Posted on 05/27/2016 10:28:47 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
DAHLGREN, Va.—A warning siren bellowed through the concrete bunker of a top-secret Naval facility where U.S. military engineers prepared to demonstrate a weapon for which there is little defense.
Officials huddled at a video screen for a first look at a deadly new supergun that can fire a 25-pound projectile through seven steel plates and leave a 5-inch hole.
The weapon is called a railgun and requires neither gunpowder nor explosive. It is powered by electromagnetic rails that accelerate a hardened projectile to staggering velocity—a battlefield meteorite with the power to one day transform military strategy, say supporters, and keep the U.S. ahead of advancing Russian and Chinese weaponry.
In conventional guns, a bullet loses velocity from the moment the gunpowder ignites and sends it flying. The railgun projectile instead gains speed as it travels the length of a 32-foot barrel, exiting the muzzle at 4,500 miles an hour, or more than a mile a second.
“This is going to change the way we fight,” said U.S. Navy Adm. Mat Winter, the head of the Office of Naval Research.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
yes that’s almost fast enough to out run a ford truck.
Requires a hit, though. A standard naval gun proximity fused can do significant damage on a near-miss.
I saw that too. Knuckleheads.
“In conventional guns, a bullet loses velocity from the moment the gunpowder ignites and sends it flying. “
If that were the case, explosive guns wouldn’t use long barrels - like rifles.
“25 megawatt of power is enough to light a city.”
You guys are confusing watts with joules. Watts is a measure of power, energy per second. It may require a 25megawatt generator that only operates a second or two.
A 10kg projectile requires 35,000,000 joules to get it to 45000 mph (double that for inefficiencies = 70,000,000 J). Sounds like a lot, but if you are charging a capacitor bank, that’s only 2.5 seconds if you have a 25 megawatt generator (that’s a 33,000 horsepower plus engine)..
read
Right. Since the bullet is still at the moment of ignition, it has to gain a whole lot of velocity before it starts losing velocity.
It ain’t the Watts, it is the Joules - how long does it take to charge the gun at 25 MW?
:D
Thank you for that.
A 25 megawatt power plant and large capacitor bank are required to provide enough pulse power to fire the weapon 10 times a minute.
So that is 150 MegaJoules - 35.85 kg of TNT.
Hillarious picture at article, showing ultra high-tech, 25 megawatt powered gun being loaded by hand.
1000 watts is about 1 horsepower.
One Megawatt used to be enough power for 7,000 houses.
I did not notice the voltage or amperage of the discharge but the instantaneous power must be amazing.
Put a guidance system on the round for anti-aircraft or anti-missile work. No more aircraft within 10-20 miles of the ship.
No more aircraft within 10-20 miles of the ship.
I wonder if an internal guidance system could take the acceleration of the firing?
Actually, 45 Mw for a microsecond is only 45 Joules. Your car could provide that in less than a second - typical car alternator is somewhere in the 1 Kw area, so it would only take .045 seconds to generate that 45 Joules of energy.
But I’m guessing the pulse necessary for a rail gun is probably at least in the 10s of milliseconds area. Let’s say 50 ms. so 45 e06 * 50 e-03 is 2.25 MJ. That would take your car’s alternator a couple thousand seconds to produce.
Yes.
Assuming you could armor-up a tank to defend against this, the weight, and the energy needed to move that weight are impractical to impossible. And the armament? The current Abrams main gun MV of a 120mm sabot round is +/- 5,200 fps (if memory serves). Doesn’t come close to generating the same kinetic force.
Yes, this is a potential game changer. But...how to provide the power to fire this beasty is the $64,000 question.
regards,
Where I used to work, we called them BFCs. Still, you need something to charge them up.
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