I guess I'm looking for some star wars stuff..... 'Innovation' type leap.
Now if this did '8' times the damage, of a normal round it's size.....is that what you're saying? Sure would like to see it fired at something on a tow line, if that's the case.
Don't think of the damage done by the explosives in the payload... Think of the kinetic energy of the shell.
The following equation is used to represent the kinetic energy (KE) of an object.
KE = 0.5 m v2
where m = mass of object
v = speed of object
This equation reveals that the kinetic energy of an object is directly proportional to the square of its speed. That means that for a twofold increase in speed, the kinetic energy will increase by a factor of four. For a threefold increase in speed, the kinetic energy will increase by a factor of nine. And for a fourfold increase in speed, the kinetic energy will increase by a factor of sixteen. The kinetic energy is dependent upon the square of the speed. As it is often said, an equation is not merely a recipe for algebraic problem solving, but also a guide to thinking about the relationship between quantities.
You're looking at a non-explosive containing payload (of equal mass) dumping 64 times the amount of energy. So you if can sling a "bullet" 8 times faster, you're getting a major bang for your buck, and without having to deal with hazardous explosive shells or hazardous propellants. For a warship, that is a BIG improvement in reducing potential damage to your own ship in a fight... plus it could result in less storage space being needed per shot, translating to being able to carry more rounds and/or allowing the ship to be built smaller (ie. potentially more stealthy).
The flat shooting can be a big bonus for in close fighting. With accurate targeting data provided by a remote platform... it could conceivably be hitting targets over the horizon as well.
WOW....well, I understood that one.
Yeah, damage multiplied by itself each time the speed is doubled, not 8 but 64, squared. ....it's starting to sink in. The safety makes a lot of sense also, didn't even consider that. And more rounds to carry into battle, another plus for the light weight.
Yep, a nice little piece to have in your arsenal. Might just be a 'revolutionary' weapon, especially for smaller ships. Now, I'd REALLY like to see it hit something...should be quite a sight.
Thanks for the explanation....not a waste of time, I got it.
"Murphy's Law"
#3939981 - 04/16/1412:12 AMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Dachs]
Would it be possible to launch cannister rounds at this speed too? A good dense cloud of tungsten pellets accelerated to ludicrous speed, would probably make short work of most incoming missiles, and would be more forgiving of small aiming errors than a solid slug.
They mention really nasty looking advanced airburst munitions for use against airborne threats in this old vid. (I'm guessing this vid is five or more years old) ...
The truck being hit in the first vid is interesting, it looks like they mounted the truck vertically so the shell would penetrate through the roof. I assume the shell travels so fast that it couldn't possibly hit an object from above.
#3940074 - 04/16/1404:18 AMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
Hard to judge what damage it would do with the posted videos. Can't tell what those three walls are made of in the first page. And my .45 would go through an old rusted truck....not with that much 'drama' (or 'trauma') though
Be nice to see it hit a solid steel ships hull.
"Murphy's Law"
#3940094 - 04/16/1405:31 AMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
Joined: Jun 2002 Posts: 11,946Crane Hunter
Veteran
Yeah, damage multiplied by itself each time the speed is doubled, not 8 but 64, squared.
Yes, this is why asteroid impacts are so devastating. A one ton rock going 40,000 mph has a hugely amplified amount of energy; works out to 76 tons of TNT. This works out to an ordinary rock 64m on a side at that speed having the impact of a 100MT bomb. And 64m is a wee tiny asteroid, there are probably tens of millions of them that size not charted in the solar system.
#3940126 - 04/16/1410:08 AMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Crane Hunter]
I wonder if a railgun projectile could be intercepted cost effectively?
That may actually be the bigger incentive for this weapon. Cruise Missiles, Anti-Ship Missiles, even conventional Arty Shells can be intercepted today. A 5000 mph projectile... nope.
That may actually be the bigger incentive for this weapon. Cruise Missiles, Anti-Ship Missiles, even conventional Arty Shells can be intercepted today. A 5000 mph projectile... nope.
What if you used another railgun optimized for the role?
#3940302 - 04/16/1405:12 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
Joined: Feb 2000 Posts: 49,716Jedi Master
Entil'zha
There's nothing harder than shooting a bullet down with another bullet!
The Jedi Master
The anteater is wearing the bagel because he's a reindeer princess. -- my 4 yr old daughter
#3940307 - 04/16/1405:13 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Jedi Master]
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,577PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,577
Miami, FL USA
Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
There's nothing harder than shooting a bullet down with another bullet!
The Jedi Master
That's child's play for James McAvoy.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
#3940311 - 04/16/1405:19 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
Joined: Feb 2000 Posts: 49,716Jedi Master
Entil'zha
That may actually be the bigger incentive for this weapon. Cruise Missiles, Anti-Ship Missiles, even conventional Arty Shells can be intercepted today. A 5000 mph projectile... nope.
What if you used another railgun optimized for the role?
You would have a very small window to detect, track, plot an intercept course, and react. Cruise missiles are easier because they're for the most part subsonic and significantly larger and more complex. In this case you're just taking about a solid slug of metal.
