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.
Leftists would get upset about “polluting the sun”.
That’s a hell of a flux capacitor. Much more than a 12-cup Mr Fusion can provide.
LOL. Wasn’t it dolphins that he wanted to outfit with laser beams on the head?
I’m still trying to convert magajoules to megawatts...
Sounds like BATTLEFIELD 1942, or HALO...or Ender’s Game? Bring it on!
ping
“They could take out a single vehicle from far out at sea, perhaps, rather than pulverising a whole area like present-day cruise missiles.”
My thought, too, is that the first one on the block is going to have a tremendous advantage. Can you imagine, taking out one vehicle, and everyone looking around for a blown up suicide bomber?
Priceless.
I don't follow your connecting fallout with my comments on ua fighter/bombers. Clarify if you'd like to. As far as faster, it's almost always better. Faster to target, longer loiter time, faster kills; all possible with unmanned fighter/bombers .
How about a beam weapon that could be fired from a nuke sub's periscope tower? Or some other device that could be cranked up to surface level, with a long extension cord down to the sub?
If it's just straight electricity look for surface warfare ships to turn into floating nuclear reactors with LOTS of ammo capabilities.
That’s right, about 1 mile/second at terminal velocity. With that velocity, and the 33 lb planned projectile, this much kinetic energy could do some serious damage.
That's what they say.
A few years ago I had to investigate these things. I thought it would be great fun to work with such snazzy gadgets.
Many but not all of the physical properties of these things are as claimed. However, for the foreseeable future, there will remain fundamental problems that make the claims of operational usefulness of these type weapons (and hence most of the article) a bunch of fund raising propoganda.
In other words, I am not calling it pure BS but the stuff has already past the second stomach.
Not to mention the infamous levitating magnetic trains!
Stick them on an AWACS at 50K feet about 150 miles back and you'd probably be a lot closer to the truth. Even 100 ms latency can be bad when flying remotely.
Your enthusiasm for owning one might be tempered by the practical problem of having to build a power plant in your back yard. You are probably not zoned for that sort of thing, plus the neighbors definitely would not like the coal pile (or the oil tanks or the nuclear reactor, depending on your preference for fuel).
I have a real issue with this claim. I call B.S. No way unless this thing is aimed to escape the atmosphere is it going to coast 200 miles and still be going Mach 5..............
If I remember my math correctly it's about 14 kilotons per gram of antimatter. (That might be low by a factor of 2, but not further off).
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