Sweet!!! Are "battleships" going to make a comeba

[BuShips]

As for Buships idea of tri-hulls, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the navy had plans for a tri-hull as a possible railgun platform.

Drat, I knew that I should have got that patent! :lol:

BTW, this is too flimsy for a railgun, but it sure is cool. It was docked just an hour from where I live, too. Spooky. I think Boeing must be playing with boats, eh?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/acoe/sets/72157594329953686/

 

[chaos0xomega]

odd looking thing. Looks a bit like one of them 'stealth' ships.

 

[BuShips]

odd looking thing. Looks a bit like one of them 'stealth' ships.

Shhhh!!! :wink:

 

[Makoto]

All those costs apply to cruise missiles too. Takes months to get there and back, plus hanging around on station.

We can ignore this cost, as it's the same for both weapon systems. However using a missile reduces the combat time to minutes instead of weeks, hence the large difference.

If you want to take out a room in the corner of one building, use a cruise missile. If you want to drop the whole building, you could use one of these rail guns.

Actually it's the other way around - with a lucky hit/warhead large enough single missile is enough to level a building. Said slug is only enough to blow a small hole and do nothing else, as it's size alone prevents any serious transfer of KE into the structure of the target.

A railgun is a kinetic weapon. The damage would be extreme

Not only incorrect, but also missing out basic physics.
Damage will be extreme to a vehicle, as this weapon is an excellent AT piece at about 1/100th or even less of proposed range, due to difficulties wuith hitting the small, mobile target.
However due to slug size the KE won't transfer into the building structure, instead the slug will just rip 2 small holes (entry and exit one), possibly tossing occupants of hit room to the walls and killing those who had the bad luck of standing directly in the way - again, slug size is way too small to create "speed wave" serious enough to incapacitate a human, regardless of it's speed and agit-prop division's wishfull thinking.

The Railgun isn't like your gunpowder artillery weapon, it follows a much straighter, much more accurate, much more calculatable flightpath than a gunpowder shell would. In addition, provided the ship doesn't move, it could keep the gun at the same elevation and expect to hit the same exact spot again and again.

Again, incorrect and this time ignoring not only physics, but ballistics aswell. Railgun follows exactly the same flight patterns as the XIV century bombards and all the henceforth artillery did, only uses different method of propulsion. Granted, wind deviation will be much smaller due to slug size, but that's all.
Talking about a ship as "doesn't moving" is an obvious abstraction, as no kind of stabilisation is able to keep barrel in exactly same place for 2+ hours (recharge time). Not to mention lack of "onboard" targeting systems means that the railgun will have to be shot-in the old-fashioned way, using spotters (before somebody starts - no, wire-guidance is completely out of the question no matter the range intended), which makes the proposed 250 km (or miles? too lazy to go back 2 pages and check ^^ ) range possible, but limits the actuall usefulness to about a per cent of this distance.

 

[DM]

provided the ship doesn't move

Unfortunately they do, even with dynamic positioning.

 

[Chernobyl]

I don't think weight would be a serious issue. All the heavy fuel/gas and large motors could be replaced with a handful of nuclear reactors capable of A-powering any and all railguns mounted on board, B-possibly increasing speed, C- providing additional energy for other weapon systems and onboard electronics.

you'll never see an Iowa class retrofit with nuclear propulsion. To do so would essentially require the removal of the entire superstructure, to get at the guts of the engine room - which won't happen for the same reason the navy wouldn't consider retrofitting a VLS.

Chern

 

[Chernobyl]

old news, but this news release shows where some of the research is headed...

http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/mediacenter/news/pressreleases/2000july20.html

Chern

 

[Soulmage]

All those costs apply to cruise missiles too.
Takes months to get there and back, plus hanging around on
station.

We can ignore this cost, as it's the same for both weapon systems.
However using a missile reduces the combat time to minutes instead of
weeks, hence the large difference.

No, it really makes no difference either way. The time on station
will be dicated by politcal events, not ability to dish out
destruction.

Furthermore, you are incorrect about the minutes versus weeks, but
that gets into the issue of accuracy below. . .

If you want to take out a room in the corner of one
building, use a cruise missile. If you want to drop the whole
building, you could use one of these rail guns.

