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Posted on 12/10/2010 10:52:32 AM PST by La Lydia
A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And it's quite real too, as the U.S. Navy has proven in a record-setting test today in Dahlgren, VA. Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, the technology uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile zips along a set of electrically charged parallel rails and out of the barrel at speeds up to Mach 7. The result: a weapon that can hit a target 100 miles or more away within minutes...
To convey a sense of just how much damage, Ellis said the big guns on the deck of a warship are measured by their muzzle energy in megajoules. A single megajoule is roughly equivalent to a 1-ton car traveling at 100 mph. Multiple that by 33 and you get a picture of what would happen when such a weapon hits a target...
...a railgun offers 2 to 3 times the velocity of a conventional big gun, so that it can hit its target within 6 minutes. By contrast, a guided cruise missile travels at subsonic speeds, meaning that the intended target could be gone by the time it reaches its destination.
Furthermore, current U.S. Navy guns can only reach targets about 13 miles away. The railgun being tested today could reach an enemy 100 miles away....
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Big Badda Boom!
Nice. Mebbe we won’t need those secret nuclear sub bases in F ganistan after all.
???
The 16” guns of the Iowa class had an effective range of 24 miles.
Daddy likes rail guns.
That’s gotta be it, don’tcha know? The reason we are in F ganistan. Cause it sure ain’t to wipe out the Taliban.
Guns?
Missiles!
LOL
This is the fruit of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that the loony left derided as “Star Wars” especially Jean-François Kerry, Teddy Kennedy and that bunch.
The story says the Navy thinks they can get the range up to 200 miles eventually with these things. Cool.
Well, if ya ain’t got jobs for GIs that are getting out, what do ya do?
Utter coolth.
Seems like the only way to fire 6-12 rounds per minute would be to have the entire projectile path supercooled.
Which would help the efficiency of the magnets, but imagine having to supercool a giant railgun...
Heck, just leaving a ham sandwich laying on a particle accelerator messes up the supercooling.
a railgun offers 2 to 3 times the velocity of a conventional big gun, so that it can hit its target within 6 minutes. By contrast, a guided cruise missile travels at subsonic speeds, meaning that the intended target could be gone by the time it reaches its destination.
No "explosive" or "extremely flammable" propellants ... yes.
The "propellant" is whatever they're burning to run the generators.
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