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| Yesterday's Science Fiction https://gladerebooted.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4937 |
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| Author: | Micheal [ Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:32 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Yesterday's Science Fiction |
is today's railgun, no kidding. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 0121007476 Railgun, futuristic weapon, tested by Navy By Michael E. Ruane Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 10, 2010; 10:30 PM The red and yellow warning flags were out. The gun range was cleared. The klaxon sounded. "System is enabled," the voice on the speakerphone said. There was a pause, then a distant thud, that could be felt through the floor. "Gun is fired," the voice said. Inside a cavernous building at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., Friday, a gigantic pulse of electricity hurled a 20-pound slug of aluminum out the barrel of an experimental gun at seven times the speed of sound. The slug trailed a pillar of fire as it left the weapon and the building, illuminating the surrounding woods like a giant flashbulb. It streaked down range, generating a small sonic boom, and traveled about 5,500 feet before tumbling to the ground harmlessly. In an adjacent building, there was a round of applause from observing scientists. It was the latest test of the Navy's electromagnetic railgun - a futuristic weapon that is right out of the latest video war game, and could one day change the face of Naval warfare. Roger Ellis, the railgun program manager, said people "see these things in the video games, but this is real. This is what is very historical." The gun is fired with a huge jolt of electricity that can propel a round over 100 miles, and at such velocity that it does not need an explosive warhead. Two tests were conducted Friday - the first of which the Navy said generated a world record 33 meagajoules of force out of the barrel. The second shot, witnessed by reporters, produced 32 megajoules. Forty-five minutes after the second shot, a part of the battered bullet that was retrieved from the range was still warm to the touch. The Navy hopes the railgun might bring a sci-fi level of range and fire power to its fleets of the future. "It's exhilarating," Dr. Elizabeth D'Andrea, the railgun project's strategic director, said after the test. This Story The gun itself doesn't look much like a gun. It consists of two rails, along which a surge of electricity runs. They are bolted inside a long oblong box the length of a tractor trailer. Bundles of thick black cables feed into one end of the box, where the slug is loaded between the rails. When the power is fed through the rails it creates a surge that flings the slug along and out the muzzle at tremendous speed. Charles Garnett, the railgun project manager at Dahlgren, said it gets its power the same way a pocket camera builds up energy to operate its flash, but on a much larger scale. The use of electricity to power such a round would change the way naval guns have been fired with explosive propellants like gunpowder for centuries, the Navy said. The electromagnetic railgun was once a focus of the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars." It was a seen as a weapon that might shoot down incoming nuclear missiles. A quarter century later, the Navy hopes it might soon provide a ship fast, new, long-range fire power. "It's a very important technology," said Rear Admiral Nevin P. Carr Jr., chief of Naval Research, although "this is not a weapon that's going to be here tomorrow." Carr, in a telephone interview Thursday, said it also makes for an excellent defensive weapon against such things as enemy cruise missiles. Indeed, the Navy railgun project's Latin motto is "velocitas eradico," roughly "speed destroys." Carr said the Navy had been working toward a railgun that could fire a 64 megajoule shot, with a range of 200 miles. "I am not as focused on that number today," he said. "We're more interested in getting capability to the fleet sooner." He said he would like to see a railgun demonstrated at sea by 2018 and deployed on ships in the early 2020s. After that, further research could make the gun even more powerful. He said the project so far has cost about $211 million. ad_icon The first railgun test at Dahlgren took place in 2006, the Navy has said. Carr said a ship with railguns would need no conventional propellant to fire the weapon, because the non-explosive projectile would be fired with a huge jolt of electricity. That would make the ship safer for the crew and allow the vessel to carry ten times more ammunition, he said. "It's more than just a better way to push a bullet out the barrel," he said. "Another point . . . is a railgun is not a gun. It's a launcher." Carr said the "bullet" is hurled into the atmosphere in seconds and can descend on a target in minutes, at a speed of about Mach 5. "That's pretty juicy technology," he said. |
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| Author: | Rodahn [ Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:43 am ] |
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I ain't impressed until it can travel at the speed of light, pass through anything, and pwn n00bs in a deathmatch. |
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| Author: | Midgen [ Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:50 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
Queue DE? |
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| Author: | Gorse [ Sun Dec 12, 2010 7:42 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Yesterday's Science Fiction |
DE? What about someone else? Or more correctly what do you want to know? Is it real? Yes, the technology exists and is being developed for shipboard deployment. The obvious next step is precision / smart munitions for accuracy. |
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| Author: | Raltar [ Sun Dec 12, 2010 1:43 pm ] |
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Needs to be hand held. Then it would be awesome. |
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| Author: | Rorinthas [ Sun Dec 12, 2010 1:57 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Yesterday's Science Fiction |
Raltar wrote: Needs to be hand held. Then it would be awesome. Yeah but you got to start somewhere. |
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| Author: | Midgen [ Sun Dec 12, 2010 1:59 pm ] |
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I don't want to know anything. I was just cracking an inside joke about DE lamenting the lack of a Railgun as possible weapon choices for his EQ Shadow Knight. :p |
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| Author: | Kaffis Mark V [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 7:10 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: |
Raltar wrote: Needs to be hand held. Then it would be awesome. Railguns still follow the laws of physics, dude. You couldn't/wouldn't want to handle the recoil of a hand-mounted variety. Also highly problematic would be the power supply, of course... |
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| Author: | Ladas [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:08 am ] |
