Posted on 01/01/2019 6:48:45 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
The world was shocked when pictures began circulating early last year of a strange, large gun seemingly bolted to the bows of a Chinese amphibious assault ship.
It turned out to be the world’s first naval rail gun. Now it’s been pictured in operation.
A hazy image of the oddly-shaped ship with its oversized gun sailing in the open ocean has been released on China’s tightly controlled social media networks.
It shows the vessel undergoing testing on the open ocean.
If true, it means Beijing has beaten the United States — and the world — to getting the next generation weapon into operational testing.
CHALLENGING CAPABILITY
The Type 072II Yuting-class tank landing ship Haiyangshan has been converted from its previous role to become an experimental testbed. This is likely because its open cargo bay is capable of holding the extensive array of batteries and generators necessary to power the next-generation weapon.
While still no warship, the cannon it carries is a fearsome sign of things to come.
It does away with the heat, pressure and residue of gunpowder-powered cannons.
Instead, it uses intense bursts of energy to build a focused magnetic field capable of flinging out cannon shells at many times the speed of sound.
This gives the gun much greater speed, range — and accuracy — than conventional cannons.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
blah. they also have an aircraft carrier, but aren’t capable of air ops. russian military hardware is historically crap, and the russian navy is historically incompetent.
gonna hafta skeer me another way.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a14106941/us-navy-railgun-may-be-dead/
Problem is the rate of fire and the ability to actually track a target to hit it at the ranges that the Rail Gun advantages can kick in.
please substitute “china” for “russia” in the previous hastily typed post.
When one uses haste to communicate, it tends to result in misunderstandings.
"...railgun..."
I’m not much worried. All this trotting out of new military tech seems weird to me. Why would you want your enemies to know what you have in your arsenal?
Or is this “foreign intervention” to make the stock market go down?
blah. easy typo to make: sukoi usually tries to scare us with russian fairy tales, not chinese fairy tales.
Energy requirements for a railgun are enormous. I don't see how an amphibious assault ship can supply such power. As a floating testbed, it might work -- perhaps they load the ship with some sort of energy source or battery storage.
In the US, part of the focus has been on integrated power systems that can be tapped as needed and provide the electricity which is needed.
And there are other issues as well. I think China is not as far along as they want people to think.
the iranians have a cardboard aircraft carrier and the plywood stealth drone. this looks about as formidable.
Our Subs could make short work of 80% of the Chinese Navy before they knew what hit them.
the big winners in this chinese photo op are probably the navy brass at the next budget hearing.
They probably have a very long extension cord.
The use the energy left over from the vacant 30 million homes that the Chicoms have built
Looks somewhat short to work as intended.
I tend to agree, though none of us know for sure. That said, what Trump has done by simply standing up for the US and fighting back in the trade war that already existed is to have already diminished the Chinese economy and thus their ability to develop weapons systems. We owe him a lot, and all of us should be willing to fight for him against people like Schumer, Pelosi, Mueller, etc., as he has fought for us.
Yeah, I don’t see it a feasible either.
A railgun would use an amazing amount of electricity, then the recoil would be huge, thus throwing some of the electrical equipment off kilter, and the next time they fired the rail would create a massive electrical arc due to misalignment and blow off the bow.
That’s completely ignoring the issue of the heating of the rails.
USN abandoned it, due to poor anticipated utility.
I seriously doubt that a barrel that short can toss a significant size shell at the speed of sound non the less multi mach. On top of that the coils around the barrel are very small to be able to create a significant gauss.
Propaganda methinks.
xactly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.