Posted on 03/30/2016 12:01:19 PM PDT by C19fan
These were slightly different than the Navy ERGM configuration, but what we had learned about making the damn things survive the G loads worked there as well.
Thanks for doing what you did. It is a tremendous force multiplier.
I just hope and pray that Obama has not given away the farm to the Iranians and anyone else he figures can harm the U.S.
We did not work on the electronics, but talking with the guys that were doing it (man, did they have issues keeping circuit boards together under those G loads) the things had home on jam should the recipient get frisky.
Sounds good. I hope we both are still around FreeRepublic when you have to eat those words.
Engineers and real scientists solve problems and come up with solutions, not bitches on how it will never work.
Yeah, me too. Might see Flash Gordon's Death Ray first, though as we live well into the 23rd Century. It seems that you haven't heard of projects that go nowhere, engineering nightmares that cost huge amounts of the public's money and dead end, in all your extensive experience. I've seen a bunch, worse I've seen some go to production and to the field and end up as worthless.
Here's what they have to solve to make the railgun worthwhile:
1. As a ground, fieldable, deployable system - enormously powerful power sources. I wasn't kidding about nuclear power.
2. Rails that can last longer than a few shots. The plasma formed by the launches eats rails.
3. Projectiles that can withstand the heating loads when fired at Mach who-knows-what through the atmosphere at sea level. You know, the stuff that makes meteors into itty-bitty meteorites.
4. A useful load for projectiles launched from railguns. You know, fuzing and detonating and explosive payloads that will not go off during launch but when they get there. Not to mention some kind of guidance system to keep the projectile on course after all of the initial velocity bleeds off. Right now the acceleration, heat and electromagnetic loads are too monstrous for anything that exists to survive. Still, who am I to argue with Popular Mechanix?
5. Now for the fun one: in a battlefield where stealth, cover and concealment mean life, we have to make the railgun launch system NOT reveal itself to the entire world everytime it fires. As it is, it will make a giant electronic RF "yelp" that will be detected immediately and your firing position known instantly. Great stuff for counterfire systems, lousy for survival.
Other than that, a fantastic idea, almost as wonderful as the German's Paris Gun circa 1918. Shot 93 miles but required millions of Marks and took hundreds of men to emplace it, man it, hide it, and then displace it again. In the end, it was tactically and strategically useless because it had a CEP barely the size of Paris and resulted in killing 257 civilians. Hardly worth the effort but that's one of the reasons the Germans lost.
Howitzers can rapidly execute high-angle missions. The old M114 could do that in a pinch and certainly the M101A1 - but the Corps keeps buying the army's 39 caliber 155mms and high angle mission are the exception.
Closer and closer till the problems are solved.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3436418/posts
Like I said, someday maybe. But only at enormous cost and dubious worth. Range is useless without precision. Velocity is useless unless it is sustained. A weapon system is useless without effects.
Looking forward to seeing how they’ll keep that puppy from announcing its position to the world at each shot.
You clearly have no combat experience. I do.
Wow, that was judgmental.
All weapons systems start out as experimental projects and gain those abilities as they progress. The ultimate payoff on this weapon system is well worth the investment.
As for the identification by enemies, all weapons systems broadcast their position. The idea is that the target either cannot identify, locate or capitalize on that information. All of which are solvable problems.
Some of us have to be. It’s the main value of experience.
All the rail gun is, is our version of the Paris Gun. The Germans wasted millions of Marks building a cutting-edge ballistic monstrosity which succeeded in firing a few projectiles 75 miles to kill 250 random civilians - or roughly 0.8 women and children per round fired.
Sinking Billions into a system that as yet hasn’t supported a usable payload or failed to let the entire Earth know when and where it fired seems remarkably similar to the waste of money and time the Germans made with the Wilhelm Geschutze.
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