Actually it's the other way around - with a lucky hit/warhead large
enough single missile is enough to level a building. Said slug is only
enough to blow a small hole and do nothing else, as it's size alone
prevents any serious transfer of KE into the structure of the
target.

As others have pointed out, a hypervelocity slug passing through a
building will have a very unpleasant effect on anybody who happens to
be inside the target building. . . assuming a lateral tragectory. An
arcing trajectory will cause 100% of the KE of the slug to be
transferred to the ground directly beneath the target. That would be
bad news for the target.

A railgun is a kinetic weapon. The damage would be extreme

Not only incorrect, but also missing out basic physics.
Damage will be extreme to a vehicle, as this weapon is an excellent AT
piece at about 1/100th or even less of proposed range, due to
difficulties wuith hitting the small, mobile target.
However due to slug size the KE won't transfer into the building
structure, instead the slug will just rip 2 small holes (entry and
exit one), possibly tossing occupants of hit room to the walls and
killing those who had the bad luck of standing directly in the way -
again, slug size is way too small to create "speed wave" serious
enough to incapacitate a human, regardless of it's speed and agit-prop
division's wishfull thinking.

I'm pretty sure there are existing AT rounds that work this way right
now. Certainly those aren't any larger than these would be.
Considerably smaller in fact.

The Railgun isn't like your gunpowder artillery weapon,
it follows a much straighter, much more accurate, much more
calculatable flightpath than a gunpowder shell would. In addition,
provided the ship doesn't move, it could keep the gun at the same
elevation and expect to hit the same exact spot again and
again.

Again, incorrect and this time ignoring not only physics, but
ballistics aswell. Railgun follows exactly the same flight patterns as
the XIV century bombards and all the henceforth artillery did, only
uses different method of propulsion. Granted, wind deviation will be
much smaller due to slug size, but that's all.

An unguided slug will follow a ballistic trajectory, yes. This is
where your earlier statements about weeks of bombardment were off base
as well. Currently the air force attaches $20 JDAM kits to vietnam
era unguided bombs to turn them into guided warheads. These have
actually proven more reliable and accurate than laser guided bombs
which have problems with cloud cover.

I'm sure similar technology could be developed for these as well with
a little bit of research onto hardy electronics. The guy in the
article even mentions that they are working on this. Even if the cost
of such kits for each slug were 1000 times as much as the JDAM kits,
$20,000 a shot for essentially the same accuracy as a cruise missile
is a whole lot better than $1.1M.

 

[chaos0xomega]

Actually it's the other way around - with a lucky hit/warhead large enough single missile is enough to level a building. Said slug is only enough to blow a small hole and do nothing else, as it's size alone prevents any serious transfer of KE into the structure of the target.

Actually, its neither way. The target deviation on a cruise missile is to great to hit the building itself, and let alone a single room. The slug could probably take out the building(think for a second, would the Navy spend money on this if they thought it wouldn't work? I hate to tell you this buddy, but you are probably NOT a physicist, and there are tons of very qualified people in the Navy that know more about this than any of us, provided that the railgun can be adjusted to hit it.

Not only incorrect, but also missing out basic physics.
Damage will be extreme to a vehicle, as this weapon is an excellent AT piece at about 1/100th or even less of proposed range, due to difficulties wuith hitting the small, mobile target.
However due to slug size the KE won't transfer into the building structure, instead the slug will just rip 2 small holes (entry and exit one), possibly tossing occupants of hit room to the walls and killing those who had the bad luck of standing directly in the way - again, slug size is way too small to create "speed wave" serious enough to incapacitate a human, regardless of it's speed and agit-prop division's wishfull thinking.

Wow, that is so wrong. The slug size has nothing to do with it, or at least less to do with it, and more to do with the speed. Again, you are not qualified to make these assertions. The Navy knows what is going on and probably knows whether or not it will really work.

Again, incorrect and this time ignoring not only physics, but ballistics aswell. Railgun follows exactly the same flight patterns as the XIV century bombards and all the henceforth artillery did, only uses different method of propulsion. Granted, wind deviation will be much smaller due to slug size, but that's all.

You assume that the exact same amount of gunpowder is placed inside each and every shell, which is not the case. Therefore you are wrong.

