Or Mach 50 :rofl:
PLAN ships should have these guns
- Thread starter Gallaghan36
- Start date
Or Mach 50 :rofl:
Spartan95
Junior Member
Dude, let me highlight some issues with your fascination with this weapon.
1. It relies on electromagnetic (EM) energy to fire projectiles. That is the equivalent of having a mini Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) going off whenever the gun is fired. It will thus fry any un-shielded electronic systems (radars, radio, GPS, etc) nearby. To provide sufficient shielding to these electronic systems will require significant quantities of lead, which will than render these systems useless since their signals will be blocked by the shielding as well.
2. The current development plan calls for a "full-capability prototype by 2018". How often does Pentagon weapons development program meet deadlines? Conversely, how often does their weapoons development program face delays (and budget over-runs)?
3. The demonstration rail gun used 10.64 megajoules (MJ) to fire 1 projectile. There is no mention of how large that projectile is, how far it will travel when fired with that amount of energy and how much larger a "full-capability prototype" will be as compared to the current demonstration gun. Pretty important details that were left out (deliberately?) don't you think?
4. Mounting such a weapon on a ship at sea will probably turn it into a very expensive lightning rod when it charges up to fire a projectile. 10.64 MJ of electro-magnetic energy may end up becoming a lightning that goes upwards into the clouds! :rofl:
I think this was the video:
It doesn't reveal the mass of the projectile, or answer any of the other questions you asked though.
. Pretty though. .As for the problems with the weapon, yes, it's probably best to have China sit back and let the USA solve all the issues, so they can just copy the complete weapon later.
It seems rail guns have a long way to go.
What about a conventional-rail hybrid, one that does not demand destruction of target from kinetic energy alone but instead fires modified explosive shells at the current required speed using rail gun technology? What it can do is to eliminate the need to carry propellant for the shells. Can it still fire at competitive rate to the current comparable platform (1 shell per 3~4 sec)?
What about a conventional-rail hybrid, one that does not demand destruction of target from kinetic energy alone but instead fires modified explosive shells at the current required speed using rail gun technology? What it can do is to eliminate the need to carry propellant for the shells. Can it still fire at competitive rate to the current comparable platform (1 shell per 3~4 sec)?
I can see the military using explosive shells for a "frag effect" but using them as penetrators may be a bit of a waste. The only real advantage that the railgun has over conventional firearms is that it is capable of propelling projectiles to much higher speed and using explosive warheads isn't really taking advantage of the rail gun's only major advantage.
Speed and range. I would think that range would actually be a much greater advantage than speed.
I disagree. If you really want to go for range there is no reason not to choose guided missiles, which go a lot farther.
Yeah but a railgun projectile is so much cheaper. It's nice to have the ability to shoot cheap projectiles pretty damn far. Sure, it's not as far as a guided missile, but its still far over the horizon, and it costs a lot less and has much less risk of getting intercepted because it's moving so much faster.