Posted on 04/11/2014 5:31:07 AM PDT by C19fan
A lethal new weapon that can fire a shell at seven times the speed of sound has been successfully tested on land. Described as ‘Star Wars technology’ by researchers, such a device has belonged solely to the world of science fiction for decades. But now it is close to a reality with sea trials on a US warship planned in two years.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
And 594 Km = 368 miles. Throw in about 15 miles of air resistance at the start and 15 miles at the end and you get about 200-300 miles range or so.
As to your question about recoil.
I describe a gun, of any size, at the moment of firing as a cube with one moveable wall. That moveable was is the projectile. Four of the five remaining immovable walls make up the barrel. The remaining wall is the breech.
To force the projectile out of the barrel the expanding gasses have to push against something - the breech. This is what produces the recoil forces you mentioned.
A railgun “drags” the projectile along as the magnetic current moves from the breech to the muzzle. There is no pushing the projectile.
When I first looked at this concept roughly 20 years ago the biggest technical problem was what to do with all of that energy when it got to the muzzle end of the track. The free release of that energy produced an EMP that you wouldn’t believe!
A railgun offers many tactical advantages. Ability to rapidly change the range. Increased load out. Increased safety. Reduced logistic issues. These are only the first order of magnitude improvements on our side of the weapon.
The impact at the other end of the weapon are VERY interesting. But, that’s for another post on a different venue.
I don’t either. Just repeating what was on TV. It’s way beyond me.
Theoretically, maybe. But I see problems with identifying, tracking & targeting at that distance. We’re still talking about a ballistic, dumb round here.
Not necessarily.
These weapons will also fire precision guided munitions which can use GPS, Infrared, etc. to hit both stationary and moving targets.
They are not powered in the sense that they have any kind of engine, but their control surfaces will allow them to manuever while airborn and hit the target.
See #46
Must be a closely guarded secret how the Navy plans to ‘harden’ the electronic guidance system against the tremendous EMF produced by the rail gun, huh? Sounds like somebody might be selling the Navy a bill of goods when it comes to smart war shots for these rail guns.
The other technical problem is how to make the “barrel” of the rail gun last more than a few dozen shots. Haven’t solved that little problem yet, either.
I’m sure the Navy is working on solving these problems in parallel. But the delays can be expensive.
see #48
Just hope Obama does not hear about this - I heard they canceled the Tomahawk and Hellfire without replacements
Out of the frying pan into the fire. Real world testing of electrical gear in the corrosive environment of a ship at sea. Would love more details along the line of maintenance and operational readiness.
It appears the impetus for 200 mile range was to allow the Littoral ships to supply support fire for Marine Corp amphibious assaults, defeating reactive armor with hyper-velocity projectiles, and remaining out of range of shore launched anti-ship smart weapons.
The alternative development track for hyper-velocity kinetic weapons was initially conducted by Utron. The Combustion Light-gas Gun “CLGG” delivered similar range and velocity. Contracts were issued for further development through 2013.
http://sbirsource.com/sbir/awards/142049-hydrogen-based-high-velocity-insensitive-launch-systems
http://sbirsource.com/sbir/awards/13080-chemically-driven-hydrogen-gun
http://www.utroninc.com/tech.html.
“These weapons will also fire precision guided munitions which can use GPS, Infrared, etc. to hit both stationary and moving targets.”
The Chinese are very proud of their new aircraft carrier, which would seem to be a likely target for this weapon.
On the other hand, their spies have probably obtained the blueprints for the naval rail gun and will probably deploy land and ship-based rail guns before too long to augment their ballistic missiles to enforce their “inner island exclusion zone” strategy against large targets such as our carriers and amphibious landing ships.
It is very hard to jam a GPS receiver located above you that is obviously looking up. It could conceivably be intercepted with an ABM system, but that is going to require firing a few golden arrows at clay bricks. The enemy would quickly become depleted and saturated, while the ship's supply of ammunition would just keep flowing.
This could be a real game changing capability. Laser, IR, or radar guidance could make it a tremendous, long-range anti-aircraft weapon, although I'm not sure that those seeker types can survive the acceleration.
It comes into play very quickly, but we already hit objects that are hidden by the curvature of the Earth.
Gravity ensure that the projectile comes back to Earth, unless you put it into orbit. Remember that the first abort runway for the space shuttle leaving Florida was the Azores (over 2000 miles away).
Yes, long range shots would put the projectiles in space, just not in orbit. That keeps the velocity quite high.
Half the atmosphere is below 10,000 ft. The projectile will reache that in about 2 seconds, 5 seconds later there will be very little air at all. It will then sail along in suborbital trajectory until it reenters the atmosphere and starts homing on its target for the last 5-7 seconds of flight.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
You don’t need high pressure gases to have recoil.
Disconnect an electric motor from its mounts, while it is under load, and you will discover exactly what I’m talking about. When the rails apply force to the projectile, they are shoved back on with equal force.
“On the other hand, their spies have probably obtained the blueprints for the naval rail gun and will probably deploy land and ship-based rail guns before too long...”
There’s going to be stuff in this design that won’t necessarily show up on a blueprint... like the metallurgy. Obama might sell that to them, or the geniuses in the defense contractor will probably lose control of that information to a PHD employee who just happens to be a Chinese national.
“I’m presuming that 100% of the projectiles will be guided. In anything but direct fire, the accuracy at beyond 20 miles would otherwise be unusable.”
Unless the primary use for all this velocity is to fire UP, as in at the re-entry stage of a Chinese carrier-killer ballistic missile. That wouldn’t necessarily need guidance, and if it did, it wouldn’t be using aerodynamic control surfaces.
“There’s going to be stuff in this design that won’t necessarily show up on a blueprint... like the metallurgy.”
And then there is the fact that the Chinese have a virtual lock on rare earth element mining, having driven nearly all other countries out of the market by working their slave labor under poisonous conditions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element#Global_rare_earth_production
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.