Not to mention lack of "onboard" targeting systems means that the railgun will have to be shot-in the old-fashioned way, using spotters (before somebody starts - no, wire-guidance is completely out of the question no matter the range intended), which makes the proposed 250 km (or miles? too lazy to go back 2 pages and check ^^ ) range possible, but limits the actuall usefulness to about a per cent of this distance.

Oh, silly me. I didn't realize that 'targetting computers' and 'satellites' didn't exist and couldn't be placed on a oceangoing vessel.

Unfortunately they do, even with dynamic positioning.

Don't know what dynamic positioning means, but yes I realize that an oceangoing vessel never STOPS moving.

you'll never see an Iowa class retrofit with nuclear propulsion. To do so would essentially require the removal of the entire superstructure, to get at the guts of the engine room - which won't happen for the same reason the navy wouldn't consider retrofitting a VLS.

Don't know what a VLS is, but I figured as much.

 

[captainsmirk]

VLS = Vertical Launch System.

Dynamic Positioning well, probably best to read this its will explain it better than I can...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_positioning


Nick

 

[Makoto]

The Navy knows what is going on and probably knows whether or not it will really work.

Now this is a surefire candidate for the most humorous remark of the millenia, along with the "we're from governmant and want to help you"
The Navy tries to get funds on problem that was to be solved back in XX century and still nobody's having any idea where to look for the proper question, not to mention the answer, so don't waste Your time taking seriously a PR officer/agit-prop joutrnalist trying to bright up the situation. As usuall, Navy (or any other military organisation) will rather waste more money rather than admit the research has gone into a deadend and try to utilise the project's effects as they were initially intended.

You assume that the exact same amount of gunpowder is placed inside each and every shell, which is not the case. Therefore you are wrong.

Your notation is completely irrelevant to the issue - no matter how much explosive/energy is used for propulsion, the rules projectile will follow are the same.

Oh, silly me. I didn't realize that 'targetting computers' and 'satellites' didn't exist and couldn't be placed on a oceangoing vessel.

In this case yes, silly You. Neither targeting computers nor satelites matter, if the slug itself cannot be guided.

As others have pointed out, a hypervelocity slug passing through a
building will have a very unpleasant effect on anybody who happens to
be inside the target building. . . assuming a lateral tragectory. An
arcing trajectory will cause 100% of the KE of the slug to be
transferred to the ground directly beneath the target. That would be
bad news for the target.

Could You do take little efford and at least try to check up some basic physics? Energy transfer will be way to little (or in simplier words: Earth is too huge) and will disperse too widely (and downwards) to get any noticeable effect from the slug hitting the ground, apart from obvious holes in the roof, floors and ground underneath.
As for the effect on the building itself - it's similar case as with using those small arms superspeed AT bullets devised to penetrate APC armour and kill crew inside on humans - unless the bullet hits a vital organ there's not much noticeable effect, as bullet speeds through the body too fast to transfer the energy and destroy the tissues.
Also slug size prevents any serious "shockwave" to bystanders in the room. Again, basic physics.

I'm pretty sure there are existing AT rounds that work this way right now. Certainly those aren't any larger than these would be.
Considerably smaller in fact.

Slightly larger, in fact. And most importantly they contain the warheads the railslug cannot, and that makes all the difference.

Currently the air force attaches $20 JDAM kits to vietnam
era unguided bombs to turn them into guided warheads.

And? As soon as the shot is fired any electronics within the slug stop working (btw targeting and guidance problems were one of the reasons the russians and poles abandoned this project in mid '90s), leaving us with unguided slug flying on ballistic arc. Am sure they're working on the problem, for the last 15 years at least, and still with no effect

Even if the cost
of such kits for each slug were 1000 times as much as the JDAM kits,
$20,000 a shot for essentially the same accuracy as a cruise missile
is a whole lot better than $1.1M.

That would be true, if not for a trivial detail: the slug doesn't posses any serious bombardment value. For that it'd have to be able to do any considerable damage to the target structure, not just hit it and make two holes within the target.

 

[chaos0xomega]

Your notation is completely irrelevant to the issue - no matter how much explosive/energy is used for propulsion, the rules projectile will follow are the same.

