The Navy's Experimental "Supergun"

Relatively inexpensive projectiles, can carry more projectiles onboard, less hazard because no explosives need to be stored, no danger of UXO for non-combatants. These are definite advantages.

All fine and well until someone like this guys does this..... no juice no BOOM! [shocked] (big disadvantage)
pull_the_plug.jpg
 
The Barrel life is a little light. How many shots in a standard 6" or 16" barrel? The lack of powder is nice though. You'd need a hefty nuke plant just for the power though, and I'm not sure the standard ship reactors at 165Mw would last long trying to juice a few of these.
 
In conventional guns, a bullet loses velocity from the moment the gunpowder ignites and sends it flying. The railgun projectile instead gains speed as it travels the length of a 32-foot barrel, exiting the muzzle at 4,500 miles an hour, or more than a mile a second.

Um....it's starting at zero.... [rolleyes]. I'm sure that most barrels are not built too long, so that it starts to slow the projectile before it reaches the muzzle.

And, the lack of explosive payload is not good if you want to blow sh!t up. There's a reason that both AP and HE rounds exist.

Still cool, though
 
I'm not sure there is any friction, so barrel life should be indefinite. The projectile is fired through a succession of magnetic pulses so I'm assuming it kind of like a mag Lev train.
 
The Barrel life is a little light. How many shots in a standard 6" or 16" barrel? The lack of powder is nice though. You'd need a hefty nuke plant just for the power though, and I'm not sure the standard ship reactors at 165Mw would last long trying to juice a few of these.

25 megawatt powerplant
That's 25 MWe. That isn't that much. The Ford class Carriers are using the same technology to launch jets.

The Ford Class thermal output total is in excess of 1100MW and per http://www.public.navy.mil/airfor/nae/Air Plan/Nov13 Air Plan.pdf it's somewhere around 1375MWt. Most of that is used to propel the ship. That link also says the Ford class has 3 times the electrical generation capacity. That puts it somewhere around 200 MWe.
The Nimitz class is 1100MW thermal - 2x550MWt, >60MWe
The Enterprise was 1200 MW thermal iirc - 8x150MWt. >60MWe
 
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And, the lack of explosive payload is not good if you want to blow sh!t up. There's a reason that both AP and HE rounds exist.

Still cool, though

It's all about the energy. Explosive warhead or not, that much mass traveling at that velocity is going to release one hell of a lot of energy when it impacts.

That's 6,600 fps, for those who want to convert into more familiar (to shooters) units.
 
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And, the lack of explosive payload is not good if you want to blow sh!t up. There's a reason that both AP and HE rounds exist.

I believe that the main anti-tank round used by the M1 Abrams is a heavy sabot round that doesn't have any explosive charge. It just uses kinetic energy, but it still destroyed a bunch of Iraqi tanks.
 
The Barrel life is a little light. How many shots in a standard 6" or 16" barrel? The lack of powder is nice though. You'd need a hefty nuke plant just for the power though, and I'm not sure the standard ship reactors at 165Mw would last long trying to juice a few of these.

No not necessarily. You do need a pulsed power system capable of storing power (over a period of several seconds) and discharging it (very rapidly). That so far has been a lower hurdle than the barrel erosion problem though.
 
In order for a railgun to work, the electrical circuit must be complete. This means the carrier has to be in contact with both rails the whole time it's accelerating. Thus the Navy says the rails are only going to be good for about 1000 rounds until they get the metallurgy worked out.

Earlier prototypes had issues with the carrier welding itself to the rails during the shot.

As far as lethality goes, it's a scalpel. With a really long range, of hundreds instead of dozens of miles. With the relatively rapid reload and the much higher quantity of rounds that a ship will be able to carry, it's not a panacea, but it certainly has a place. Imagine punching a single large hole from a 5" inch gun, say, or 20 smaller holes at 10x the range from this rail gun, in the same amount of time. Also cost of the rounds is measured in tens of thousands each, instead of the million plus for missiles.

It's not going to level a city with one shot, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in the target building when it arrives.
 
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In conventional guns, a bullet loses velocity from the moment the gunpowder ignites and sends it flying. The railgun projectile instead gains speed as it travels the length of a 32-foot barrel, exiting the muzzle at 4,500 miles an hour, or more than a mile a second.

Um....it's starting at zero.... [rolleyes]. I'm sure that most barrels are not built too long, so that it starts to slow the projectile before it reaches the muzzle.

And, the lack of explosive payload is not good if you want to blow sh!t up. There's a reason that both AP and HE rounds exist.

Still cool, though

1 still very freaking cool
2 this seemed like a fluff piece because we all know a projectile gains momentum coming out a barrel (rifles have a higher mv than handguns for a reason google it if you'd like to know why)
3 different rounds do different things he and burst rounds blah blah blah to many to count( see shotgun rounds)
4 this thing would be devastating if it hit something hard it was trying to penetrate huge ke factor here
5 I want it

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Eh I'd rather they get the F-35 squared away

Totally right that thing is the game changer
 
In order for a railgun to work, the electrical circuit must be complete. This means the carrier has to be in contact with both rails the whole time it's accelerating.

I thought it was magnetic? so wouldn't the circuit just need to create a magnetic field and not necessarily conduct through the projectile? Still the possibility of melting stuff since we're talking about a ton of energy in a short period of time. PS, i'm no physics major.
 
I thought it was magnetic? so wouldn't the circuit just need to create a magnetic field and not necessarily conduct through the projectile? Still the possibility of melting stuff since we're talking about a ton of energy in a short period of time. PS, i'm no physics major.

What you're describing is a coil gun or "Gauss rifle." You can create a strong magnetic field by basically making a coil around your barrel. The projectile doesn't touch but is simply held in the coil, and has to be ferromagnetic (can be acted on by a magnet). The projectile will be pulled to the center of the energized coil but it will tend stop there... In the center of the coil. So with a coil gun, you make a series of coils along the barrel. The projectile is dragged forward by the coils as they successively energize ahead of the round, and de-energize behind the round. You have to have precisely timed high-power sources on each of the coils.

The rail gun is simpler in that you basically have a positive and a negative rail that run the length of your "barrel" and a single power source. The projectile carrier physically contacts both rails, completing the electrical circuit. The completed circuit induces a strong magnetic field, and the projectile is driven forward by the Lorentz force acting upon the armature (carrier) along the entire length of the rails. the projectile doesn't have to be ferromagnetic, only conductive. You can get stupid amounts of velocity this way with a relatively simple power source. You need crazy amount of current, though; I think the Navy gun is in the millions of amps.
 
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No not necessarily. You do need a pulsed power system capable of storing power (over a period of several seconds) and discharging it (very rapidly). That so far has been a lower hurdle than the barrel erosion problem though.

Sounds like a job for Skysoldier!
 
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