PLAN ships should have these guns

delft

Brigadier
Two remarks:
1. Guns, of the type depicted in European manuscripts of the early 14th century, are depicted in China in the late 12th century.
2. A smooth bore tank gun fires at a muzzle velocity of some 1.6 km/s. Using a larger calibre, say 200 or 300 mm, and liquid fuel should give a muzzle velocity of 1.8 to 2.0 km/s, enough for your range of 200 km, and without burning out your electronics. Adding a rocket motor could significantly increase the range. Using control fins and electronic guidance should provide for precision delivery on land. A target seeker might enable you to hit a ship.
A ship carrying such a weapon should be called a monitor. Can it be built as a railway gun?
 

rhino123

Pencil Pusher
VIP Professional
Here is where we disagree. Although I don't think that the PLA should not too hastily induct "sci-fi" weapons they should definitely research them. Take the firearms, for example. When they first came out in the early 14th century they were inaccurate and very inconvenient to fire. In just two centuries, however, they replaced crossbows as the most commonly used infantry projectile weapon in Europe and we know how things went from there. While lasers and railguns may seem awkward and cumbersome to use now we never know just how lethal and effective they will become when the necessary technological hurdles are overcome (which may happen very quickly given the rate of technological development these days).

Yes, I agreed with you here. Weapons of todays are sci-fi in the past... heck even crossbows are hi-tech equipment one thousands plus years ago. And sure, China should looked into and research into these weaponries. What I am pointing out is the problems with railguns at present moment.

Plus I am saying that not because US is doing research into these weapons, should China immediately jumped into the fray and develope a countermeasure for it, because;

1) No one know how will railgun function yet.
2) What was US intenting to do with the railgun, anti-air? Artillery? direct attack, indirect attacks? etc.

So without these knowledge, and still insisting in jumping into it, would be like a headless fly, you do not know what you wanted to defend against, how the railgun is coming after you, etc, etc.

I believe that China do have a very advance level of research into lasers at the present moment and this has been discussed in another thread. Another area is the railgun application, I believe CHina do have a research in this area too (someone had pointed it out before, couldn't remember who and don't know which thread it was, it was too far back already).

So to have a research program going on and to jump fully into induction of this new equipment or defenses against these new weaponries are totally different matter.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Two remarks:
1. Guns, of the type depicted in European manuscripts of the early 14th century, are depicted in China in the late 12th century.
2. A smooth bore tank gun fires at a muzzle velocity of some 1.6 km/s. Using a larger calibre, say 200 or 300 mm, and liquid fuel should give a muzzle velocity of 1.8 to 2.0 km/s, enough for your range of 200 km, and without burning out your electronics. Adding a rocket motor could significantly increase the range. Using control fins and electronic guidance should provide for precision delivery on land. A target seeker might enable you to hit a ship.
A ship carrying such a weapon should be called a monitor. Can it be built as a railway gun?

The 12th century Chinese depiction was not that of a true gun but a firelance, a bamboo gunpower based flamethrower that also hurled bits of sharp metal and pebbles. The first true metal gun was invented in China in the late 13th century but the technology took off in the 14th.

So to have a research program going on and to jump fully into induction of this new equipment or defenses against these new weaponries are totally different matter.

That I completely agree with.
 

delft

Brigadier
Re siegecrossbow:
I saw a picture of gun from a temple build in 1198 looking just like a western gun picture of 1325. I think it was in 'Technology and Culture', about 30 years ago. The picture showed the ball leaving the muzzle.
 

Spartan95

Junior Member
Can it be built as a railway gun?

Quite conceivably, yes.

IMO, 1 of the reasons why it is called a railgun is because it uses the same principle as that of the Maglev train. Through the use of EM currents in a set of rails, an object can be accelerated with great precision and efficiency.

The precision and efficiency portion is also what is driving USN's research into the EMALS:

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The foremost deficiency is that the catapult operates without feedback control. With no feedback, there often occurs large transients in tow force that can damage or reduce the life of the airframe.

.......

The steam catapults are also highly maintenance intensive, inefficient (4-6%), and their availability is low. Another major disadvantage is the present
operational energy limit of the steam catapult, approximately 95 MJ.

Thus, in a sense, both China and US are researching into EM technology. China already operate 1 of the world's 1st commercial Maglev line (in Shanghai), while US is looking at fielding EMALS on their next gen carriers.

All these efforts contribute in 1 way or another towards EM technology and how these systems can be miniaturised and used as a gun.

Going into the realm of what is possible with rail guns is where this gets more interesting.
1 of the more interesting proposals is to build a huge Maglev type railgun up the side of a mountain that is used to "throw" things into space. This borders on sci-fi, but the advantage is the ability to launch satellites into space without the use of huge and expensive rockets, thus making space launches considerably cheaper. Of course, such a system can also launch a fairly large object half way round the world to land on another continent.
 
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