of the air of 20-30) doint the rough math you get:

The speed decayed from 5760 to 3840 over 200 miles, assuming linear decay in speed, over 13 miles you would decay to 5635mph, averaging 5698 mph. It would take 0.0022 hours to travel 13 miles, or 8.2 seconds... ballistic trajectory would add to this.

[Latrinsorm]

So, if you point that huge ass gun straight up, would the bullet break atmosphere?It already does on the approximately 45º path it's designed to fire. The highest (it is somewhat subjective) boundary for outer space is 75ish miles, and this thing goes 94 miles high. In the absence of any friction forces, the projectile would only(!) go 180 miles high so if the ISS ever gets uppity we're going to need a bigger gun.

[Gan]

Talk about shooting the moon. Literally.