>Washington (AFP) - The US Navy is quietly pushing ahead with a radical new cannon that one day could transform how wars are fought, even though some Pentagon officials have voiced concerns over its cost and viability.
Named the railgun, the weapon in question represents a paradigm shift in ballistic technology. Instead of using gunpowder and explosive charges to shoot a shell from its barrel, it employs vast amounts of electromagnetic energy to zoom a projectile along a set of copper-alloy rails.
Sounds like a dumb idea if you replace gunpowder with railguns
Tyler Gomez
haven't we been waiting on this railgun shit for like 20 fucking years?
Ayden Hernandez
Yeah, everyone except for you has know about this since the late 80's.
Jose Reyes
...
Justin Cox
The more dead muslims the better off the world is.
Isaac Howard
Does canada even have a military? Last i heard you were giving your bases to muslimes
Robert Miller
This isn't anything new. Don't they have working versions of these already?
Luke Collins
nigger
Lincoln Gutierrez
They saw some action in Afghanistan
Ayden Williams
This has been around for years...
Dominic Parker
metal... gear
Seriously though, metal gear could be real in 10 years.
>tfw no way to counter nuclear warhead launched at incredible speeds from railgun
Jack Reyes
>mfw never will be launched from a railgun in a tincan wailing on the guitar as part of some horrible experiment to replace rapid deployment by helicopters
Jaxon Perez
Rail gun isn't even exiting user bro, the laser is the real news
Jack Allen
*WHOOOSSSSH*
Elijah Gonzalez
it only shoots 150 miles
Nolan Smith
kek
Cooper Myers
>railguns >new
Bentley Harris
You mean the railgun built and designed by British Aerospace?
It even has the logo on the side of it
Henry Scott
>you clicked
good job
Ethan Thompson
>laser
can't tonight, too foggy
Ryder Jenkins
>Each HVP eventually will cost about $50,000 -- still considerably more expensive than a conventional shell but an order of magnitude cheaper than guided missiles such as the Tomahawk, that cost more than $1 million apiece.
Well the price on those sure has gone up. I remember them talking about the costs to fire the railgun and it was jack shit. Like in the realm of few k at absolute tops. I bet they made a contract with Shekelheim & Berg to manufacture those things. After all they're just metal spikes, pic related.
They're working already yeah and as far as that power drain goes, the new Zumwalt class ship can power that no problems.
The main problem is the wear on the gun itself. They basically fuck up the rails after couple of shots and that's a bit of a problem. Think of it as a cannon where the barrel melts after few shots.
Thomas Diaz
>11 can you please explain this to me or give me a wiki? I am genuinely interested and too drunk to googlefu it. Sounds like the most badass way to kys ever
Lucas Thompson
Been in the works for a long time. The principle is well understood.
The problem is storing enough electrical charge and making rails that don't disintegrate immediately. But I suppose they're working it out.
Charles Robinson
I laughed
Noah Cook
>Named the railgun >the railgun
Remind me why illiterate normie retards allowed to run blogs these days?
Christopher Rivera
Can't do anything a cruise missile can't ... and those are only expensive because military procurement and the defense industry is fucked up.
Xavier Reyes
IN
lel, saved.
Jaxson Gutierrez
dude you are embarrassingly far behind
how did you just now hear about this?
the fact that you actually use yahoo news might explain it
William Perez
METAL GEAR?!
Jaxon Bailey
they need to have a projectile that has well controlled ballistic characteristics along with being able to not disintegrate immediately as it is launched.
I imagine it consists of some very difficult/expensive to make extremely hard alloys, and requires extremely precise machining.
Cameron Ward
good luck hitting these things with ciwis bro, also you can carry loads of these things
Christian Lee
How the fuck do rounds cost 50k a peice? I could mill the same thing in my garage for 10 bucks
Connor Perry
Shut the fuckk up you dumb nigger
Michael Baker
lel who needs railguns, just use gunpowder
Gavin Young
gr8 b8 m8
Matthew Barnes
where do they generate the energy from? nuclear reactors?
Robert Roberts
...
Jaxon Davis
nuclear doesn't provide more power than chemical it just has greater fuel efficiency
Jordan Turner
>mounting rail guns on ships only Honestly i see potential in these weapons on aircraft serving as long range anti tank/everything below. Like flying sniper rifles
Jaxson Cooper
That or regular. It's not really about energy or power output, because the energy has to be discharged in a very short amount of time.
Just needs lots of very high end capacitors.
>What is recoil
Cameron Reyes
They could, but there aren't any active nuclear powered cruisers or destroyers. Only carriers and subs use them.
Electricity is generated with an alternator whether it's nuclear, diesel, or whatever. All nuclear reactors do is heat up water into steam to spin a turbine.
They have to have a bunch of fancy capacitors to be able to store and rapidly discharge that much electricity though.
John Bennett
Old news , but posting just because.
Mason King
>humans can compinsate for recoil >rail gun is giant gun Giant robots?
Samuel Hill
Witbesssseeeeeeeeed
Asher Hall
>somehow having potential is the same as this plan is fucking bulletproof that even JFKs head is safe
Xavier Garcia
what? did you even read that
Eli Baker
There is no rail gun in magnetic accelerators. Do you even into physics? You have a bunch of magnets. Those magnets progressively speed an object up and it is pushed into progressively intensifying fields. Holy fuck.
Gavin Lee
Recoil. Of corse there's a rail gun. Fucking thumbs.
Noah Sullivan
>What is recoil
Caleb Jones
>railguns >new What is BAE systems?
Kevin Adams
whoops
Angel Campbell
Yes i think they already put one on a battleship.
