Posted on 02/15/2016 10:53:27 AM PST by Red Badger
FULL TITLE:
Navy's 'Star Wars' weapon could be used on a new stealth warship: Gun that penetrates concrete 100 MILES away to be ready in 2018
Rail gun can fire a shell weighing 10kg at up to 5,400mph with such force that it penetrates three concrete walls
Weapon uses electricity instead of gunpowder to accelerate a projectile at six or seven times the speed of sound
Navy wants to skip an at-sea prototype in favor of installing an unit aboard one of its new Zumwalt-class destroyers
A radical new weapon that can fire a shell at seven times the speed of sound could be used by the Navy as soon as 2018.
Described as 'Star Wars technology' by researchers, the rail gun can fire a shell weighing 10kg at up to 5,400mph over 100 miles. It does this with such force and accuracy it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates.
Development of a futuristic weapon is going well enough that a Navy admiral wants to skip an at-sea prototype in favor of installing an operational unit aboard one of its new Zumwalt-class destroyers.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
How many environmental impact statements have to be generated before it could be used?
Check this one out-computer graphics for now, but...
Not too farfetched.
I wonder how far they are in developing this?
Israeli Technology
Holy smokes, what an incredible vision for 21st century warfare...
.https://www.facebook.com/ScoopeIsrael/videos/436040796602415/
is the shell guided? Seems like it would have to be.
I’ve seen that video!...............
Signed,
Slim Pickins.
At 5400 mph?..............................not much time for in course corrections!.....................
Boom! Shaka Laka, Boom!
Take that bitches!!!
Just one......................Fire when ready.......................
Doesn’t have to be guided, though it seems like it would be better if it could be.
So far, the big problem with railguns, is the rails wearing out after just a few shots.
Very impressive concepts. I could see where the exterior is made of cheaply constructed OLED flexible panels that would obtain imagery of the ground right before it hits, then displays that externally and mixes right in like a chameleon.
I am sure there are all kinds of other ways to detect them other than visual, but...visual is a good start.
I sure hope it isn’t guided. Just what we need, a multi-billion dollar gun which requires multi-million dollar bullets on a sea platform which can be taken out with thousands of dollars worth of explosives.
An Iowa Class hull would make an adequate platform for mounting several of these weapons.
Didn’t know that.
I thought the big drawback was the power required...and that there would be no “wear”, because the ordinance never actually touched the rail, it was ejected on a mag-lev concept suspended in air even by a very, very tiny amount and then a wave of electromagnetic energy pulsing down a linear path would push the projectile in front of it.
I haven’t been following it that closely for a while, so you could be right and my understanding could be out of date.
I would hope there would be a mix of unguided and guided, with the preponderance being unguided. I could certainly see times when a guided munition would have to be used.
“It shoots through schools.”
Sadly, those hulls are gone to us now. They are the most beautiful ships, in my opinion, to have ever sailed in the age of steam.
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