Posted on 01/31/2008 12:59:13 PM PST by Froufrou
The US Navy will astound the world tomorrow by test-firing a radical new weapon system at an unprecedented power level. The new piece of war-tech on trial is that old sci-fi favourite, an electromagnetic railgun.
According to the Office of Naval Research, which is in charge of the project, the electric cannon will deliver over ten megajoules of energy in one shot. The ONR say this is "a power level never before achieved" by a railgun, and already represents significantly more poke than a normal five-inch naval gun can put behind its shells.
The designers hope in future to get the technology up to 64 megajoule muzzle-energy levels, able to shoot hypervelocity projectiles at a blistering Mach 7 and strike targets two hundred miles away - still going at Mach 5 - with pinpoint precision.
The US navy is interested in the kit for a number of reasons. For one, its next generation warships are expected to use electric drive systems, meaning that they will be have 80 megawatts or more on hand. If this power can be used to put violence onto the enemy as well as driving the ship, that's good news for logistics and supply.
The only ammo you need is solid shot with guidance fins; there's no need for tons of high-explosive warheads and low-explosive chemical propellants for regular shells and missiles. These are replaced by nice simple fuel for the ship's engines.
The lack of exploding warheads could offer a chance to deliver more surgical strikes, too. They could take out a single vehicle from far out at sea, perhaps, rather than pulverising a whole area like present-day cruise missiles. This kind of thing is very trendy nowadays in military circles, though the problem of getting the right vehicle remains a tricky one.
Furthermore, even the ritziest missiles struggle to get above Mach 3-4, especially over any distance; thus the railgun slugs would be quicker to arrive when bombarding shore targets. They might also be good for shooting down fast-moving flying things.
Indeed, if the cannon could aim quickly enough and the hyper-bullets could steer well enough in flight, lighter-calibre weapons might tip the balance of naval warfare back in favour of surface craft. Ever since the Battle of Midway, sailors have reluctantly been forced to accept that aircraft win sea battles, not ships. But railguns might demote aircraft carriers from their current big-dog naval status and bring in electric dreadnoughts as the capital ships of tomorrow, able to sweep the skies of pesky aircraft or missiles as soon as they dared show themselves above the horizon.
It's easy to see why navies like the idea of electric hypercannons, then. But there are a lot of problems to be overcome. For one, the gun barrel tends to come apart after just a few shots. For another, packing a steady hundred-megawatt supply down into ultra-brief 64 megajoule pulses isn't simple.
I’m looking at a standby electric generator for my house. I need 26 amps for the furnace, and another 10 for the fridge, microwave and computer. I think I can get by with a two cylinder motor, fired by propane. Fortunately, I have not been confronted with joules yet...
“Test it on Imanutjob. See if we can shoot a BB up his butt and out his ear.”
If you got it up his butt it would probably go on to push his ear out of the way, but afterwards you could claim it went out his ear and nobody, examining the scene, could gainsay you.
That makes more sense. Now I have to wonder about the accuracy of aiming a purely ballistic slug through all those transitions in air density.
You need 26 amps just for the furnace? That seems awfully high to me (unless, of course, it's an electric one).
The Clintons will sell/give it to the Commies.............
Sadly, that's a fallacy. I actually addressed that in an old post:
An antimatter weapon will probably never be used in warfare... way too inefficient...
IOW, "Ender's Game."
Isn’t this just an electric version of Gerald Bull’s mile long gun? That one accelerated the projectile progressively down the barrel with explosive charges.
I'm quite sure that's being taken into account. Conventional naval fire-control systems are quite accurate and have been for many years. This is especially true after the crusty ol' chief cranks in his ACTH (arbitrary correction to hit, aka a fudge factor). The projectile spinning from the rifling of the barrels does help a lot with the accuracy, though.
Never seen it...
Worth the time?
Call me old school, but I say bring back the battleships launching projectiles the size of VWs into enemy cities. What’s the sense of attaining total air superiority without being able to park a row of battleships offshore with impunity.
We're able to aim ballistic missile warheads to within an accuracy of yards over intercontinental distances, so it doesn't seem unlikely. Plus perhaps we can put terminal guidance on the projectiles
Wasn’t the Army shooting these things ten years ago, using a plastic projectile?
I checked the power-point I posted earlier. The projectile will be a “smart” guided projectile which will steer itself to the target
“According to Dr. Amir Chaboki, the program manager for Electro-Magnetic Rail Guns at BAE Systems, “The power is available. The challenge is how you use it.” The Navy’s electrically propelled DDG 100 Destroyer, Chaboki says, is a prime candidate for the final 64-megajoule system. Around 72 megawatts (MW) of the vessel’s power can be used for propulsion. But during combat, the destroyer’s speed could be brought down, freeing up energy for a rail gun. Chaboki calculates that firing the 64-megajoule weapon six times per minute would require 16 MW of power, which would be supplied by either onboard capacitors or pulsed alternators. The more daunting challenge is the force of the rail gun itself: A few shots can dislodge the conducting rails — or even damage the barrel of the gun.”
That’s six shots per minute with just 16 MW of power — from an electric drive ship, with conventional fuel generators.
China has since the 80's have an an ambition to build an aircraft carrier fleet to control more of the "blue water" open sea rather than "green water" china sea area and coastal waters.
There has been much speculation on how far the Chinese have come in building an aircraft carrier in secret. Nobody really knows for sure even if they have started
By the time China gets a fleet up and running, it will be obsolete.
Unless of course, whoever is the current Democrat occupant the WH sells them the railgun technology for a nice contribution, in complete violation of McCain-Feingold CFR
8<)
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