Posted on 04/07/2014 6:43:27 PM PDT by mandaladon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy is planning sea trials for a weapon that can fire a low-cost, 23-pound (10-kg) projectile at seven times the speed of sound using electromagnetic energy, a "Star Wars" technology that will make enemies think twice, the Navy's research chief said.
Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, the chief of Naval Research, told a round table group recently the futuristic electromagnetic rail gun had already undergone extensive testing on land and would be mounted on the USNS Millinocket, a high-speed vessel, for sea trials beginning in 2016.
"It's now reality and it's not science fiction. It's actually real. You can look at it. It's firing," said Klunder, who planned to discuss progress on the system later on Monday with military and industry leaders at a major maritime event - the Sea-Air-Space Exposition - near Washington.
"It will help us in air defense, it will help us in cruise missile defense, it will help us in ballistic missile defense," he said. "We're also talking about a gun that's going to shoot a projectile that's about one one-hundredth of the cost of an existing missile system today."
The Navy research chief said that cost differential - $25,000 for a railgun projectile versus $500,000 to $1.5 million for a missile - will make potential enemies think twice about the economic viability of engaging U.S. forces.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The return of the battleship?
What would happen to a rail-gun if a powerful EMP went off nearby?
Cool new military weaponry ping.
If you want to take out a city, use an ICBM.
If you want to take out a radar station, use a tomahawk.
If you want to maintain air superiority and perform interdiction, move a carrier into the area.
Once those things are in place, having a ship that can devastate anything within 100 miles of the coast sure makes land attack easy and paves the way for the Marines. NOTE: the list of juicy targets within 100 miles of the coast (around the world) is very long. The list of juicy targets more than 100 miles from the coast is much shorter.
Depends on how it is built. Its quite possible to make anything robust enough to withstand an EMP, and EMP threats are primarily to devices using low current.
So, wait until the rail gun ship gets two hundred miles from your coastline, launch a cruise missle at it, and sink the ship before it fires a shot.
But you can overload it`s systems and that would leave a ship so armed, unless it had good old fashioned guns and missiles, defenseless.
We actually do know how to protect our ships, and we are capable of removing threats or countering threats as we make our deployment choices. The ships with railguns are not going to be sitting ducks.
Is the national grid lower power device?
I seem to remember someone saying those power lines carry a hell of a lot of voltage, were they wrong?
Phalanx guns do a pretty good job of protecting against most airborne threats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb5lKhqqhTg
Oh, and those power-grid transformers, wouldn`t they use something similar to step up voltage for those rail guns? Perhaps high power capacitors too? And lets not forget the generators.
“What would happen to a rail-gun if a powerful EMP went off nearby?”
Nothing...
If your cruise missile makes it to the target at all.
Don’t worry, Obama or Hagel will cancel it.
“If you want to take out a city, use an ICBM.”
If you want to take out an aircraft carrier, use an ICBM.
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