http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080201/sc_livescience/navytestsincrediblescifiweapon;_ylt=AiPwhY7PSlzy6A od7KFHzrkDW7oF


The U.S. Navy yesterday test fired an incredibly powerful new big gun designed to replace conventional weaponry aboard ships. Sci-fi fans will recognize its awesome power and futuristic technology.

The big gun uses electromagnetic energy instead of explosive chemical propellants to fire a projectile farther and faster. The railgun, as it is called, will ultimately fire a projectile more than 230 miles (370 kilometers) with a muzzle velocity seven times the speed of sound (Mach 7) and a velocity of Mach 5 at impact.



All I can say is, wow!

...mmm tasty. Sounds like Unreal Tournament

That article didn't mention that it has an expected accuracy of ~5m at 200 miles. For an unguided projectile moving at that speed, the accuracy seems as amazing as the velocity.

In the test video that I saw on YouTube, the air all around it looked like it just exploded as the projectile passed. Is that the projectile itself burning up due to atmospheric friction?

Wow if only I could have them send a missle the size of a 55 gallon drum to my property up north and build me an instant pond.

I love my job. http://ayonae.ro/images/smilies/smile.gif

akipt, I hope you're not holding back railgun porn from your beloved ARo forums.

Well, I don't exactly get to shoot the thing...

Once it's past R&D and ready for fleet deployment, SPAWAR (http://enterprise.spawar.navy.mil/) will take over (who I currently work for through Lockheed.)

It'll be SPAWAR's responsibility to integrate and support the new weapon system into the fleet.

They've made huge progress on this weapon even since last year. So I'm kinda surprised by the 2018 deployment date. I suspect that will move closer, especially if war or other geopolitical events change priorities in Washington (no matter who is president.)

There are a couple of issues I know about. One, power... it would currently take an entire Nimitz class carrier's power output to fire the weapon... and that means no screws turning, which means no flight ops. That's impractical and not going to happen.

The second is where are they going to mount the thing... within the last year the weapon has been made a bit smaller... but it's still large. I'm sure they'll work that out though, or they could always bring back our Navy's battleships. I miss those big guns.

Good news though, it's simple math for its targeting. We already know how to fire large dumb objects across large distances. It won't need a complex integration into the fleet's C4ISR to operate. Just someone plotting a target and firing. Boom, target turns into a pile of plasma and goo. Not like a tomahawk that can be fired and then handed off to another ship or even an on the ground Marine 800 miles away for target prioritization.

Do you know if it can currently be fired more than once? I read last year that was one of the major limiting factors for something like this, because it literally destroyed itself on the firing end.

Mount it on a big monkey..... then send it to India to help out with that monkey problem.

Do you know if it can currently be fired more than once? I read last year that was one of the major limiting factors for something like this, because it literally destroyed itself on the firing end.

I probably already said too much :)

They've made huge progress on this weapon even since last year.

If they told you before, chances are they'd tell you again if it happened.... Unless it was handed off to another program office and they had a different idea of need to know... But that's unlikely since it's still in R&D.

I am going to make a couple of educated guesses here:

In the test video that I saw on YouTube, the air all around it looked like it just exploded as the projectile passed. Is that the projectile itself burning up due to atmospheric friction?

I would guess that the projectile casing is what is producing the large amount of flame as the projectile passes the barrel threshhold. You can see bits and peices of either it or the actual barrel (perhaps the firing mechanism) shoot out of the barrel.

The next frame shows the projectile as it closes in on the target. The flame trailing the projectile is much smaller and a different color than when it was ejected from the barrel. I am assuming that the blue flame is a plasma trail as the mach 7 projectile burns its way through the thick atmosphere near the ground.

Do you know if it can currently be fired more than once? I read last year that was one of the major limiting factors for something like this, because it literally destroyed itself on the firing end.

Again another guess but I would assume watching the material being ejected from the barrel that the gun may not be ready to fire another round immediatly. I am sure a good deal of refurbishment would have to take place for that to happen.

If it were me I would look into a way to magnitize the interior of the barrel so that the projectile would never physically touch the inside of the barrel. If you can jump that hurdle then its all down to the issues of power generation and targetting through different atmospheric densities. I am sure that the targeting would be effected dependant upon the drag on the projectile that the atmosphere would put on it.

It looks like the tests are still fairly rudimentary, possibly only testing the power transfer and firing mechanisms, i.e. - they don't care about the barrel components at this point.

Perhaps the navy will have to add another power plant (i.e. - Fision) to the firing platform to ensure quicker firing times? Is the energy for the firing stored in a Tesla?

I would never expect Akipt to divuldge anymore information than he already has. He is probably under steep security restrictions and we should not temp him to cross those barriers. I am just taking some guesses http://ayonae.ro/images/smilies/wink.gif

For the next test maybe they can point it straigt up and see how far out of the atmosphere they can get the projectile =)


Cheers,

'Mount it on a big monkey..... then send it to India to help out with that monkey problem.'

- ROFL!! I heard they've commissioned bums and homeless people to round the monkeys up and put them in to concentration camps.

No kidding.

Bad Monkey!

For real. They just need Mr. Lee Ho.

By the 2018 deployment date most of the problems for it should be solved i'd think or at least controlled. (power mangement, size, ect).

Just like the Osprey!

I saw 1 of those flying a few months back.....
Kinda odd to see it in the air, but nonetheless, there it was.