OT: 10 megajoule Rail gun

From the look of the sparks, the gun is eroding its self. Some of them look like iron sparks but the object appeared to be aluminum. They also have a problem with the projectile trying to rotate in the gun. I would not want to be anywhere near the gun when they try to ramp the power up.

I wonder if it really is 10MJ or if that is just the offical line. Back in WW2 all ships could do 23 Knots if you asked how fast a ship could go.

A 5-inch gun shoots a projectile weighing about 70 lbs, with about 18 lbs of HE. At 10 MJ, the muzzle velocity is just over 800 m/s, which isn't so far off from a normal artillery muzzle velocity. If they can really reach 32 MJ, that would be a beast.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

That's little low.

Many warships would easily do much better, years before the outbreak of hostilities.

What program did you use to play the video?

23 Knots was the story you'd get if you asked. It was a number that sounded good and news reporters even back then weren't technical enough to know that it was just a story.

I used "xine"

But Courant had already worked out the determination of top speed capability of warships using bow wake angles at a known speed as collected from aerial reconnaissance photography...

What a tremendous waste of resources. Obviously this thing is designed to funnel grant money and military-corporate welfare money into someone's pockets. While they fire one projectile at a cost of millions, the dastardly enemy opens fire with a cheap and reliable Gatling gun and rains down thousands of projectiles.

Which...harmlessly plink off the hull. Try again.

Now, a sixteen inch Iowa class naval gun, that's something to think about...

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

Really? An Avenger "tank buster" will fire shells that bounce off the hull?

Again, cheap, proven, reliable technology that you can pump out by the hundreds and fire hundreds of times. Each projectile provides its own power, "densified" at the explosives plant. If the rail gun fails, you can't fire any projectiles anymore.

snipped-for-privacy@netzero.com wrote in news:72e1f192-199e-457d-8b17- snipped-for-privacy@e4g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

which could not get NEAR a warship,as SAMs and AA Artillery(AAA) would obliterate them. Those Gatlings only have a limited range,WELL inside a ship's defensive screen.Phalanx or Goalkeeper would tear the A-10s apart,if the SAMs didn't. (and that also neglects comabt air patrols the enemy would have to fight through.An A-10 could NOT fight thru.)

Also,the GAU-8 had the A-10 BUILT around it,and it's a old,SLOW aircraft,very vulnerable to todays air defenses. There are NO other planes that carry the GAU-8. None that could carry it,AFAIK.

nobody knows how to use those 16" guns anymore,the projectiles/powder are old and scrapped(along with the entire Iowa class BBs) In fact,no US ship today carries any gun larger than 5". A 155mm gun(6") is being considered for a new type of ship. No 16" naval gun could be fitted on today's warships.

rail guns will have a much greater effective range.

100's of miles vs ~3/4 mile. they also may fire terminally-guided projectiles.(at Mach5)

Big clue;it's not just the guns/weapons,it's the entire SYSTEM that matters,AC or warship.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

This argument is NOT about weapon systems. Its about politics.

Its about "how can I keep money coming into my district".

The old "jobs in my state" vs "jobs in your state" politics.

donald

"Because the railgun uses electricity and not gunpowder to fire projectiles, it eliminates the possibility of explosions on ships."

What do they use for power, then, that can match gunpowder? Middle of a battle: "Captain, batteries are running low again. Time to requisition the crew's Energizers?"

Is this the one?

or here as well

martin

Ah but how much money is transferred to contractors and uranium suppliers? If each ship now requires extra nukes just to power the latest toys, how much uranium is left to power civilian power stations? What happens to yellowcake prices, and who gets to keep burning coal? I wonder which country has an estimated 200 years of coal reserves?

How fast does air resistance go up?

Here's a bigger clue, Jim:

"The Office of Naval Research are hoping that they can scale up their electric cannon to 64-megajoule levels"

Hoping.

"at present railgun barrels only have a life of three or four shots"

So while all these nerds are hoping about getting their toy to reach 6 times the energy level of the test shot, probably leading to a barrel life of *one*, the enemy launches a civilian airliner with fanatics on board...

Wrong target, Jim. The rules have changed, and the old guard keeps coming up with old solutions. Yawn. More corporate welfare to keep the defense trough filled, and keep the civilians appeased.

That tells you how fast the ship was going at the time not the max speed it could do.

You are arguing "mere facts" in a situation where the facts aren't what is important. Having something that sounded good for the reporters was what mattered. Reporters don't like "I won't tell you".

You don't know much about electrical power or batteries OR charging systems. Obviously.

No, it was used to deduce maximum speed...apparently based on some kind of assumptions about hull design and wave velocity about which I know zip- but nonetheless I know a barge ain't built for speed-)

You're talking about nearly 100 years ago, people were much more accepting of government as absolute authority...