well its coming... railguns to the navy 200 mile bombardment

[Journier]

at $1,000 dollar a shot estimate, check er out.

Rail gun gets rave reviews

By Michael Zitz - The Fredericksburg (Va.) Freelance-Star
Posted : Wednesday Jan 17, 2007 11:34:55 EST

DAHLGREN, Va. — Normally, new weaponry tends to make defense more expensive. But the Navy likes to say its new rail gun delivers the punch of a missile at bullet prices.

A flashy demonstration of the futuristic and comparatively inexpensive rail gun weapon Tuesday at the Naval Surface Warfare Center had Navy brass smiling. The weapon, which was successfully tested in October at the King George County, Va., base, fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible speeds, using electricity rather than gunpowder.

The technology could increase the striking range of Navy ships more than tenfold by the year 2020. “It’s pretty amazing capability, and it went off without a hitch,” said Capt. Joseph McGettigan, commander of NSWC Dahlgren Division.

“The biggest thing is it’s real not just something on the drawing board,” he said. “It could go to the field right now. We just want to improve it, to make it better.” The rail gun works by sending electric current along parallel rails, creating an electromagnetic force so powerful it can fire a metal projectile at tremendous speed. Because the gun uses electricity and not gunpowder to fire projectiles, it’s safer, eliminating the possibility of explosions on ships and vehicles equipped with it. Instead, a powerful pulse generator is used.

The prototype fired at Dahlgren is only an 8-megajoule electromagnetic device, but the one to be used on Navy ships will generate a massive 64 megajoules. Current Navy guns generate about 9 megajoules of muzzle energy.

The rail gun’s 200 to 250 nautical-mile range will allow Navy ships to strike deep in enemy territory while staying out of reach of hostile forces.

Rear Adm. William E. “Bill” Landay, chief of Naval Research, said Navy rail gun progress from the drawing board to reality has been rapid.

“A year ago, this was (just) a good idea we all wanted to pursue,” he said.

Elizabeth D’Andrea of the Office of Naval Research said a 32-megajoule lab gun will be delivered to Dahlgren in June.

Charles Garnett, Dahlgren rail gun project director, called the projectile fired by the rail gun “a supersonic bullet,” and the weapon itself is “a very simple device.” He compared the process to charging up a battery on the flash of a digital camera, then pushing the button and “dumping that charge,” producing a magnetic field that drives the metal-cased ordnance instead of gun powder.

The projectile fired Tuesday weighed only 3.2 kilograms and had no warhead. Future rail gun ordnance won’t be large and heavy, either, but will deliver the punch of a Tomahawk cruise missile because of the immense speed of the projectile at impact.

Garnett compared that force to hitting a target with a Ford Taurus at 380 mph. “It will take out a building,” he said. Warheads aren’t needed because of the massive force of impact.

The range for 5-inch guns now on Navy ships is less than 15 nautical miles, Garnett said. He said the rail gun will extend that range to more than 200 nautical miles and strike a target that far away quickly — in 6 minutes. A Tomahawk missile covers that same distance in 8 minutes. Garnett said specifications call for each rail gun to be capable of firing four to six times a day, but he expects to reach a maximum of 10 times per day. The Navy isn’t estimating a price tag at this point, with actual use still about 13 years away. But it does know it will be a comparatively cheap weapon to use.

“A Tomahawk is about a million dollars a shot,” McGettigan said.

He said estimates today are that rail gun projectiles will cost less than $1,000 each, “but it’s going to depend on the electronics.” Projectiles will probably eventually have fins for GPS control and navigation.

To achieve that kind of control and minimize collateral damage, rail gun ordnance will require electronic innards that can survive tremendous stress coming out of the muzzle.

“When this thing leaves, it’s (under) hundreds of thousands of g’s, and the electronics of today won’t survive that,” he said. “We need to develop something that will survive that many g’s.” At the peak of its ballistic trajectory, the projectile will reach an altitude of 500,000 feet, or about 95 miles, actually exiting the Earth’s atmosphere.

The rail gun will save precious minutes in providing support for Army and Marine Corps forces on the ground under fire from the enemy.

“The big difference is that with a Tomahawk, planning a mission takes a certain period of time,” McGettigan said. “With this, you get GPS coordinates, put that into the system and the response to target is much quicker from call to fire to actual impact.” General Atomics, a San Diego defense contractor, has been working on the pulse power system for the Navy rail gun with The Boeing Co., L3 Communications Pulse Sciences, SPARTA Composites, and Jackson Engineering. General Atomics was awarded a $10 million contract for the project last spring.

The concept is not new. It was born in the 1970s then promoted two decades ago when President Reagan proposed the anti-missile “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative. The SDI rail gun was originally intended to use super high-velocity projectiles to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
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I wanted to post this for 2020 discussion but since there is no other forum, than "general, and development" i thought this was a better spot.

apparently the navy's really pushing for technology development to make railguns useful on the high sea's baby!

[tkobo]

Ive always been a fan of rail guns.Weve known they work for many years, and ive wondered why we havent seen them implemented yet.

The article above makes a good explantion of that "why".It also one i wouldnt have expected.I would have thought they could just use the electronics from existing missiles,but i guess not.

The fact that the hold up is an electronic guidance issue for the ammo is very interesting.

Good read.

[Feltan]

heheheee, We built one in college. Small scale of course -- but a bunch of EE geeks and me decided to give it a try. The "target" in the basement of the physics building was, of course, our textbook.

Well, the slug blew through the textbook and took a chuck out of the wall behind it.

Regards,
Feltan

[Cirdan]

Railguns need a ridiculous ammount of maintenance, and don't eliminate friction since they have a "sling" traveling along rails. Coilguns or Gauss rifles would be much more efficient.

[Draken]

Not to metion the slow rate of fire... 10 rounds per day ... But lets see what will happen in 10 years of R&D....

I foresee some battleships armed with rail guns shooting targets with inexpensive guided ammo at 250 nm ranges... In SR2020 at least

[Journier]

rail guns will be the first step imo before the military begins its movement onto more efficient weaponry.


in the last 10 years, weve had some gigantic leaps and bounds in material technology,

I figure in the next 10 years, those leaps and bounds will finally get implemented to allow things like "railguns" to become cost efficient enough for use on ships.

Just getting rid of the powder hold on large ships i think would be quite useful, quite a less chance of the ship ever going "boom" in a fight.

meh, ALSO

Someone recently just made one of the first hand held coil guns.

coil pistol, it shoots a BB at like 150 feet per second, on batteries.

I think the thing would be pretty nice if someone developed some form of "long coil gun" if it could push the bullet past 1200 fps , it would be on its way to being something the military could use. Not soon anyways but atliest it would plow the way for Small arms production.