I am not a military person, but if a shell explodes on contact with target, and our shells are designed to be launched from a muzzle with 9 MJ of energy, wouldn’t multiplying the muzzle energy by 5 have a risk of making the shell think it is experiencing impact when it is being launched from a rail gun? I am sure they will design new shells, but it seems like we may be approaching some kind of physiscal limit here.
“I am not a military person, but if a shell explodes on contact with target, and our shells are designed to be launched from a muzzle with 9 MJ of energy, wouldn’t multiplying the muzzle energy by 5 have a risk of making the shell think it is experiencing impact when it is being launched from a rail gun?”
The projectiles are inert, meaning they carry no explosive. The destructive effect is strictly from kinetic energy.
One big advantage of this is that gun magazines (where the shells are stored) will no longer explode violently if hit in battle.
It’s not an explosive warhead. It relies on kinetic energy.
If you think that this weapon is interesting, Google for “rods from God” which is an older and, I think, more interesting concept.