Gabriel Jenkins
>Think of it as a cannon where the barrel melts after few shots. why does the barrel melt? surely the sabot doesn't actually contact the rails at any point? is it friction caused by explosive air displacement? why is the barrel not a vacuum environment? are the capacitors themselves melting because they're shoving 1.21 gigawatts through them multiple times? what gives?
Caleb Peterson
They even had some medic troops supporting us in Vietnam. Don't bash Canada for not wanting to police the world 24/7. There is plenty of other pussy shit to go after them for that isn't their military.
Grayson Murphy
>what is google
Leo Johnson
Yeah or some way dwsign the gun to mount to the fount of the aircraft for longer distance
Christopher Stewart
Bump
Joseph Mitchell
*design *front fuck
Blake Clark
...
Brandon Ramirez
>tfw country has rail-gun and magnetic carrier launch catapult
Wyatt Ortiz
...
Dylan Morgan
The rounds are expensive because there is some self-guidance tech involved. Basically they can deploy drag along an axis to slight correct trajectory mid-flight. This gives them a range of 600 miles.
Christian Nguyen
There's heat from the current used to make the EMF
Logan Gomez
I still don't quite understand the benefit of railguns compared to conventional weapons.
Elijah Sanchez
...
Andrew Green
Actually there was a few thousand Canadians that headed south to fight with you in Vietnam. Not just medics.
I know a few of them.
Connor Roberts
Because you need a fuck ton of magnets to hurl a projectile longer distance. So instead of mounting the rail gun on the side like as a 155 0r 105, the entire hull is the gun. Like a bigger A10 with a bigger gun
Isaiah Sanchez
...
Gavin Diaz
No more magazine explosions on ships.
Angel Nelson
Not to mention one hell of a power source.
Pretty much rules out aircraft at this point in time.
James Robinson
This is what cracks me up about the gun control debate.
Guns are soooo dangerous... Blah blah blah
The fools have no idea what is coming.
Rail guns with make chemical projectial weapons look like air rifles.
...and people are building rail guns in their garage right now
3d printed rail guns will kill the god of regulation.
Levi James
The cost is making them from pure tungsten senpai.
And the more muslims are born the worse off the world is.
Bentley Brown
>surely the sabot doesn't actually contact the rails at any point? It does exactly this. An electric current is applied to one rail, conducted through the sabot, and completes the circuit through the other rail. This produces the force that pushes the sabot along the rails. Plus a fuckton of heat.
Adam Foster
Are rail guns on tanks next? Once they perfect and miniaturize the technology, of course.
Luis White
Love that flags food.
Bibinka and pork tocino is god tier breakfast
Asher Cooper
...
Parker Thomas
He's right though.
Nolan Baker
Thats exactly my point the idea is there as well as the potential. Tanks are another good idea, eliminate the need for depleted uranium shells, thus saving healthcare cost later in the future.
Also the aircraft would serve long range support. Opposite of the A10 CAS missions. If they can perfect the power/delivery system on the rail gun this could have potential to poineer the age of ariel artillery
Justin Torres
Self-propelled artillery will get them before MBTs. That will be a long while off though; the gun itself isn't that big, but all the capacitors and generator(s) take a lot of space.
Owen Williams
Sweet And that was from 3 years ago!
Lucas Morales
Probably not tanks, but I wouldn't be surprised to one day see a railgun artillery battery. Basically a big ass generator on wheels that tows around the actual cannon. They could be set up deep in safe territory where they're well protected and fueled, and lob shells for miles deep into enemy territory.
That said, a long time ago I read a kick ass sci-fi novel that was basically about gigantic futuristic land battleships that were controlled by an AI plus a human commander. They had railguns, nuclear ICBMs, cruise missiles and a laser defense system, and basically you could drop a handful of them on a planet to roll around blowing up whatever you wanted. I forget what the book was called but it was a really fun read.
Joseph Long
Canadian snipers are bretty good
Noah Gutierrez
>eliminate the need for depleted uranium shells Excuse me but how would the propulsion of the shells change the fact that giving them a depleted uranium core extends their range etc.?
Ian Edwards
But wait, there's more!
Oliver Green
Idk what you guys use down under but here in burger land on M1 abrams they use DU shells for penetration on armor. Like armor piercing ammunition on steroids.
But if perfected, the rail gun would use kinetic energy as the range, propulsion, and penetration trifecta.
The concept of weaponizing kinetic energy means the faster it goes the harder it goes through basically
Daniel Foster
But won't the depleted uranium core, making the missile more heavy, hold its kinetic energy for longer, extending range and armour penetration?
Justin Kelly
>tfw this thing got scrapped
thanks obama
Joseph Cox
Question: is the railgun a highschoool girl?
Jackson Kelly
Never stop building cool shit and sweet weapons Ameribros.
Michael Peterson
On the concept railgun it would use a dense metal by itself as the payload, thus eliminating the need for using DU. On a 120mm, i would think heavy round would affect the velocity. Idk i was a scout not a tanker
Bentley Clark
>railguns
how old is this news?
Ryan Walker
less moving parts = lower chance of failure or breakage no explosives storage more accurate lower cost per shot
Ryder Fisher
What metal would not shatter, on impact, at the high Mach number speeds (nor melt from the air resistance friction)?
Xavier Murphy
>a dense metal What ones are denser than uranium and economical enough to use?
Robert Robinson
Are you asking critcally or genuinely curious? I dont know. Probably a titanium tungsten alloy would do the trick. But like i said its only a concept
Ian Scott
Could a ship deploy a trillion Tera Joule electromagnet to defeat the rail gun projectile?
