Is this the end for Holy Black???

[Dick Dastardly]

The Navy has found this thing promising.  Will guns of the future go zap instead of BOOM??

Steel Horse, ya cud make a comment here. . .

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/012007/01172007/251373

DD-DLoS

[J.J. Ferrett]

Railguns have been around for a while, and i doubt if they will affect us much, unless the powers that be designate 'Wild Wild West' to be period and allowable.

I am actually suprised that these havent been seen more. As a ship borne weapon, these things could be fantastic. As an anti-missile, or even a ground to space weapon, these things will come into their own!

As I understand, the problem has been creating enough energy in a small enough package to be able to power these things. Now that we have (large) suitcase sized nuclear power supplies, the 'dream' should soon become a reality. The other problem has been the space that these things have taken. Up to recently, a medium powered rail gun would take up a LOT of space. Space for the magnets, space for the power supply, etc. and some of these things were 100+ yards long just to get the projectile up to speed.

I will be impressed when someone realises that using magnetics, and doughnut electromagnets... ionised plasma would make a fantastic projectile!!! 

[litl rooster]

Seen it on Modern Marvels...
You could change class's and shoot B Movie under Buck Rodgers



DD you reading the paper out of Freddy   you thinkin' of moving down here to the land Grits?

[Dick Dastardly]

I'd love to move south Lil Rooster.  Problem is, with all this global warmin' hype, I may not have to move at all.  Accordin' to Al Gore the South's comin' North.

I found the rail gun thing someplace else.  I figure if it's in the civilian news, our spooks already have it workin' somewhere.  Sure would be a great way to send beer up the space station tho. .

DD-DLoS

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Howdy, all!

Yep, as Mr. J.J. Ferrett mentioned, this isn't a new idea.  It goes back about 20-25 years (or more) - 'bout the same time that the first "MagLev" trains started getting attention. (MagLev = Magnetic Levitation.)  It's the old magnet thing, where opposite poles attract, and like poles repel.  The power supply is the big stumbling block.  They showed us in MG school proposed designs for unmanned tracked vehicles with "railguns."  Pretty impressive for anti-armor and other line-of-sight weapons, including anti-missile, anti-aircraft and even anti-satellite weapons.  Except for anti-ship applications, I don't see a lot of Naval bombardment use for this, unless they can figure how to make explosive shells that don't self-destruct because of the acceleration forces.  They ARE working on PIBD rounds: Point-Initiating-Base-Detonating rounds like those used in present day anti-armor rounds and missiles (like 120mm HEAT [High Explosive Anti Tank] rounds and Hellfire missiles) - works like a shaped charge that can survive the MASSIVE G-Forces.

Not long ago, there was a report of the test results from a very successful test, where the projectile exceeded 25,000 MPH !     Friends, that's powerful!  Oh, by the way, the projectile weighed 4 oz. and was made of nylon/plastic (whatever), covered with an electrically conductive material and penetrated 'thru something like 6 FEET of armor steel!!    Proposed weapons grade projectiles would be metallic or ceramic or ... ? and would be measured in pounds, not plastic.  The old  'tornado-drives-a-straw-into-or-through-a-tree'  thing.  I've heard,  but can't confirm, that diamonds have been shattered in tests ... but, heck - a hammer can shatter a diamond if hit on the exact right point.

It's coming, but I don't think it'll ever replace the old C&B or other BP guns.  Yeah, I suppose it won't affect many smokey-less guns either ... but none of us shoot THEM ... do we?     

[Grizzle Bear]

This article contains a large quantity of male bovine excrement.

Remember that, with any projectile, drag increases as the square of the velocity.  So, the faster you launch the thing, the faster it slows down.

If you could achieve enough velocity to throw something 200+ miles, it would burn up from friction with the air before it got more than a few miles.

A hypersonic railgun would be an excellent weapon IN OUTER SPACE, but down here on Earth, they suck.

Plus, as they did note, you are going to need large, heavy generators, and large, heavy (cryogenically cooled) magnet coils.

Barring the invention of some sort of "warp drive", I think chemical propellants, in guns and rockets, are still going to be our best bet for shooting the bad guys.

Grizzle Bear

[Arcey]

Heck, if they've released that much info ya can bet there's a pile of info that's still classified we ain't gonna know about until that, itself, is old news.

