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 ...
“Its coils and power generating systems would not be overloaded?”
No they wouldn’t and yes I am willing to bet...
So it is your assertion that the Navy plans to send these out in fleets of one,and that the rail gun would be the only armament?
It seems to be a current fascination by many here, the latest toy to play with. Toys are fun, but defending the country is never a game. As I said, play with your toys if you must, but there has been enough “play time” in the last six years with our military. Keep the mainstays tried and true, and leave the playtime to that infantile ass in the whitehut.
New “toys” are how we keep an advantage.
We’d still be waging war with muskets if not for forward thinkers and their toys.
They'll never see it coming. True "Rocket Science".
Bingo! Or an Obama-loyalist captain will "inadvertantly" sail into Chinese waters and allow the ship to get captured. The entire crew will be released unharmed, and the captain will get a Navy Cross from Soetoro for not provoking a war.
Five years later the Chinese will have 100 of them circling Taiwan.
I have to think that tactical EMP are long passed the drawing board.
Every new weapons development is deemed “a toy.”
This is the root of Germany capitalizing on Charles De Gaulle’s observations on mechanized warfare before the French and the allies, and behind the US disastrously delaying the addoption of Billy Mitchell’s air power docterines.
As the rest of the world dismissed the potential of a flotilla of small missile boats, Israel deployed the first such fleet in the Yom Kipper war.
Your knee jerk attitude is noted.
Adsolutely there are weapons developments which are lemons.
There are also game changers.
Just trying to get the jump on Obama?
I’m noo expert by any means of course but with the advancement of ASBMs being what it is, it seems like energy weapons are the logical counter measure.
Perhaps, but an arrow from a longbow, a BB from a BB gun, a rock from a sling, etc, etc, all fire projectiles into the atmosphere.
Mr. Klunder might be a little more precise.
Not sure what you are making a clear case of.
USS Idaho fought well in the Pacific, including at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, suffering little damage. Eventually decomissioned in '46.
Did you mean the USS Iowa?
The plans are already in the hands of the Chinese.
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