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

[Locutus9956]

I dont care how practical it actually turns out to be. As far as I'm concerned, more Rail guns = better In any setting, fictional or otherwise (for those who play EVE Online it should come as no great surprise that I'm fond of the Rokh (well when I can actually afford one )P)

 

[chaos0xomega]

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.

The generator on the full-size, fully operational(wow, I feel like I am talking about the Death Star) railgun, will probably be a Nuclear powerplant, at least. I don't know where else they would be able to get enough energy to fire a SINGLE 64megajoule railgun at least 8 times a day.

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I dont care how practical it actually turns out to be. As far as I'm concerned, more Rail guns = better Razz In any setting, fictional or otherwise Razz (for those who play EVE Online it should come as no great surprise that I'm fond of the Rokh (well when I can actually afford one Razz)P)

Ahhh... Eve Online, good times, good times. I'm a Caldari who flies Minbari lol.

Thinking about getting back into the game soon, if and when I manage to get a new and better computer that can actually handle it. Can you do me a favor? If you happen to see a Martin Hartl (or hell, just email him), tell him that an old Corp-mate of his, Chaos Hellbreth, says Hi. He's in 7th space cav if that helps any.

 

[Davesaint]

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

Well, this has been an interesting topic.

About slug rounds - The US M1A1 Abrams fires a depleted uranium slug(The sabot) round. The round when it hits it's target is about the size of the average fist. I think you could find plenty of soldiers that could tell you the effectiveness of slug rounds.

I was watching a show about the Barrett rifle last night. It's a .50 cal sniper rifle. I saw the rounds, the person was using ball ammo, go through 2 cinderblocks at 1000 meters.

There are not nearly as many buildings that are made out of solid concreate anymore. This is due to the cost factor for the building mateials.

I have no doubt that a rail gun could penatrate a wood/brick/cinderblock wall with no problems.


Dave

 

[DM]

I don't think its the penetration that is exercising people's minds, its what happens when it does. To get this slightly back to a WW2 perspective many destroyers were hit by large calibre AP rounds. No problems whatsoever in penetrating, but thats all the round did - in one side, out the other. Coming to a more modern example, a Russian nerchant ship got in the way of an SS-N-3 anti ship missile (over a tonne at mach lots) - the result was a "cookie cutter" hole in one side of the radio shack, a slightly more ragged hole in the other. The radios still worked.

What is needed is a high KE shell that is able to effectively dump that KE into the target.

 

[BuShips]

I don't think its the penetration that is exercising people's minds, its what happens when it does. To get this slightly back to a WW2 perspective many destroyers were hit by large calibre AP rounds. No problems whatsoever in penetrating, but thats all the round did - in one side, out the other. Coming to a more modern example, a Russian nerchant ship got in the way of an SS-N-3 anti ship missile (over a tonne at mach lots) - the result was a "cookie cutter" hole in one side of the radio shack, a slightly more ragged hole in the other. The radios still worked.

What is needed is a high KE shell that is able to effectively dump that KE into the target.

With "KE" meaning Kinetic Energy which then equals Killing Efficiency :twisted:

 

[Hugbiel]

chaos0xomega wrote

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.

Don't want to be ( grumpf what the good word?, why France don't conquier the world ) aggressive but that sound like an ad hominem attack based on an argument by authority. An interrogative form will look like ( grr ... ) more ( ... ) cool. ( i realy can't keep my temper with argument by authority )


I'm not qualified either but i got some food for thought

A railgun is a kind of gun. Explosif can be made realy precise ( there are plenty of them ) but electronic and magnetic capability give a railgun more control potential. This potential may or may be not be usable by technology. Just as magnetic torpedo.

But as a gun it's projectile follow the same physic as other gun. At this speed and range air is a factor and will cause some dispersion.
But the shell will change how much.

The final outcome will be higly dependent of the shell. If the sell is realy sturdy it can just go deep in the ground and have little effect or stop on something and let all the energy and shockwave on the target.
Juste like AP and dum dum bullet : the first will have little effect on a soft target and the second on a hard target.

The advantage of railgun on this is that he use a field effect who is ( on his range ) less agressive ( and may be more controled but explosion can do nasty thing too: think of fireworks ) than the shockwave(s) of an explosion. This allow for weaker then more complex shell. Maybe even guidance, but electronic don't like high magnetic field.

IMHO it can serve the pupose it was build for but if I think it can be inexpensive, I doubt it will be accurate then. In the modern politic it would be more a matter of agressive communication with the ennemy or the soldiers.
Since it's the other who take the risk, and no manned or expensive vector have to enter the war zone it may have some use. An other weapon that only hit the villains.

... ok now it's your turn to make joke on me

 

[Makoto]

I have no doubt that a rail gun could penatrate a wood/brick/cinderblock wall with no problems.

Penetration of the walls is unquestionable, even on the building behind the original target. The problem is that the slug will penetrate all the walls and do not much else, as it's size will prevent any serious transfer of KE into the target. And unlike vehicles buildings lack all those fragile systems that after hit render the tank unusable, they simply stand where they were, only with couple more holes about 6-7" in diameter each (again, supposing we're talking 5" slugs).

