US Navy Demos 33 MJoule Railgun

[no_name]

You can, but the point of having a railgun is to have high enough speed that explosive is not necessary.

 

[siegecrossbow]

You can, but the point of having a railgun is to have high enough speed that explosive is not necessary.

Kinetic energy penetrators are probably harder to intercept as well. Not having explosives means that they are not as big of a hazard to the ships on which they are employed.

 

[Alpery]

You can, but the point of having a railgun is to have high enough speed that explosive is not necessary.

do you know how naval gun work on AA mission?
anyway if we can use explosive insde shells...no problem

 

[no_name]

Those are called dual-purpose guns and they can work on AA mission. I don't think railgun is intended for AA role though unless the firing rates improves and they find some way of allowing the warhead survive the firing process.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Senate committee terminates US Navy's superlaser and railgun

By Physics Today on June 20, 2011 3:48 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Wired: Last Friday the Senate Armed Forces Committee approved its version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill. With a $664.5 billion price tag, the bill cuts 1% from President Obama's original request and terminates two weapons programs that are under development for the US Navy: the free electron laser and the electromagnetic railgun. Both projects, designed to shoot down incoming missiles at long range, had recently passed technical milestones, but the committee still regarded them as risky, especially in light of their eventual deployment aboard warships.

Senate committee terminates US Navy's superlaser and railgun - Physics Today News Picks

 

[TruthSeeker]

U.S. Navy's Incredible, Sci-Fi Railgun Fires 1,000th Bullet

Published November 02, 2011

Without the need for dangerous explosives storage and handling, the Electromagnetic Railgun can potentially reach targets up to 20 times farther than conventional weapons.

Navy scientists with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) hit a new milestone, successfully firing their electromagnetic railgun for the 1,000th time as the state-of-the-art weapon edges closer to real world deployment.

A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And though still in testing, it's quite real, as the U.S. Navy proved in a record-setting test Monday, Oct. 31, in Dahlgren, Va.

Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, it uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile zips along a set of electrically charged parallel rails and out of the barrel at speeds up to Mach 7.

The result: a weapon that can hit a target 100 miles or more away within minutes.

"This test demonstrates continued advances in armature development, rail design, and barrel materials used in high power railgun launch," said Dr. Robert Meger, head of the Naval Research Labs' Charged Particle Physics branch.

"Firing up to 15 shots per week on the laboratory's experimental railgun, researchers at NRL perform detailed testing and analysis of rails and armatures, providing S&T expertise to the Navy program that is directly applicable to tests at large-scale power levels," he said.

An electromagnetic railgun offers a velocity previously unattainable in a conventional weapon, speeds that are incredibly powerful on their own. In fact, since the projectile doesn't have any explosives itself, it relies upon that kinetic energy to do damage.

For the past few years, Navy researchers have been testing to increase rail strength and finalizing the armature composition as to achieve the highest velocity. In the four years since the first shot was fired at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Materials Testing Facility, researchers have enhanced the railgun’s energy by a factor of three -- from about 0.5 megajoules to currently 1.5 megajoules.

To get a better idea of the weapon’s power, “a one-ton vehicle moving at 100 mph has approximately one megajoule of kinetic energy, the U.S. Navy explained.

Despite the Halloween milestone, the future of the railgun remains in doubt. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted in April to eliminate funding for two of the Navy’s most futuristic (and by the same token least concrete) weapons: the free electron laser, essentially a super-powered death ray, and the railgun.

The Navy appears optimistic despite the tech's cloudy future.

"A railgun weapons system must be able to launch hundreds of projectiles and withstand extreme pressures, currents and temperatures," said NRL Commanding Officer, Capt. Paul Stewart. The firing of the thousandth shot "demonstrates Navy researchers are steadily progressing toward achieving that goal, developing a more effective and efficient future ship combat system," he said.

Read more: U.S. Navy's Incredible, Sci-Fi Railgun Fires 1,000th Bullet | Fox News

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

K lets scrap this thread already US can't afford such ventures

 

[poseidon]

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.



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.

But the bullets will travel about mach 11..they would hit the target first right?

 

[Chogy]

But the bullets will travel about mach 11..they would hit the target first right?

No, unless the range is very close.

Mach 1 is about 8 miles per minute. Mach 11 would be 88 miles per minute, or 1.4 miles per second. Consider a jet that flies at mach 1, it's definitely going to move a large distance before a mach 11 projectile reaches it.

 

[amalakas]

The advantages of rail gun technology are immeasurable.

First of all tech obtained building this rail gun will allow for the development of mass accelerator weapons in the future.

The kinetic energy of such a projectile is immense. And it is not a dumb weapon per se .. targeting can be accurate.

 

[Hack-Hook]

The advantages of rail gun technology are immeasurable.

First of all tech obtained building this rail gun will allow for the development of mass accelerator weapons in the future.

The kinetic energy of such a projectile is immense. And it is not a dumb weapon per se .. targeting can be accurate.

it can be accurate for stationary targets

 

[amalakas]

it can be accurate for stationary targets

A ship moves pretty slowly compared to the railgun shell. not even for a plane. Computers can do the targeting.

 

[gambit]

If we can give a gravity driven bomb some maneuverability on its descent, we can certainly give a railgun propelled projectile even greater maneuverability.

 

[Hack-Hook]

If we can give a gravity driven bomb some maneuverability on its descent, we can certainly give a railgun propelled projectile even greater maneuverability.

the bomb endure far less acceleration when released than the bullet that come out of a rail gun
all the device you put inside that bullet will be rendered useless when you accelerate it from 0 to
5 mach in milliseconds

 

[Hack-Hook]

A ship moves pretty slowly compared to the railgun shell. not even for a plane. Computers can do the targeting.

a ship yes an airplane no.
after all I believe this rail-gun only suited to replace Naval Guns