Skip to comments.
US Navy Tests Supersonic Heavy Gun Firing Magnetically-Propelled Shells @ Mach 7
Reaganite Republican ^
| March 2, 2012
| Reaganite Republican
Posted on 03/02/2012 5:28:46 AM PST by Reaganite Republican
British multinational BAE Systems has developed a functioning prototype of a new artillery piece for the US Navy's testing purposes, and what it does is propel a specially-designed shell to high supersonic velocities (cca 5600 mph) via powerful magnetic rails. At Mach 7, the projectile arrives almost three times as fast as the Navy's current big guns can deliver one, and at an astonishing range of 50-100 nautical miles (!) The new technology is now undergoing testing in Virginia.
Considering that today's naval artillery can reach only about
15 mi -and that long-range cruise missiles poke-along at a leisurely 550mph- it's easy to see how the daunting new weapon is already being called 'a game-changer'. Other uses quickly come to mind, such as the land, air, of sea based missile-defense systems for which it seems manifestly suited: paired to real-time drone/satellite intelligence and laser-guidance, there's not much a handful of these couldn't stop.
Some experts feel the new gun wouldn't even need to employ explosive shells, as a 40' chunk of metal arriving at over five thousand miles per hour should obliterate pretty much anything that happens to be sitting on Point B:
The USN has already spent seven years and $200M+ on development, with further funding still at the whim of the current US administration, be it a new Republican WH or -heaven forbid- another 4 years of steep decline under the Obammunists.
A second variation on the theme is about to be delivered to the Navy by competing contractor General Atomics. , and while the (first) BAE gun seems to be performing well as a weapon, residual engineering challenges mostly concern building practical durability into such a mind-bogglingly powerful device... a task that is likely to take a few more years. Various cooling systems are being experimented with at this point in the development cycle, the goal being a capability of 10 rounds/min without melting the hyper-stressed barrel... at a range of up to 200 nautical miles (!)
This of course comes at a perfect time for the US, as China seems determined to build a blue-water navy to challenge American naval supremacy, missile proliferation continues to run rampant, and the Iranian Navy -as always- could use a sinkin.
Yet hard to believe Obama hasn't tried to cancel this thing yet-
so noisy, unpleasant, polluting, and just mean... who needs that
_______________________________________________
TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; Politics; Science
KEYWORDS: artillery; navy; supergun; supersonic
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-60, 61-80, 81-100, 101-103 next last
To: Drawsing
I am probably wrong, but I didnt think rail guns had any recoil. Yep, you are wrong. The laws of motion are not changed just because you choose a different motive force.
61
posted on
03/02/2012 7:23:14 AM PST
by
GingisK
To: Erasmus
Because of the length of the weapon I guess it would be a spinal-mounted rail-gun (it wouldn’t be turreted, you would turn the whole ship to aim it).
The whole ship would basically be engineered as a single piece of ocean-going artillery to absorb the humongous recoil.
Sucks for the crew with quarters near the muzzle. Every six seconds you get woken up by a sound like Mt Pinatubo erupting.
62
posted on
03/02/2012 7:25:40 AM PST
by
agere_contra
("Debt is the foundation of destruction" : Sarah Palin.)
To: FreeAtlanta
Could you imagine a version that would splinter into hundreds of thousands of shards at about a half mile above a group of ships? Unfortunately, a shard with, say, only a KG of mass would lose much of its kinetic energy in a half mile through low altitude atmosphere. (How much is difficult to say.) You need big chunks so that the wind resistance doesn't dissipate their energy quickly.
Still, a round could be developed along the lines you propose if the lower total kinetic energy is more than offset by the area coverage. And it wouldn't necessarily have to fragment at a half mile; maybe much closer, thus losing less total kinetic energy.
And the aiming of a single, small, hypervelocity projectile at large distances (> 100 mi) is problematic, which argues further for a fragmentation round for certain target situations.
63
posted on
03/02/2012 7:28:11 AM PST
by
Erasmus
(BHO: New supreme leader of the rollin' homey empire.)
To: Drawsing
Newton’s law is still in effect, whether for rail or gunpowder tube. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In this case, the whole platform would absorb the energy.
64
posted on
03/02/2012 7:29:31 AM PST
by
lurk
To: Yo-Yo
Not exactly; the path of the shell would be a ballistic trajectory, affected by gravity, drag, launch velocity, and launch angle, probably somewhere between 1.5 and 1.9 times the straight line distance between the launcher and the target.
Seems closer to a two-minute flight time...
