40 pound projectiles traveling at 8,210 feet per second to ranges of 50-100 nautical miles.
If we devote every cent from the next 711 FReepathons we can have it!
How far did the big guns on WW II ships deliver to their targets??
It’s been a long time since I saw an episode of ‘Victory At Sea”, but I seem to remember they could hit a target from a great distance.
When I was an aerospace engineer I designed an air-launched 100 kg projectile that could be fired straight into low Earth orbit. Cheap launch for small satellites.
The gun could also fire shells of over 200 kg at ground targets from 1000 km away. At 5 km/sec closing velocity they would have excellent penetration capability.
The gun itself was heavy, but a 747 could handle the load
The secret sauce that makes such a feat possible is still not known to the larger aerospace community.
If any contractors want to pick my brain on how to do this, I am available as a consultant.
You can see how I earned my nickname.
The grammar in that article is atrocious. Existing railguns???
That being said I had heard that the projectile velocity for the GE gun (assuming this is it) at 100 miles was equal to the muzzle velocity of the existing cannons...
8000+- fps isn’t that impressive considering Polish AT rifles were approaching that in the 30’s.
But unless the range goes up beyond a couple hundred miles, I don't think this is very useful. On ships, this is a much lower range than cruise missles and aircraft carriers, so against them the ship is at a disadvantage.
However, if they get the range up to a couple thousand miles, then its a game changer. We could even build launchers up the sides of Hawaii volcanoes, and cover the entire pacific. They would be invulnerable to torpedoes and cruise missles, ony a nuke would take them out.