I'm curious how quickly air resistance would reduce projectile speed down to that of a normal gun projectile.
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This gun barrel is different than a conventional gun. The barrel does not develop pressure behind the round as it goes through the barrel. Instead the round is magnetically pushed through the barrel with little friction. The flame you see is not so much from the barrel as the carrier that propels the round being vaporized by the electricity on either side of the round.
Since 7000 miles per hour is approximately 2 miles per second there is very little time for much reduction in speed of the round before hitting the target. Even if the speed is reduced by 1/2, 3500 mph, that is still the equivalent of 17 football fields in one second. I would hate to be hit with a cannon ball going that fast.
This is a very mean weapon. As far as size is concerned it is tiny compared to say a 16 inch gun. It flies a round 4 or 5 times farther in less than 1/10th of the space used by conventional 16” guns.
These guns can be mounted on a destroyer instead of a battleship, a destroyer could become more dangerous than any previous battleship.
The round being used now is depleted uranium because of its great weight, that means its inertial profile will carry it 100 miles. Surface mounted radar can only detect surface craft out to a little over 80 miles, that puts the weapon beyond the reach of most navies that don't have aircraft carriers.
Eventually these guns will have to use other materials. While expended uranium is not as expensive as a missile it is much more expensive than lead but it is also much heavier than lead. Some version of hardened lead will eventually be used as a shorter range round for these rail guns while the more advanced expended uranium rounds will be saved for longer range targets.
These guns are simply amazing and deadly. The round flies so fast that they are not nearly as much affected by wind and humidity as conventional rounds. The are more deadly than explosive rounds because the high speed impact they actually cause explosive damage on impact. On impact the round becomes molten metal destroying everything it hits and it hits a lot because of its weight and speed. It is like a throwing a tomato down on a hard surface, when it splats it goes everywhere. When the molten uranium goes everywhere it causes disastrous consequences. You don't want to be anywhere near.
thanks for the info, I will look into what you’d said. I’ll note the gun in question has a mussel V of 4,500 mph but perhaps the goal is 7,000 mph and this is not the finished product. Not going to quibble about that. thx again.