[Adirondack Jack]

I think there is potential for ship-based weapons in the fairly near term.  Ya got a nuclear reactor to generate power, and a ship can hold a lotta gear.  Imagine tossing something along the lines of our "bunker buster" bomb (which my uncle was involved with as head engineer of new products when it was developed.  It's nothing more than a scrap cannon barrel with High E inside, a guidance package and some fins and a nose cone.

Take that long, needle-shaped critter, zip it down a rail mounted on a carrier deck, at say a 30 degree launch angle, and ya could probably "horizontally bomb" a target at some distance. 

[Dick Dastardly]

Whew!  Here I thought we'd be shootin' mini rail guns at our matches.  Power packs on our gun carts and all that.  No idea how to make a rail scattergun. . .

Fun sci-fi article anyway.

DD-DLoS

[Sod Buster]

Whew!  Here I thought we'd be shootin' mini rail guns at our matches.  Power packs on our gun carts and all that.  No idea how to make a rail scattergun. . .

Not until we discuss the Min/Max Power Factor! 

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Sodbuster said:

"Not until we discuss the Min/Max Power Factor!"


Finally, some common sense! 

[DJ]

There would have to be a rule for knockdowns that states whether passing through a target counts as a knockdown.

[J.J. Ferrett]

Hey... if it doesnt go down.. its not counted!!!

I wonder what the RO would say to someone who vaporised the steel plate!!

NASA has been looking into the rail gun tech for launching deep space probes, etc. A railgun 100 yards long would be built in orbit that could launch a 'spacecraft' at a few thousand times the MAX speed of our current rockets.  I dont think this will ever catch on for manned space travel though, the G forces would liquidise the passengers.

[Grizzle Bear]

NASA has been looking into the rail gun tech for launching deep space probes, etc. A railgun 100 yards long would be built in orbit that could launch a 'spacecraft' at a few thousand times the MAX speed of our current rockets.  I dont think this will ever catch on for manned space travel though, the G forces would liquidise the passengers.

"Set railgun to "liquify" and launch!"

Grizzle Bear

[Dick Dastardly]

A Geezer named Newton wrote somethin' about equal and opposite reactions.  A rail gun in space would have to follow those rules.

I'm wonderin' whut kind of holster I'd for a brace of "Sixgun Rail Barreled Revolvers"

DD-DLoS

[litl rooster]

A Geezer named Newton wrote somethin' about equal and opposite reactions.  A rail gun in space would have to follow those rules.

I'm wonderin' whut kind of holster I'd for a brace of "Sixgun Rail Barreled Revolvers"

DD-DLoS

A large one

I'd love to move south Lil Rooster.  Problem is, with all this global warmin' hype, I may not have to move at all.  Accordin' to Al Gore the South's comin' North.

DD-DLoS

Good thing he's watchin' out fer us

[Frenchie]

I wonder what the RO would say to someone who vaporised the steel plate!!

Not sure, but I bet he'd say it politely!

NASA has been looking into the rail gun tech for launching deep space probes, etc. A rail gun 100 yards long would be built in orbit that could launch a 'spacecraft' at a few thousand times the MAX speed of our current rockets.  I dont think this will ever catch on for manned space travel though, the G forces would liquidise the passengers.

Set up strip mines on the Moon. Bundle the ore inside shaped "containers" of worthless slag. Load it on a rail launcher, aim it to enter Earth's atmosphere and accelerate that sucker to Ridiculous Speed or even Plaid. Worthless slag ablates the heat of reentry, ore comes down someplace it won't hurt nothin' important - drop it on New Jersey, for instance. Use the ore to build the Mother Of All Border Walls.

I gotta get this idea patented...

[Grizzle Bear]

Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein and see what they do with a Lunar railgun.

Grizzle Bear

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Yep.  Heinlein pegged it.  And he wrote about it in the 50s.  That's whut I meant when I said that it twernt zackly a new idear.

[Wallaby Jack]

Well, I'll take a different tack, and speculate on the requirement of conventional naval gun propellant being "Pluto'd" and thus reducing the need for BlackPowder production worldwide ......... 

Really High prices, ........... IF you can find it to buy ... 


I'm thinkin' we need to fight this trend ......