Supersonic rail guns

[blizzard07]

Navy gets another hypersonic railgun, fires test shots | SmartPlanet

These things whack into a target at such meteoric speed that no explosive warheads are required. It's probably just a matter of "when?" as to when a man portable version is developed. Bad news for gunpowder manufacturers!

[blizzard07]

Needs loads of electricity....portable might be defined as "hauled on a tractor trailer."

The firearm started as a canon and evolved into the matchlock musket. It's quite possible our grandkids will be duck hunting with electric shotguns one day. Cool how the electric fields push the projectile down the tube giving it a boost as it passes each "station"-as opposed to just the single boost in the breech that has powered projectiles for the last 400 years.

[blizzard07]

I've no doubt they might come down in size, but I don't know how you generate the necessary magnetism without BIG magnets. Or electromagnets as the case might be. But if you could make do with say, a hundred of so feet of range, maybe a power supply carried on a back pack could do.

Well here is what a cell phone looked like in 1956-AND it required an onboard operator to switch calls! I would expect you would see slimdowns in Electric projectile launchers.

[blizzard07]

Except it wasn't cellular in nature. And some car phones weren't even full duplex. IIRC, they operated in the business band, possibly not far from where railroad radio is.

THe point is the technology improves and in this day and age it snowballs pretty damn fast-unless of course there is an unsolvable scientific barrier in the way. If not you are looking at the future of firearms.

[blizzard07]

The scientific barrier is the that the amount of electromagnetism you can develop has everything to do with the size of the electromagnet. I can usually envision how certain things can get smaller and still do a job, but I just am not getting a picture of how electromagnets can be shrunk without limiting their potential field capacity. Doesn't mean it won't happen of course. But the output electromagnets only increases with more turns of wire in the windings. More powerful magnets have more mass obviously. It's a physical property. I suggest that instead of this technology shrinking it instead will point the way to a different technology that can be minuscule, yet uses something other than explosive propellants. In any case we are going to get some groovy naval weaponry that rivals the firepower of the USS Wisconsin, and does it with magnetism.

OK how is this-an as yet undiscovered source of power that achieves the same effect as electromagnetism that can be placed onto the system? But my science is weak and maybe this is an impossible barrier. The amazing thing about this system as it is is that the projectile strikes with such speed as to cause an explosion without explosives-similar to a meteor strike and with the flattest trajectory ever and atmospherics all nonsense at that speed. The USS Wisconsin's worth of firepower with the added advantage of extreme accuracy. I wonder what the rate of fire is? Our potential enemies have had to have turned sheet white when they first looked at this video!

[blizzard07]

Yah, that's what I am saying it will come to if you want to scale it down. I really don't know it would be though. It would have to have the striking ability of the rail gun. North Korea relaxed their sabre rattling when they saw we have lasers suitable for destroying enroute missiles, and thus don't have to use up our own missiles to deflect theirs! Add the threat of a rail gun with cheap inert projectiles that can still do damage and I am sure that will make some eyebrows raise. But and this is my soap box moment. The reason nobody but terrorist elements attack us on our own soil, is because many if not most civilians are armed! That is what the 2nd amendment was meant for! Rail guns indeed!

I think it was in WWII the Japanese command was considering armed incursions on the West Coast? The idea was nixed when someone pointed out that there would be "a rifle behind every blade of grass." This is one issue the Right has absolutely correct and the far left is dead wrong (now economics is a whole 'nother story!). For the same reason another layer of protection against terror would be added if rail workers were allowed to concealed carry. Ben Laden DID have plans drawn up for attacks on US railroads when his career was cut short and it's a good guess that the plan still remains.
Railguns might be a bluff-but if it is for real they have got to be a game changer...ever looked at the meteor crater in Arizona? Now that is some destructive power!

[blizzard07]

It was Admiral Yamamoto who said that. How wise he was on that matter! And I think the rail gun is real, and for now, mostly a Naval weapon, when they get it packaged into a proper style suitable for ship mounting. It looks to be pretty much a laboratory item, but it could be beefed up for durability and weatherproof and all that. Of course the ship that carries it will need the space behind the gun barrel....or rail....for all the electrics and fire control systems. And if it really is a good weapon I could see several on a destroyer...do we still have any of those?

I have got to kind of think that these new weapons-or the threat thereof- might have had something to do with Kim Jung Un suddenly going so quiet. Now if they could only get a rail gun on an airplane the Iranians might get reasonable, what with the prospect of a series of subnuclear explosions drilling into their underground complexes.

[jetboater]

Sometimes the threat of a weapon is a good as a shot between the eyes. But you always risk that once they figure out what we've got, they'll invent one of their own! Sabre rattling is always a game of who's got the sharpest blade!

And what happens when someone's saber rattling bluff is called too. Very high stakes game.