Posted on 02/15/2016 10:53:27 AM PST by Red Badger
I can not. If such a precision attack is required, move to another tool. Adapting this to use even more expensive bullets just wastes even more money.
Yeah and at that speed, you wouldn't want to and/or couldn't make much course correction with out destroying the projectile.
What a beautiful ship.
How big does the concrete wall need to be? One mile square?
Interesting. It took me a while to figure out that there is metal to metal contact. It sounded like the armature slides on the rail. Couldn’t figure out the configuration, but in looking at the bottom graphic, it looked like the legs of the armature point aft (laying flat on the lower rail) with the business end pointing forward (is it pushing a projectile in front of it, or is the armature part of a projectile?
In any case, yeah. My knowledge about this was outdated. Last I heard, it was a maglev process where nothing touched on the way out, and wear of components was not only not an issue, but the non-wear in that setup would have been an advantage. (I probably read that in the piece of crap magazine “Mechanix Illustrated” not realizing the magazine was in the process of jumping the shark...)
I guess they didn’t go that direction, probably because the energy required to maglev the projectile all the way out was too extensive.
Sigh. No wonder erosion would be an issue.
My guess also is that the rate of acceleration getting it out the barrel might be a bit much for nearly anything that could guide it.
Cheaper than missing because you hit a wave.
If they’re still having to replace rails after every few shots, maybe Montana class (with Iowa speed)? More barrels might mean more available at any one time. Might as well think big.
If the cost of the projectile is low (a streamlined, machined ingot?) then having a way to spot and adjust would be do-able for an acceptable degree of accuracy, I would think.
Johnny Dangerously
One of the most majestic ones I have seen of that beautiful class. If you look carefully, you can see all the guys on the UNREP team gathered aft...:)
Particle beams, rail guns. Wake me up when one is at sea.
These gee whiz articles have coming out of Popular Mechanix type articles for decades now. Company next to mine thirty years ago was developing a rail gun, heard it fire periodically.
Still a lab demonstrator.
it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates.
= = =
Hillary might spill this, but Navy shouldn’t.
The projectile must be in physical contact with the rails because they pass current through it to create the magnetic field that reacts with the larger field surrounding it.
I say "must be in physical contact", but this is only necessary initially. Once it gets moving, I imagine most of the current flows through the plasma created by the air between the projectile and the barrel.
I expect it is this super hot plasma that eats away at the barrel.
I am out of my depth in this, to be sure, but that sounds appropriate.
A railgun uses a pair of parallel conductors, or rails, along which a sliding armature is accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flows down one rail, into the armature and then back along the other railFor the current to flow, you have to have physical contact between the projectile and the rail on either side. You are also talking about HUGE amounts of current at the contact point. Early railguns essentially destroyed the rails after one shot.
Pardon my ignorance, but if this projectile is launched by an electric current, why does there seem to be a flammable explosion as it exits the gun?
Navy wants to skip an at-sea prototype in favor of installing an unit aboard one of its new Zumwalt-class destroyers ...the rail gun can fire a shell weighing 10kg at up to 5,400mph over 100 miles. It does this with such force and accuracy it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates.Firing all the 16 inch guns simultaneously used to make those battleships roll in the opposite direction. This weapon uses such a small projectile such rolling shouldn't be a problem. I wonder about the rate of fire though -- if it isn't rapid enough, guided missiles still make more sense and will for the foreseeable.
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