I'm sorry, but I think you just lost all all credibility right here. There is a huge difference between a Railgun and an explosive shell. The Railgun has an extremely controlled amount of energy to propel it, and it CAN and probably WILL be the same amount every time. Explosive propellants on the other hand, are a bit different. First of all the Powder or Cordite or whatever it's called ages slowly so they eventually become less effective and less powerful, the amount put in varies by a small amount which can throw off the area where the projectile lands a good foot or two, and there are so many other factors I can't even begin to describe it.

Neither targeting computers nor satelites matter, if the slug itself cannot be guided.

Actually, they do. With the use of a satellite, there doesn't need to be a spotter to see the target(you assume too much), and with the use of a targetting commputer, the railgun can be adjusted to proper elevation, power, etc. etc. to hit the right area(again, you assume to much).

Could You do take little efford and at least try to check up some basic physics? Energy transfer will be way to little (or in simplier words: Earth is too huge) and will disperse too widely (and downwards) to get any noticeable effect from the slug hitting the ground, apart from obvious holes in the roof, floors and ground underneath.

Not to bright, are you? If the energy gets dissipated into the ground UNDERNEATH THE BUILDING, that can only be a good thing, as the foundation would be weakened, and the amount of energy being transfered would cause the entire building to crumble from the bottom up.

As for the effect on the building itself - it's similar case as with using those small arms superspeed AT bullets devised to penetrate APC armour and kill crew inside on humans - unless the bullet hits a vital organ there's not much noticeable effect, as bullet speeds through the body too fast to transfer the energy and destroy the tissues.
Also slug size prevents any serious "shockwave" to bystanders in the room. Again, basic physics.

Where'd you get your physics degree? Remind me NEVER too study there...

You can't compare an AT shell/bullet to a railgun, a railgun travels MANY MANY TIMES FASTER.

Again, the Navy knows not to spend money on a project that won't work. YOu don't give them the credit they deserve. I can go and make you a list of projects that have been cancelled because they werent working right.

 

[Vadrus]

Your notation is completely irrelevant to the issue - no matter how much explosive/energy is used for propulsion, the rules projectile will follow are the same.

I'm sorry, but I think you just lost all all credibility right here. There is a huge difference between a Railgun and an explosive shell. The Railgun has an extremely controlled amount of energy to propel it, and it CAN and probably WILL be the same amount every time. Explosive propellants on the other hand, are a bit different. First of all the Powder or Cordite or whatever it's called ages slowly so they eventually become less effective and less powerful, the amount put in varies by a small amount which can throw off the area where the projectile lands a good foot or two, and there are so many other factors I can't even begin to describe it.

Neither targeting computers nor satelites matter, if the slug itself cannot be guided.

Actually, they do. With the use of a satellite, there doesn't need to be a spotter to see the target(you assume too much), and with the use of a targetting commputer, the railgun can be adjusted to proper elevation, power, etc. etc. to hit the right area(again, you assume to much).

Could You do take little efford and at least try to check up some basic physics? Energy transfer will be way to little (or in simplier words: Earth is too huge) and will disperse too widely (and downwards) to get any noticeable effect from the slug hitting the ground, apart from obvious holes in the roof, floors and ground underneath.

Not to bright, are you? If the energy gets dissipated into the ground UNDERNEATH THE BUILDING, that can only be a good thing, as the foundation would be weakened, and the amount of energy being transfered would cause the entire building to crumble from the bottom up.

As for the effect on the building itself - it's similar case as with using those small arms superspeed AT bullets devised to penetrate APC armour and kill crew inside on humans - unless the bullet hits a vital organ there's not much noticeable effect, as bullet speeds through the body too fast to transfer the energy and destroy the tissues.
Also slug size prevents any serious "shockwave" to bystanders in the room. Again, basic physics.

Where'd you get your physics degree? Remind me NEVER too study there...

You can't compare an AT shell/bullet to a railgun, a railgun travels MANY MANY TIMES FASTER.

Again, the Navy knows not to spend money on a project that won't work. YOu don't give them the credit they deserve. I can go and make you a list of projects that have been cancelled because they werent working right.

Your whole post shows you have no idea of ballistics or physics in any form, or indeed how government departments function come to that.

The only truly useful role for a railgun would be in direct fire where is can actually impart that vast energy to the target, once you start large ballistic arcs you end up with a weapon that might be great for national pride but almost certainly less effective that dropping a conventional bomb on the target.