" And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'"- John F. Kennedy
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#3940331 - 04/16/1405:53 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Murphy]
Hard to judge what damage it would do with the posted videos.
Assuming the the analogy to tanks-
The round is a fin stabilized, subcaliber dart with an adapter to make contact with the barrel wall.
Tank sabot ammunition use the target's own hard material construction against itself, i.e., a penetration throws a high speed cloud of white-hot metal fragments through the penetration inside the target. While there is no explosive warhead, the behind the armor effects are violent like an explosion.
I would assume there are limitations for the same reason as tank sabot rounds: This seems to limit the effects on types of land based targets (bombarding troop or vehicle formations- someone did however mention sub-munition type round) or for certain types of infrastructure the damage would be more limited (bridges, certain kinds of buildings- if you fired one of these through a wooden building or through a large factory, for example, the damage wouldn't be so great). Nor does it seem practical to assume a line of sight to certain targets well inland away from a coast.
In other words, great against ship targets or against aircraft, maybe more limited value against targets that traditionally high explosive shells or bombs or cruise missiles would still be preferred.
No one gets out of here alive.
#3940332 - 04/16/1405:55 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: NavyNuke99]
Joined: Jun 2002 Posts: 11,946Crane Hunter
Veteran
You would have a very small window to detect, track, plot an intercept course, and react. Cruise missiles are easier because they're for the most part subsonic and significantly larger and more complex. In this case you're just taking about a solid slug of metal.
Of course, but there are armored vehicle active protective systems under development that can deal with fast moving projectiles up to and including MBT APDSFS rounds, which while much slower, are bound to be lit off much closer than a bombarding railgun typically.
#3940336 - 04/16/1406:11 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
Basically that's what modern reactive armor attempts- uses explosive against the incoming penetrator to destabilize it or break it up, so whatever part of the penetrator is left is approaching at a bad angle or is no longer in stable flight once it reaches the main armor. Because the penetrator is moving at such a high speed to begin with, spinning it, imparting yaw forces, or snapping it can seriously destabilize and effectively reduce the amount of hitting power it has left by the time it reaches the main armor array. Whether that would apply to ships and this sort of system would be interesting.
No one gets out of here alive.
#3940353 - 04/16/1406:48 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
The analogy for this is like old wooden sailing ships- you could punch holes into wooden hulls with cannon balls and the ships could still keep sailing, unless you hit a powder store, they tended to carry different types of shot if they wanted to knock out sails or kill more of the crew.
So in addition to this type of weapon, I think you'd still want to have other options for different types of targets that it doesn't deal with as well. You could probably vaporize aircraft and seriously damage ships, but it's probably not so versatile against a lot of land based targets, or for protection against things like enemy bomblets or just a swarm of missiles.
Wargames in the past have shown, at least in theory, it's possible to defeat a modern navy group using large shore based missile attacks overwhelming defenses or swarms of small suicide craft getting up close.
No one gets out of here alive.
#3940398 - 04/16/1408:16 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
Joined: Dec 2011 Posts: 3,740FlashBurn
Senior Member
Well modern navy ships have about zero armor. But there is a lot of large bits of things to brake. How well bulkheads and the like hold up to a presumably rapid firing weapon remains to be seen. The cost of the shells at 25k a piece says there is something special in the construction.
Also while the focus has been on raw speed of projectile that is totally appropriate for a kinetic energy weapon, who knows if you could launch a more conventional HE round at a much lower velocity to get that nice ballistic arc conventional artillery like so much to bombard shore targets? But one things is for sure...this thing cannot be a rifled weapon. At that speed the rifling would be completely worn out after a few rounds.
#3940403 - 04/16/1408:23 PMRe: Navys New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
[Re: Linebacker]
My problem in general with wonder weapons is that warfare is always an evolutionary arms race, to think otherwise is to ignore, suppress or deny that opponents cannot or will not develop responses. Offense may reign for a while, then defense becomes stronger, then the advantage may switch to offense again, and so on. Nothing maitains the advantage forever. To cultivate faith in something as the end all be all is to invite disaster.
Virtually unknown to the public, just prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, a very expensive, large scale wargame was conducted simulating an enemy country like you would expect to be Iraq or other more minor threat. They brought in a retired USMC 3 Star to play the OPFOR. The result was that Donald Rumsfeld's commanders and the US Navy were virtually sunk by a combination of ingenuity and lower tech means, suicide tactics, swarms of cheap, disposable Silkworm class anti-ship missiles to overwhelm defenses, primitive communications such as message carriers rather than radio nets that can be detected and so on. Losses to the US represented scores of ships and thousands of sailors. It was quite an embarrassment, but since the US had spent so much money on the wargame to see it through to its entirety, they simply discarded the results and reset the games and took away the OPFOR commander's ability to wage the war he wanted to.
This is the kind of enemy you might face say, against North Korea or China. These navies will not win in a direct confrontation with the US Navy, and they aren't going to try to. Rather, they aim to create as much havoc as possible using more unorthodox means, or by attempting to exploit what they think advantages they do have.