Make one large enough and you could launch ballistic payloads at targets more than 1000mi distant. Would take a reactor
and a heck of a lot of BIG capacitors....would be fun to
see in action.
Yep, I read once that technology and technological capability doubles every 6 months (IIRC). I sure have seen it in the last few years, from railguns, to drones, to rayguns (yes, they have them), to invisible cloaking military vehicles, to wireless induction energy powered devices (like wifi, but with electricity, although, this was pioneered by Tesla, it’s being improved now), we truly live in a remarkable era. It truly is amazing, good, bad and ugly.
When I was a kid, I used to play a game called “Robotech”. In this game (a boardgame, fancy that!), players controlled giantic robots called “mechs” that were piloted by humans. One of the armaments you could arm your mech with was a railgun, and if I remember correctly, it was pretty nasty.
It’s downright weird how science fiction can become reality.
Thanks for posting this. Not only was this very interesting, but it brought back a fun memory.
Wonder if this would be a good space based weapon ? Could also be used to protect the planet from asteroids. Now would a satellite be propelled backwards after firing the projectile ? The platform would have to possess maneuverability, I guess.
bflr
i remember a sci-fi book about how humans used a particle that wasn’t very big, maybe a few square meters in size, it had quite literally a time stasis field surrounding, in effect absolutely nothing could hurt it, not even a journey through a sun.
This object was accelerated at nearly the speed of light and bombarded a planet, the results were highly spectacular.
When the Navy finishes development and fields a rail gun system, my bet is they’re still not going to want to use it for naval gunfire support of Marines ashore.