what i find amazing is how they can hit a target that far away by firing a shell from a boat. even a fraction of a degree off and you miss by a lot.
Definately amazing - no question tbh. Personally, I think this kind of tech is a brilliant idea, anything that reduces the number of dangerous substances on a ship has to be a good thing. That, and railguns are about the coolest things ever.
its eraser all over again, arnie said the navy was developing one and it was mounted on a ship! watch the film! haha! I think the writer got lucky there! i hope the test has been youtube'd really want to see the effect of this railgun! *edit* Holy sh*t it is on youtube! here *edit*much better here
Gotta love their definition of a joule! 200 miles is a long way to fire something - you'd just better hope that (a)it's pointing in the right direction; (b) that nothing moves between you and the target in the couple of seconds it takes the slug to get there; and (c) that the target's been correctly identified...
its just so cool, uber cool! just thinking if you got a rail gun spiting out rounds at 2,500ms^-1 at a range of 200 miles then you got ~2minutes to move a ship, haha this is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel!
I'd imagine theres a limited ammount of options when piloting a large navy style vessal in two minutes. They take fairly large distances to stop, and i doubt the turning circles are much to be shouted about, as long as you have the targetting computer working out where the vessal will be in two minutes i doubt it's much of a problem. That said, i'd hate ot be behind the target if they miss! Nice to hear some ideas for weapons that don't kill everything in the surrounding area as well... RwD
Cool! So we can destroy countries without even having to invade! Hrrm, not like we needed to invade anyone for years, we've had guided missiles for years... we've been able to destroy them from far for years... So why do we still invade countries? Maybe we just like to invade oil rich places? That isn't what bad people do is it? Ah yes, that's right, cos we are fighting a war on terrorism, and peacemaker weapons such as this are the sort of tools we need to terrorise-i mean spread the good word everywhere like such as. We need a rail gun on every boat, tank, plane, no, make it two rail gun's on each, and one up every soldiers rear end for good measure. You see, ruling the world is easy, just make lots of big guns & lots of big bombs, big boats, big planes, etc... and make sure no-one else has any weapons of mass destruction, only us! Anything more agressive than a battle-donkey is contraband!!! for them that is. All we need is now is to figure out how to shove a little nuke in these rail-gun slugs, then we'll see who's boss. Isn't it great to see $237 million dollars spent on this instead of health & education! Who need's that when you have the worlds biggest rail gun!?! So hows the star wars program coming along? Why don't we even have one death star yet? How about some tie-fighters? We can see people in those photos of mars, and they look a little hostile.. time to ante up i think.
It's a textbook definition dude - often used at the same time as the Newtonian derivation of gravity story.
actually id love to see them fire a rail gun in space, say aim it at the moon, purley to see how fast it can go!
Well he is the governor now, next stop, president. He's very qualified for the job! Everyone knows how well he kick's a$$ and can blow everything up. It is nice to hear some ideas for weapons that don't kill everything in the surrounding area as well, nothing is as precise & nothing stops exactly on target like a big metal slug travelling at 5,600 miles an hour launched from 200 miles away. No chance for anything but the intended target to be hit. Everyone knows that slugs are excellent at following computer controlled guidance co-ordinates, nothing more high tech than a slug.
The sarcasm detector just went mad on you there mvagusta - don't forget that this is an anti-ship weapon: they don't exactly cluster around passenger cruiseliners in the open oceans... That, and it's not difficult to predict where a slug will land.
The main problem with railguns thus far is the repair time. Currently, you fire it, and you're looking at days or weeks to fire the same gun again. Firing it once tears bits of the damn thing to bits. On the other hand, you've got cruise missiles, accurate to within a metre, able to fire from vert-launchers that can hold maybe 32, be reloaded within a few hours, and are far far cheaper for now than rail guns. No doubt, rail guns are an interesting concept for the future. But they are a long way away yet.
Well considering that the gun can fire a high tech slug once and then needs to be rebuilt, it is quite an economical gun, sort of like a disposable camera. No doubt, rail guns are an interesting concept for the future, the future gets more & more interesting & promising every day! Whoa, did someone say a sarcasm detector is getting mad with me? Hehe, i don't think so! Where's my rail gun, i'll show that detector a thing or two...
I'd say they're quite the opposite - they're about the most uneconomical weapon you can have. The whole launching system needs to be completely reworked after its fired.