65
posted on
03/02/2012 7:30:44 AM PST
by
bt_dooftlook
(Democrats - the party of Amnesty, Abortion, and Adolescence)
To: HamiltonJay
It doesn't matter what force it is... kinetic energy in one direction results in kinetic energy in the opposite direction!
Mike
66
posted on
03/02/2012 7:31:32 AM PST
by
MichaelP
(The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools ~HS)
To: 556x45
Yet hard to believe Obama hasn't tried to cancel this thing yet-Why? When he can sell the design to our enemies and then shut down the program here. I'm not sure why he'd need the additional billions it would likely be worth, though, the rake on the current scams the administration is running should be upwards of ten billion--unless he is just an idealogue and working cheap.
67
posted on
03/02/2012 7:33:34 AM PST
by
Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
To: 6ppc
“I think he really meant 40 lb projectiles, not 40 foot projectiles. “
I think 40’ is correct. Good pics, etc., at link.
To: HamiltonJay
Ignore my roller coaster analogy, that’s a different technology... but still recoil will be far far less a standard gun would be for equivalent velocities.. of course gunpowder could never reach the full velocities of a rail gun anyway.
To: agere_contra
Because of the length of the weapon I guess it would be a spinal-mounted rail-gun (it wouldnt be turreted, you would turn the whole ship to aim it). In that case, they could have a barrel much longer than 10 meters, thus diminishing the peak G's and the peak recoil force, although no decrease in the total recoil impulse.
But the gun would still need to be adjustable in elevation.
70
posted on
03/02/2012 7:38:12 AM PST
by
Erasmus
(BHO: New supreme leader of the rollin' homey empire.)
To: Yo-Yo
1kg to .99c takes 152 billion kilowatt-hours.
71
posted on
03/02/2012 7:42:20 AM PST
by
ctdonath2
($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
To: Erasmus
I’ll take your word for it:)
72
posted on
03/02/2012 7:44:09 AM PST
by
skeeter
To: agere_contra
Hmm an entire ship built around an insanely powerful gun... seems like I've been on this trip before...
To: MichaelP
Mike,
The bullet in a standard gun only absorbs so much of energy of the gunpowder, You are right that for the bullet to move at a velocity of so much one direction, at least that much energy must return the other direction, but because with gunpowder, the bullet get all the energy exerted by the gunpowder, the “kick” is greater than simply the kinetic energy by some factor.
In a rail gun, you don’t have the additional forces fo the exploding gunpowder to deal with, so while its still going to have a nice kick, it should be less relatively speaking than a standard gun for equivalent performance.
of course Rail Guns vastly outperform standard guns, so the overall kick is going to be huge, but if you were to stage the rail gun to fire an equivalent projectile at standard cannon velocities its kick would be less.
To: HamiltonJay
That should read the bullet doesn’t get all the energy from the gunpowder.
To: ctdonath2
1kg to .99c takes 152 billion kilowatt-hours Hmm. Seems a tad high. It'd take forever to charge the caps. How about to just .98C?
76
posted on
03/02/2012 7:53:12 AM PST
by
Yo-Yo
(Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
To: Erasmus
Hmm good point about the elevation.
Unlike land-based arty, the ship is bobbing around on water. A keel-mounted weapon would have to be ‘floating’ to a certain extent to deal with roll and pitch. Mobile tank weapons obviously deal with these kinds of problems: but not artillery: and not with the added stress of a 100 or 200 nm range.
I wonder if they could micro-manage liquid ballast (or something) to give the desired slant of firing platform every six seconds.
77
posted on
03/02/2012 7:53:36 AM PST
by
agere_contra
("Debt is the foundation of destruction" : Sarah Palin.)
To: Drawsing
“I am probably wrong, but I didnt think rail guns had any recoil.”
There is recoil. Unless it has it’s own propulsion.
78
posted on
03/02/2012 8:00:01 AM PST
by
Slambat
(The right to keep and bear arms. Anything one man can carry, drive or pull.)
To: reg45
How do you aim at something that is 200 nautical miles away?Inertial nav or GPS, but the electronics would take a beating by the G forces.
79
posted on
03/02/2012 8:02:29 AM PST
by
cpdiii
(Deckhand, Roughneck, Mud Man, Geologist, Pilot, Pharmacist. THE CONSTITUTION IS WORTH DYING FOR!)
To: Vinnie
One of it’s original design theories was for the ability to launch from low gravity areas both cargo and space vehicles, such as, from the surface of the moon. In order to test the launch rail on earth, much more power is needed. Another spin-off of this concept is the mag-lift train in Japan.
80
posted on
03/02/2012 8:10:56 AM PST
by
BerryDingle
(I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-60, 61-80, 81-100, 101-103 next last
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson