I don't imagine this will be quite ready for the first Zumwalt destroyer, but these babies were designed to be able to take advantage of this technology when it does become available.
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.
Aim it at the U. S. / mexico border.
We have already asserted claim to the entire visible universe and are close to asserting claim to the invisible universe as well.
I’ve always thought, and I’m sure it’s in the works,
that an unmanned fighter/bomber could be run by 3-6 videogame jocks back in a bunker.
It could perform maneuvers that a pilot couldn’t withstand, and not have to employ the weight required to accomodate a pilot.
Plus, you have all of the individuals in charge of different aspects of air battle, each able to concentrate instead of getting distracted by other aspects of battle, and fear of getting tagged.
I don't imagine this will be quite ready for the first Zumwalt destroyer, but these babies were designed to be able to take advantage of this technology when it does become available.
The handheld version’s only drawback is the back-pack sized quick-discharge capacitor. Only weighs in at 500lbs, though.
if I did my math right rather quickly just now, that’s 1.5 miles per second.
Yes, but wouldn’t it eliminate fallout?
Test it on Imanutjob. See if we can shoot a BB up his butt and out his ear.
Imagine the fish you could catch by shocking them with that.
WOW! Just look at that! Firing up and over the hill?
This will be a great incentive to get more women to enlist. It’s so far away, it takes out the “ewwww” factor we ladies don’t like.
“Suzy, I didn’t even break a nail!”
Given that an anti-matter/matter explosion would probably be in the hundreds of megaton range with a 5 inch shell, it might not be necessary to be too precise with targeting.
Give or take a mile or so would do it for even hard targets, I think.
~snorrfle!~ I’m loving that!
“Here, mussy, mussy, mussy...”
You’re funny... I like that!
I don’t think it will be “silent”. The amount of electrical energy that is discharged to fire the magnetics will most LIKELY make some powerful popping sounds. And... there will be a sonic boom from the projectile (of course if you heard it, it’s too late for someone already up ahead and they won’t be hearing the projectile at all)
With over ten megajoules behind it, I don't think that the vacuum from a few feet of barrel length would make that much difference overall.
Not really. E=1/2 mass X velocity squared
Expect a 40 foot crater.
The beautiful thing is that the firing ship can carry twice to three times as much ammo in the same space and has no explosive, damage control worries. Well, that and hitting something 200 miles away with a suborbital, guided munition travelling 5-10 times faster than the fastest bullets.
OK...
F=ma
a = zero to mach 7 divided by time it takes to travel the barrel
m = mass of the projectile
F = tear your shoulder clean off
The laser guns and beam cannons are equally limited by their power source. While a projectile would be far slower than a wavefront, it would be unwise to underestimate kinetic energy.
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