RAIL GUN

[Ian Warren]

Now this is cool, a RAIL GUN .. think off the possibilities - individual weapon They were talking the talk 30 years ago

Watch on youtube.com

[Charl]

Ah yes... but first, you had to prove you were very, very good!

[Ian Warren]

Im sure that is DOOM need another lesson again .. must be something in my blood

[emfrat]

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/feat ... dex6.shtml

[Ian Warren]

Nice one Mike , I love the statistics for the new RAIL GUN ... you could plop someone dead from a 100 miles away ... 'convicts' ... get your dancing shoes out .. "Terminal Velocity" incoming at a crime near U!

[emfrat]

I found the incidental background info the most interesting part of the article...imaging naming an Army gun as you would a RN ship

[Ian Warren]

Be a ZZzZIPP, Oh 'S'*T' I'm dead before your even thought about it ! ... Military Idea's .. SUPER COOL !

[jpreou]

I'm 44 now, but I can tell you from personal experience that even a small rail-gun 25 years ago [in the UK] needed an inordinate amount of power to fire. I can't imagine what a rail-gun would be like after 25 years of development. It also made me wonder what else was being worked on behind closed doors that would never be opened except to very high-ranking personnel...

[emfrat]

One thing does puzzle me - there is a Law of Motion which says "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"
So you have a ship doing say 50kts, and it fires a projectile which can reach Mach 7...what happens next? It just doesn't add up.

[Ian Warren]

Yeah .. little ole lady can't put the foot on the gas pedal .. 'STEP ON IT BOY! ' Speed is the amazing thing

[Charl]

...what happens next? It just doesn't add up.

My slide rule says that if the projectile has a mass of say 50kg, and the ship is 50 tonnes, then the ship suffers a deceleration of about 0.07g for a tenth of a second, which slows it by 0.15kt.
That's why you put it on a ship, not on a first person shooter...

[Ian Warren]

...
That's why you put it on a ship, ...

Following Jeff's twenty five years, I have a photo about the project here going those twenty five years back .. a 7 gram lexan projectile hit a 4X4X4 inch block of aluminium was left a mess , look at what they a firing today, no armour could stop it .

[Charl]

Allowing overnight cooling of the sliderule to clear the smoke, it's clear that the projectile is more like 11 kg than 50 kg. That's because even then it will take about 166 MegaWatts to accelerate it. The trick is to apply that kind of power while the projectile is still in your hands i.e. not flown over the horizon already.
It's going to be supercapacitors that can deliver that kind of kick.

All of which is great news for the next-gen Tesla owners: their Model SC (for Crazy) will accelerate so fast you will end up in 1985...

[SUBS17]

One thing does puzzle me - there is a Law of Motion which says "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"
So you have a ship doing say 50kts, and it fires a projectile which can reach Mach 7...what happens next? It just doesn't add up.

There is no recoil from a rail gun as the projectile is hovering in a magnetic field and does not touch anything that's one reason why it is so good the other being the high muzzle velocity. There are more powerful weapons that have been developed that have even more higher muzzle velocity but they use different methods of propulsion. The projectile is subject to drag and gravity and that causes them to lose speed once they exit the barrel but still give an extremely high range. The rail gun technology is being tested now to launch aircraft off carriers as a catapult that has no steam!

Watch on youtube.com

[SUBS17]

...what happens next? It just doesn't add up.

My slide rule says that if the projectile has a mass of say 50kg, and the ship is 50 tonnes, then the ship suffers a deceleration of about 0.07g for a tenth of a second, which slows it by 0.15kt.
That's why you put it on a ship, not on a first person shooter...

Your maths is off because there is no recoil.

[Charl]

...There is no recoil from a rail gun...

Beg to differ SUBS, there is indeed a very big recoil from a rail gun: it is not a rocket.

[Ian Warren]

Don't ya just love the US NAVY , now were was that video link I posted showing the workings of the Steam Catapult . ... love these toys !

[SUBS17]

The projectile floats in a magnetic field and is accelerated down a tube of electromagnets there is no charge repellent or anything like that there is such a thing as a recoiless rifle and in this case the railgun has very little to no recoil incomparison to a field gun. The process involves timed activation of coils to push electromagnectically the projectile. So it is recoiless but the opposing force might be explained in terms of heat generated by the rifle when it is fired. The projectiles don't need to be big as the kinetic energy is what does the damage the muzzle velocity is Mach 7 has been mentioned.

...There is no recoil from a rail gun...

Beg to differ SUBS, there is indeed a very big recoil from a rail gun: it is not a rocket.

BTW rockets have force that is opposite but the energy is released from rockets exits the tube in the opposite direction so there is no recoil that is where normally the energy goes of course the thing movies often forget is that if you're behind a rocket fired(older versions, modern anti tank rockets have something to prevent this now) you would get injured or killed.

[Ian Warren]

They do have a ring sleave/ aluminium skirts to help them along but after a few meters its turns in gas and leaves the muzzle at 4km per second ... Olympic runners had better do some serious training.

[SUBS17]

lol, Olympics.

Heres a rail gun being used.

Watch on youtube.com

Watch on youtube.com

Watch on youtube.com

There is a type of recoil but no where near as high as an artillery guns recoil, so you can see some in this video but its nothing compared to a 105mm gun.

Watch on youtube.com