US Laser and Rail Gun Development News

U.S. Navy Tests New, Sleeker Railguns
Feb. 28, 2012 - 07:32PM | By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

The first of two new prototype railguns is now firing bullets, moving the U.S. Navy’s long-held dream of fielding an electromagnetic weapon a step closer to reality.
A 32-megajoule “prototype demonstrator” made by BAE has already been fired six times in a week, officials told reporters during a Feb. 28 teleconference.

The rounds fired by the gun are only test shots, “non-aerodynamic slugs intended to slow down quickly,” said Tom Boucher, the Navy’s railgun test director at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, Va. “But eventually the program intends to fire a very low-drag, high-speed projectile.”
The Navy wants the railgun to be able to fire that projectile at ranges of 50 to 100 nautical miles, with an eventual range up to 220 nautical miles.

The new gun, delivered to Dahlgren on Feb. 6, will be followed in April by another prototype from General Atomics.
Unlike an earlier version of the railgun assembled and fired at Dahlgren, the new prototypes “look like a real gun,” according to Roger Ellis, railgun program manager at the Office of Naval Research.
“The new guns are a significant step beyond the laboratory-style launchers, which are big, bulky, not anything you would put on a Navy ship,” Ellis said.
“The new industry prototypes are a step beyond and much closer to the fit and form that we might want to put on a ship some day — lighter weight, able to train and elevate.”

BAE and General Atomics are engaged in a competition to develop guns able to operate from Navy warships.
Asked about differences between the two companies’ approaches to the weapon, Ellis demurred. “That’s something we’re not able to talk about in a public forum,” he said.
General Atomics already has invested about $20 million in internal funding to build a sub-scale prototype, said Tom Hurn, the company’s railgun programs director.

The Navy has long discussed putting the railgun on DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers, 15,000-ton ships now under construction at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works. Those ships — which do not now have the weapon — are designed with an integrated power system able to funnel much of their electrical power to a specific need, such as a railgun.
But the Navy and its developers also are looking at the viability of putting the weapon on other classes of ship.
“We have looked at a range of options,” Hurn said. “The technology is scaleable. There are viable opportunities at multiple levels.
“From a technology standpoint we do not see problems with platforms even smaller than” existing destroyers, he added.

The railgun program continues as a research and development effort, and eventually should transition into an acquisition program to develop and field real weapons.
“Generally we talk about an [operational] capability in the 2020 to 2025 time frame,” Ellis said. “However, Navy planners are looking for ways to make that happen sooner.”

Click to expand...

Scratch said:

New prototypes, wich are more than just technical demo projects, have started testing.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

[video=youtube;-uV1SbEuzFU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uV1SbEuzFU&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Click to expand...

Jeff Head said:

The laser system aboard the 747 worked and was able to down ICBMs from 400+ miles in their boost ohase.

The Obama admin has now cancelled the program.

Click to expand...

scratch said:

New prototypes, wich are more than just technical demo projects, have started testing.

Click to expand...

LiveScience [url=http://www.livescience.com/18714-navy-railgun-tests-leading-ship-superweapon-2020.html said:

US Navy Tests Weapon Scale Rail Gun Prototype[/url]]

The first weapon-scale prototype of a futuristic Navy railgun began undergoing firing tests last week, the next big step toward putting the electromagnetic superweapon on U.S. warships by 2020. The Navy envisions using railguns to destroy enemy ships, defend against enemy missiles, or bombard land targets in support of Marines hitting the beaches.
Newly released video shows the prototype railgun using an electric-powered launcher rather than gunpowder to fire a huge hypersonic bullet in a cloud of flame and smoke. The Office of Naval Research hopes its new test phase — scheduled to last until 2017 — leads to a Navy weapon capable of hurling 40-pound projectiles at speeds of 4,500 mph to 5,600 mph over 50 to 100 miles (7,240 to 9,010 kilometers per hour over 80 to 161 kilometers).

The full-size prototype, made by BAE Systems, "looks like a real gun," said Roger Ellis, program manager for the railgun at the Office of Naval Research, during a media teleconference today (Feb. 28). Previous tests involved clunky laboratory prototypes that would never see action aboard a Navy warship.


U.S. Navy commanders ultimately want a weapon capable of firing up to 10 guided projectiles per minute at targets up to 100 miles away. Navy warships currently have 5-inch guns capable of firing at distances of 13 miles.

