US Navy Demos 33 MJoule Railgun

[canadian icehole]

It's an interesting technology, but I have some concerns... how is it superior to a missile? In fact, it seems to be inferior to one in many ways.

If it is unguided, that means its ability to hit a moving target is going to be greatly limited. If the means of a kill is kinetic energy only, that is going to limit the damage.

One thing it has going for it is that the cost per shot would be pretty low. You have a projectile, and electricity. A nuclear reactor can provide all the cheap electricity it needs.

Back to the good old days I guess. I agree about the cost per shot as Chogy stated as the US military will likely face some drastic funding cuts. This may be useless to some, however, I can see this being useful in space.

 

[Chogy]

Chogy,

This technology may appear to be Inferior but it has advantage of raw numbers on its side.A guided missile howsoever advanced when fired towards a incoming missile may fail to hit it but hundreds of DU bullets in path of incoming warhead would certainly hit it.

That would be true if the rate of fire was on par with a modern automatic cannon, but as far as I know, the rail gun is very slow firing, needing quite a bit of time between shots so as to recharge the capacitor bank.

CHOGY- I think the main purpose for this System is to destory fast Iranian speed boats.

The U.S. Navy does not invest in a system like this with one specific target in mind. Unless they feel it can be applicable across a wide array of adversaries, then it is unlikely that they would invest in it.

 

[anonymus]

That would be true if the rate of fire was on par with a modern automatic cannon, but as far as I know, the rail gun is very slow firing, needing quite a bit of time between shots so as to recharge the capacitor bank.



The U.S. Navy does not invest in a system like this with one specific target in mind. Unless they feel it can be applicable across a wide array of adversaries, then it is unlikely that they would invest in it.

Probably it is low for now as it is an experimental design but it has potential to be scaled up infinitely( all the bullets at same time).From what i have read in my physics class,an important advantage of rail gun is that one does nor have to wait for a bullet to leave gun's barrel for firing next one and all the bullets in an array could be discharged simultaneously.Though it did not take into account the power requirements.

Also the gun was tested for naval ships.Probably weight of projectile must have been substantial in this case requiring high power.

Another advantage would be that muzzle velocity being higher,it would lead to interdiction at greater range or higher altitudes than automatic cannon,The range of gun as reported from article is 200miles.If this gun is fired at an steep angle than it could possibly become the most reliable Ballistic missile defence system.

 

[Harry_Thomason]

It's an interesting technology, but I have some concerns... how is it superior to a missile? In fact, it seems to be inferior to one in many ways.

Railguns advantage is very low cost of projectile, and its good against static targets, however weapon itself is expensive and wears down extremely quickly, also its "dumb" weapon. In the end its cost-effectiveness is questionable.

CHOGY- I think the main purpose for this System is to destory fast Iranian speed boats.

Speed boats are moving, fast. If railgun shoots "dumb" projectile at the boats current location, its already gone minutes ago when projectile arrives. Operators will have to guess boats trajectory, and hope it stays the same. If boats change direction or speed even a little bit, projectile will miss.

 

[Hack-Hook]

CHOGY- I think the main purpose for this System is to destory fast Iranian speed boats.

well for that I rather use some AH-64 or AH-1.
they do a far better job .

 

[Chogy]

Interesting points... if the ROF could be jacked way up, it'd be like a CIWS with a LONG range. But if the muzzle energy is as vast as the article suggests, the sustained power output would be on the "insane" level. It is a bit like the terajoule lasers they have today that can create a laser burst of immense power, but of a nanosecond duration. Then, the capacitors have to be recharged.

As far as the Iranian speedboats, not to change the topic, but the primary platform for them is going to be F/A-18 and 20mm cannon fire, with the encounter taking place far from the carrier group.

 

[Hack-Hook]

I think there would be some problem using this weapon for Ballistic missiles
and that would be no matter what the bullet must obey a ballistic path and as
it just can relay on a direct hit to destroy the ballistic missile ,it would be nearly
impossible to hit the missile because modern missile tend to change their
path and do some maneuvering when they come down and this system can't
do any correction to the bullet path.


by the way chogy when I suggested AH-64 and AH-1 I thought about using AGM-65
Maverick. I have a question what would be the range and altitude that a F-18 can use
its cannon to target a boat that move at a speed about 60+ miles

 

[Chogy]

by the way chogy when I suggested AH-64 and AH-1 I thought about using AGM-65
Maverick. I have a question what would be the range and altitude that a F-18 can use
its cannon to target a boat that move at a speed about 60+ miles

Good to see you here! I didn't know you joined.

Mavericks would work, but if the projected boat swarm is as large as it's suggested to be, the missile stockpile would be limited and run through, and 20mm would be the next best from whatever airborne platform is available. That, or Rockeye, although I am not familiar with how CBU would work on a naval target.

From a Hornet, the slant range for 20mm would be between 300 and 1,000 meters at a roughly 10 degree strafe, 400+ knots. The M-61 cannon rate of fire is enormous, and the speed of the boat would not be a huge defense. To defend itself, the boat would probably be limited to heavy MG fire. MANPADS from a boat *might* work, but it would be problematic due to the inevitable vicious bouncing when the boat is at speed.