 

[BuShips]

Hmm, I wonder if a railgun would fire this ok? :shock:

Keyword here is "Scramjet" kiddies... :wink:

I uh, found this tonight doing some research for VaS and thought it might "fit" here and that Soulmage could have a heart attack of pure joy, heh. This one belongs over on the Victory at Sea: Evolution forum (wait, there is no VaS:Evo forum, heh), so here it stays. If MGP ever wanted some high-tech naval support at mach 7, here is a solution. Better yet, it should work with a 16" battleship gun (my very favorite weapon). :wink:

http://www.g2mil.com/Oct2001Letters.htm

 

[BuShips]

This ain't a dead topic, folks. For those with time to kill, these chaps going back and forth make our little bunch look silly :lol:

I really don't think this is the actual ammo of a proper railgun weapon per se, but the hypersonic speeds (hypersonic is above mach 5) of this possibility and the already established link to possibly using a scramjet sabot round belongs in any discussion here. I do see where there could be some overlap or combination in the use of scramjet projectiles and railguns to fire them as this round is ons single piece of titanium and has no moving parts.

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/battleships-forum/6406-battleship-debate-heats-up.html


Here is one of the juicier quotes:

A scramjet shell with a nominal impact weight of 300kg and an impact velocity of 2kps would produce 600,000 megajoules of energy....or about 353,000 times more powerful than a 120mm M829A3 sabot round(1.7 megajoules). Obviously such a round would require absolutely no warhead at all. Lethal radius against exposed troops would be immense, perhaps as much as 500 meters or more. Such a round would also just about literally vaporize a main battle tank, lol.

Lastly, I'd like the chaps at Mongoose to look at this detail info as there is mention of using the tech with smoothbore MBT guns. Can you say "Battlefield: Evolution"??? :idea: Just for kicks on tanks, the muzzle velocity of a current MBT gun tube is mach 5, and just happens to be the speed that will allow a scramjet round the push it needs to light off and boost itself 8) . Remember, no moving parts, tooled out of one piece of metal and burns outside air mixed with its onboard fuel component.

 

[chaos0xomega]

How much do those scramjet rounds cost? A piece? I can picture some pretty destructive thing happening to the area hit by it if it is fired from a railgun at full force. THat is 64megajoules already, so I imagine there will be some sort of multiplier applied to that 650k megajoule number to get you a nice little number in the millions.

 

[BuShips]

How much do those scramjet rounds cost? A piece? I can picture some pretty destructive thing happening to the area hit by it if it is fired from a railgun at full force. THat is 64megajoules already, so I imagine there will be some sort of multiplier applied to that 650k megajoule number to get you a nice little number in the millions.

I think the answer is to stay tuned to the future... :wink: The immediate multiplier advantage that I envision is if these were added to MBT options for extended range and increased accuracy. :shock:

 

[Sneaky]

Of course whether than can actually achieve that level of accuracy is another matter and remains to be seen...


Nick

If there's a Union flag on it........





sorry, sorry :lol:

 

[klingsor]

Oddly I am reminded of the Dynamite Guns that appeared just over a century or so ago. They were a clever, high tech solution to a problem and promised greater effectiveness for naval gunnery but in practice had too many problems and were overtaken by improvements to conventional artillery. They have been working on mass drivers since WW II at least if not before and maybe this time they are ready. As a long time Traveller fan I am quite excited but the conventional gun is going to be with us for a long time yet, maybe with liquid propellants for the heavier pieces and rather less likely caseles for smallarms [1] but otherwise there is not a lot more that can be done with it without radical new technology. We are talking incremental improvements here folks.

You get the same concern for hunters. Having around exiting the far side of the target is dangerous and wasteful, you want it to dump all of its energy inside the target. Battleships complicated this with armour and explosive rounds which did not always do as intended: they shattered, exploded too soon or not at all and did other weird and wonderful things. This is now largely irrelevant as you just do not get any ships with significant amounts of armour anymore and the mass drivers are being talked of for shore bombardment anyway.

Once the projectile leaves the barrel or mass driver then it is all a matter of ballistics and that does not care how you launched the round, whether it was from a catapult, a mass driver, a launch laser or even a gun. The velocities will be very different though and that will bring a whole new set of problems especially if they want to put electronics on board the projectiles. One trouble with too high a velocity, and this has already been encounter with experimental rounds fired at ridiculously high velocities is that the rounds melt with air friction.

Bull was a genius. He used a 25-pounder field gun to fire a Dinky toy airplane at supersonic speeds so they could photograph the shockwaves produced to assist in serious and useful research. The photographs apparently graced the cover of the Dinky catalogue for a number of years.

The Iowa's are too expensive to refit and far too expensive to run with ancient steam plants and very high crew requirements. Doing work of such magnitude is tricky – look at the BBs the Japanese converted into hybrid BB/CVs. They had to have a lot of weight added to replace the weight of the removed turrets and the proposed Harrier Carrier conversion for the Iowa's would have had exactly the same problems if they lifted out the aft turret and mechanism.

What would the point be other than a status symbol as long as you can find some other way with providing the Corps with the fire support they need? You do not need the armour anymore [2] – though CIWS are going to be vital – and it had better be capable against low tech speedboats loaded up with co-op mix as well as sea skimmers.

Notes
1. They work, it can be done but cased rounds are much easier to work with.
2. Actually I am not entirely convinced by this. You certainly do not need thick armour to keep shells out anymore but what is the penetration like on a modern AS missile? Big HE rounds bring their own problems though which armour cannot help with.