"There is potential to replace the 5-inch gun, but it would do far more," Ellis said in response to an InnovationNewsDaily question. The railgun could hit the same distant targets that Navy missiles strike today, he said.

A second railgun prototype, built by General Atomics, is set to arrive for testing in April, Ellis said. Having railguns built by different companies gives the Navy a choice if it ultimately decides to deploy the superweapon.

Both General Atomics and BAE Systems committed millions of their own dollars during the first $240 million test phase, which recently ended. The newly begun Phase II is funded at about the same amount. It is testing prototypes capable of harnessing 32 megajoules of energy. Just one megajoule would be enough to throw a 1-ton car 100 mph.

During the five years of Phase II, the Navy plans to test cooling systems and a battery that could store the energy required by the railgun. It has contracted with General Atomics, BAE Systems and Raytheon for designs for a pulsed power system.

Because of its hypersonic speed produced by the railgun, a projectile shaped like a bullet could deliver devastating damage even without exploding. It could include electronic guidance systems such as GPS that would be protected against the immense heat of the giant bullet's hypersonic passage.

"The rounds we are firing currently are non-aerodynamic slugs," Ellis said of the testing. "They match the interior ballistics of what the launcher is expected to see but are intended to slow down quickly."

If all goes well, the Navy could end up equipping its ships with railguns of all different sizes. Companies such as General Atomics have already built smaller railguns for their own testing purposes.

"We believe this is game-changing technology, and in our case we've invested internal funds of more than $20 million for a subscale prototype to move the technology forward," said Tom Hurn, director of railgun programs at San Diego-based General Atomics.

Click to expand...

siegecrossbow said:

Jeff:

One thing I've always wondered about precision guided rail gun rounds is how the electrical components are shielded from the electrical field generated by the weapon. Rail gun rounds are conductors and massive currents go through them when they are fired.

Another crazy idea I have is a railgun launched ramjet cruise missile. The ramjet engines could only work at high Mach speeds and a railgun could provide the high initial velocity needed to ignite the engine. This negates the need for rocket/conventional jet engines to boost the projectile to the speed needed for ignition. What do you think of this idea?

Click to expand...

Jeff Head said:

This is big news. This was a live test of a full size weaponized prototype for the railgun. They will have two and test them for the next 3-5 years, and then begin finalizing them for placement and implementation on vessels in the fleet...probably the Zumwalts that will be out by then and the Ford class carriers will be first, which have the electrical system capacity to handle them. You will see the Flight III Burkes and other new vessels being set up with enough electrical capacity to handle these in the future.

40 pound projectiles of all types, and smaller, of course, and probably smaller rail guns, all firing precision guided munitions for attacking ships, land targets, aircraft and missiles out to 100 miles. My guess is they will ultimately increase the range. Will also be a heck of an anti-air, anti-missile weapon. Game changer technology coming onboard by 2020.

Could you imagine, later, a nuclear powered class of cruiser with the new reactors having four batteries of these large railguns, each capable of 10 shots per minute, one every six seconds? Several batteries of smaller ones and then weaponized capable Laser or later Particle Beam CIWS to back them up. Maybe build 12 such vessels? That's where this is headed...and once you are there, arming spacecraft or space bases, or bases on the moon or Mars in the more distant future as the exansion into space begins will be something easily done. Railguns, Lasers, and Particle Beams...sci-fi stuff come to life in our life time. Pretty neat.

Click to expand...

NikeX said:

To follow up on the future classes of nuclear powered warships there is this bit of information. Railguns are energy hungry and that hunger can be satisfied by nuclear powered ships


"......abstract

In recent years, the Congress has shown interest in powering some of the Navy's future destroyers and amphibious warfare ships with nuclear rather than conventional (petroleum-based) fuel. In this study, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the difference in life-cycle costs (the total costs incurred for a ship, from acquisition through operations to disposal) between powering those new surface ships with nuclear reactors and equipping them with conventional engines.

The U.S. Navy plans to build a number of new surface ships in the coming decades, according to its most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan. All of the Navy's aircraft carriers (and submarines) are powered by nuclear reactors; its other surface combatants are powered by engines that use conventional petroleum-based fuels. The Navy could save money on fuel in the future by purchasing additional nuclear-powered ships rather than conventionally powered ships. Those savings in fuel costs, however, would be offset by the additional up-front costs required for the procurement of nuclear-powered ships."

CBO | The Cost-Effectiveness of Nuclear Power for Navy Surface Ships

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...