Larger systems like radar-guided SAMS are simply too large for the attack boats, IMO.

 

[anonymus]

I think there would be some problem using this weapon for Ballistic missiles
and that would be no matter what the bullet must obey a ballistic path and as
it just can relay on a direct hit to destroy the ballistic missile ,it would be nearly
impossible to hit the missile because modern missile tend to change their
path and do some maneuvering when they come down and this system can't
do any correction to the bullet path.


by the way chogy when I suggested AH-64 and AH-1 I thought about using AGM-65
Maverick. I have a question what would be the range and altitude that a F-18 can use
its cannon to target a boat that move at a speed about 60+ miles

ballistic missile also follows ballistic path.even the most maneuverable missile cannot deflect by very large angles from it's intended path and if a missile was following it's true ballistic trajectory before maneuvering,it would have to come back onto it's original one thus making it's path predictable or if it was following a trajectory that would have set it on target after maneuvering then also its path could be easily computed.Throughout the flight of a well tracked missile,military computers must be computing all the probable path that a missile could take if it changes direction.

This system would have better probability of hitting a missile as it could throw up a screen of projectile in part of missile thus making maneuvers redundent

 

[Tshering22]

It's an interesting technology, but I have some concerns... how is it superior to a missile? In fact, it seems to be inferior to one in many ways.

If it is unguided, that means its ability to hit a moving target is going to be greatly limited. If the means of a kill is kinetic energy only, that is going to limit the damage.

One thing it has going for it is that the cost per shot would be pretty low. You have a projectile, and electricity. A nuclear reactor can provide all the cheap electricity it needs.

Another factor is that cheap missiles can be launched in massive numbers compared to the number of railguns that can be used at the same time. And this is discounting the MIRV factor (even conventional FABs).

 

[anonymus]

Another factor is that cheap missiles can be launched in massive numbers compared to the number of railguns that can be used at the same time. And this is discounting the MIRV factor (even conventional FABs).

But when this tech matures,It would be able to fire large number of even cheaper projectiles toward incoming missile.Also suppose a missile with 10 MIRV's is heading toward Delhi,it could overwhelm classical missile defence but if you lay down a debri field 200X200 m wide it would catch all the warheads.

also in case of Indo-Pak scenario it could also be used in Boost phase interdiction as pakistan lacks strategic depth.

 

[Hack-Hook]

ballistic missile also follows ballistic path.even the most maneuverable missile cannot deflect by very large angles from it's intended path and if a missile was following it's true ballistic trajectory before maneuvering,it would have to come back onto it's original one thus making it's path predictable or if it was following a trajectory that would have set it on target after maneuvering then also its path could be easily computed.Throughout the flight of a well tracked missile,military computers must be computing all the probable path that a missile could take if it changes direction.

This system would have better probability of hitting a missile as it could throw up a screen of projectile in part of missile thus making maneuvers redundent

I guess trowing up a screen in front of the missile would be hard because
this system relay on a direct hit to destroy target . the bullet go with 5 time
the speed of sound and the missile also go with the speed of 10 time the
speed of the sound it's really hard to have a direct hit in such speeds even
Modern anti ballistic missile system that can correct the course of the missile
in mid-flight have a proximity switch

by the way believe me today's ballistic missiles are far more maneuverable than
old scud missiles and reentry device won't necessarily follow a ballistic flight plane
anymore . just look at chinese antiship missile that can hit ships up to 2700km away

 

[Hack-Hook]

Good to see you here! I didn't know you joined.

Mavericks would work, but if the projected boat swarm is as large as it's suggested to be, the missile stockpile would be limited and run through, and 20mm would be the next best from whatever airborne platform is available. That, or Rockeye, although I am not familiar with how CBU would work on a naval target.

From a Hornet, the slant range for 20mm would be between 300 and 1,000 meters at a roughly 10 degree strafe, 400+ knots. The M-61 cannon rate of fire is enormous, and the speed of the boat would not be a huge defense. To defend itself, the boat would probably be limited to heavy MG fire. MANPADS from a boat *might* work, but it would be problematic due to the inevitable vicious bouncing when the boat is at speed.

Larger systems like radar-guided SAMS are simply too large for the attack boats, IMO.

thanks .
my concern was about man-pads if the plane need to be that near to use the cannon it would be
in danger of being targeted by man-pads . I guess in the first pass it may be able to surprise the
boats but when it come for the second pass I guess they must expect a not so friendly welcome
and at that range and speed I guess it would be hell of the work to escape a small missile even
It's a man-pad. by the way don't forget Misagh-2 is a fire and forgot man-pad

 

[no_name]

A possible advantage of Railgun projectile is that it is solid, dense and contains no explosives, chemicals or moving parts.
This means that it will be least affected by next generation ray-based defenses. If increasing speed gives it similar range to a AshM at a fraction of the cost and quicker response time then it has great potentials.

When the DoD develops laser based weapons, they are already thinking about a possible counter to it. Railgun may be the answer.

 

[Alpery]

naval guns have anti air capability
cant we use explosive inside cannon shells?