Vadrus

 

[BuShips]

Well no matter what any of us think here, events in the news down the road will tell us all how this is (or is not) working out as a viable weapons system. Let's all achieve unity of purpose here and blame Soulmage for bringing this topic up (hee hee) :lol:. I will remain curious however and will look for any news reports of this technology in the future.

 

[Soulmage]

If this is the worst sort of thing I get blamed for. . . people around me must not be paying attention!! LOL!!

 

[BuShips]

If this is the worst sort of thing I get blamed for. . . people around me must not be paying attention!! LOL!!

I thought you'd get a kick out of it, besides. :wink:

 

[Soulmage]

Since this topic seems to have run its course, I will hijack my own thread here w/ a completely off topic story about when I was summoned for jury duty last year. . .

I was sitting in the gallery waiting to be called up for questioning by the prosecution and defense to determine if I would be deemed an acceptable juror.

The trial was over an assault charge, and the prosecutor had evidently seen and heard this all before. He passed on the opportunity to question any of the jurors.

The defense attorney was maybe 26, and this was clearly a big deal for him. Probably one of his first court proceedings. As he questioned the jury, he had already started trying to influence the pool of candidates a little.

As it turned out, the jury was selected before I ever got called up for questioning, and I was extremely disappointed. As the defense attorney had been questioning jurors, I had been coming up with all kinds of fun answers to his questions. For instance:

Attorney: "Have you ever been accused of something you didn't do?"

My response would have been: "No. I've pretty much done everything I've ever been accused of!"

I was so dissapointed!!

Oh. . . and their selections were very interesting too. There was this very sweet looking, cute girl/woman in the back row, maybe 21 years old. One of the first questions they ask is if you know any of the participants in the trial (judge, attorneys, defendant, victim, etc.).

She replied that she knew the defendant. The defense attorney asked where she knew him from. She said that she was a corrections officer at (some local detention facility) and the defendant had "been their guest on a few occasions!"

They kept her in the jury! :shock:

 

[LaranosTZ]

The big argument here seems to be kinetic energy vs. size, for some reason I think folks assume that rail gun projectiles are small. The rail guns that they are proposing for full size use are equivalent in size to a 5" shell or larger. 5" shells and larger are used to damage/sink destroyer class vessles and occasionally larger.

I don't know about you, but I think any shell that is normally used to punch big holes in battleships will do sizable equivalent damage to a building.

 

[chaos0xomega]

The only truly useful role for a railgun would be in direct fire where is can actually impart that vast energy to the target, once you start large ballistic arcs you end up with a weapon that might be great for national pride but almost certainly less effective that dropping a conventional bomb on the target.

That has been my argument from the very beginning, thanks for reading.

The part you quoted has nothing to do with whether direct fire or arcing would work.

The big argument here seems to be kinetic energy vs. size, for some reason I think folks assume that rail gun projectiles are small. The rail guns that they are proposing for full size use are equivalent in size to a 5" shell or larger. 5" shells and larger are used to damage/sink destroyer class vessles and occasionally larger.

Oh yea, thanks for reminding me. I kept wanting to bring this up. How do we know that the slug is 'too small'? All the article says IIRC is that the slug weighs 3kg (I think). Okay, so that is light(I aint good with metric, leave me alone) but light does not equal small.[/quote]

 

[Makoto]

I will remain curious however and will look for any news reports of this technology in the future.

So will I - it has a great AT potential, especially that the slug speed all but eliminates the need for adjustments for target movement (I know there's a word for it, just can't remember the term for the life of me... ^^" ).
The only problem is how to make a portable version of the generator, while mantaining at least half-decent RoF (say a shot an hour). This is just a song for the future am afraid.

5" shells and larger are used to damage/sink destroyer class vessles

Explosive warhead. Something that the slug will always lack and what completely changes the projectile/target relation. Put's them back into medieval stone-launching bombards age to be exact.

chaos0xomega - 3kg (about 6,7 lbs) iron slug = about 90 cubic inches volume. And the important thing is area hitting the target - 19,5 square inches (5" slug) isn't enough to pass any serious amount of KE into the target given the resistance put by brick/wodden/concrete wall.

Soulmage - nobody said court has to have any sense or be unabiased. Jury deserves some occasional fun aswell