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I thought friction on the rails was the big killer to this technology. I thought previous versions of the weapon were only good for about 5 or so shots before the rails were destroyed. Perhaps I mis-remembering. |
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| Author: | Screeling [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:13 am ] |
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Give me one of those and I'll be all like "BOOM! HEAD SHOT!" |
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| Author: | TheRiov [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:17 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Re: |
Kaffis Mark V wrote: Raltar wrote: Needs to be hand held. Then it would be awesome. Railguns still follow the laws of physics, dude. You couldn't/wouldn't want to handle the recoil of a hand-mounted variety. Also highly problematic would be the power supply, of course... Recoil could be countered by firing a projectile in both directions. Perhaps not practical, but possible. Power supply is of course the major factor. The fact is that projectiles such as bullets or railgun slugs do damage because of the energy they release when they hit their target. But for that energy to come out, it has to be put IN to the slug. |
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| Author: | Ladas [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:52 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Re: |
Kaffis Mark V wrote: Raltar wrote: Needs to be hand held. Then it would be awesome. Railguns still follow the laws of physics, dude. You couldn't/wouldn't want to handle the recoil of a hand-mounted variety. Also highly problematic would be the power supply, of course... And following the laws of physics, the recoil from a handheld rail gun would be exactly the same as the recoil from current guns, assuming the same projectile mass and exit velocity. |
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| Author: | Kaffis Mark V [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:53 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Re: |
Ladas wrote: Kaffis Mark V wrote: Raltar wrote: Needs to be hand held. Then it would be awesome. Railguns still follow the laws of physics, dude. You couldn't/wouldn't want to handle the recoil of a hand-mounted variety. Also highly problematic would be the power supply, of course... And following the laws of physics, the recoil from a handheld rail gun would be exactly the same as the recoil from current guns, assuming the same projectile mass and exit velocity. At which point, you've gained no benefit by switching to a handheld railgun. In fact, in the quantities in which ammo is carried, gunpowder is a far more efficient energy storage system than batteries. The reason it becomes practical for the Navy is because they're hauling around nuke reactors anyways. |
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| Author: | Ladas [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:06 pm ] |
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I don't disagree. I was just commenting recoil here is not the limiting factor. It is still a handgun, so you aren't going to be shooting anything larger than current rounds, and you aren't going to be shooting things 200 miles away. Wanting a handgun version of this would only be for the coolness factor, and then as you said, energy is the problem. |
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| Author: | Lex Luthor [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:34 pm ] |
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The video of it is pretty awesome. |
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| Author: | Raltar [ Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:57 pm ] |
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They had gauss rifles in Fallout, they can have them irl too! Damnit! |
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| Author: | Numbuk [ Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:07 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Yesterday's Science Fiction |
In other news, Vanessa Williams seems to have some information about the company manufacturing this weapon but she cannot be reached by anyone for comment. |
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| Author: | Lex Luthor [ Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:08 pm ] |
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Maybe they can use this against the Somali Pirates... I bet it could sink a raft. |
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| Author: | Hopwin [ Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:10 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Yesterday's Science Fiction |
Numbuk wrote: In other news, Vanessa Williams seems to have some information about the company manufacturing this weapon but she cannot be reached by anyone for comment. LOL Win |
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| Author: | Nevandal [ Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:55 pm ] |
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All that needs to happen now is for the rail gun to be outfitted with a stealth nuclear missile and strapped to the arm of a bipedal tank... |
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| Author: | Lex Luthor [ Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:56 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
I think a shark with a mounted rail gun would be pretty cool. With lasers. |
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| Author: | Talya [ Wed Dec 15, 2010 12:10 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Re: |
Kaffis Mark V wrote: Railguns still follow the laws of physics, dude. You couldn't/wouldn't want to handle the recoil of a hand-mounted variety. Also highly problematic would be the power supply, of course... The idea with a handheld railgun is speed (and therefore also accuracy) and penetrating power. You use a very small, very tough, needle-like round that will go right through armor. The actual mass is low, but this is compensated for because the velocity is exceptionally high. Thanks to the low mass of the round, the recoil isn't that bad. Not very efficient or practical, I think, but would make one heck of a nice expensive armor-piercing sniper rifle. |
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| Author: | Vindicarre [ Wed Dec 15, 2010 1:27 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
A very small needle-like round that is fired from a weapon with enough velocity to penetrate armor will: 1) Still have sizable recoil if the armor is substantial 2) Do as much damage as a needle, that is to say not much. You'll end up with a needle sized hole in the armor and an opponent that suffered next to no trauma. |
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| Author: | Corolinth [ Wed Dec 15, 2010 1:40 pm ] |
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It will snap into multiple pieces once it leaves the muzzle. |
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| Author: | TheRiov [ Wed Dec 15, 2010 1:40 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
I still like the railgun-fired chainsaws idea |
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