Navy Electromagnetic Rail Gun Fires GPS Controlled Bullets at 5,600 mph

Gadizmo ^ | 2 August 2012 | R.J. Huneke

[moonshot925]

What navy would not want a two-foot-long GPS-guided bullet that can be fired from a gargantuan cannon built right into a warship?

Did you know that we already have bullets that can strike an enemy thirty miles away?

This new government project hopes to utilize the current artillery and rail guns aboard US warships, with just a minor tweaking: fast (5,600 mph), GPS-controlled, twenty plus pound bullets that can travel potentially hundreds of miles and strike with pinpoint accuracy.

Announced on July 19, the new program is called Hyper Velocity Projectile, and plans to build on such successes as the 5” Mark 45 Mod guns that already reach farther than 30 miles.

Missiles could very well be going the extinct way of the dinosaurs, as these colossal bullets will be much cheaper and safer to produce in massive quantities.

[moonshot925]

This is game changing technology.

40 pound projectiles traveling at 8,210 feet per second to ranges of 50-100 nautical miles.

[EEGator]

I want one.

[cuban leaf]

—8,210 feet per second—

Crap! That’s faster than my Scion!

[DonkeyBonker]

I think there is a place or two in Iran that they could test these on.

[China Clipper]

What was that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that featured that gun that fired the projectile at "near light speed"?

That is what came to my mind.....

[null and void]

Only up hill...

[Crolis]

I think it was “Eraser”.

[MrEdd]

When this is fieldable, it changes the ballance between air and ground units.

This has been in the works for a long time, and is a primary driving force behind the push for the development of small, harder to detect and kill unmanned drones.

[Fedupwithit]

Eraser

[mikeus_maximus]

Bring on the Cylons!

[China Clipper]

[guitar4jesus]

". . . GPS Controlled Bullets . . ."

Now there's an Achilles heal . . .

[guitar4jesus]

Whoops, "heel" . . . . Didn't get much sleep last night ;-)

[Red Badger]

I want a whole bunch!......

[Red Badger]

Yes, but does it use green energy?.............

[cuban leaf]

Imagine you are 20 miles from the landing point. I wonder what one of those things whizzing by a hundred feet over your head would sound like.

[Red Badger]

You would not hear it...............

[rockinqsranch]

“........then steer that bad boy around the children smashing matchbox cars in the front yard and hit the right target inside the kitchen window . . . BOOM!”

So whadder they sayin’? Momma better learn to cook?

[albionin]

That is 1/3 of the velocity needed to escape the gravity well. with more power and a longer rail we could take out satelites. Of course hitting them might be a little tricky.

[cuban leaf]

—You would not hear it...—

I mean as it streaks through the air, still 20 miles from it’s target. A large metal pojectile streaking through the air at many times the speed of sound would have to make one hell of a racket, preceded by a sonic boom, of course.