Technology Marches On: Rail Guns

[SSWarlock]

Once more, we get one step closer to real world Traveller.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/rail-gun-u-s-navy-top-gun-article-1.1749616

Now this will mess up a merchant hull at a starport.

 

[sideranautae]

Once more, we get one step closer to real world Traveller.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/rail-gun-u-s-navy-top-gun-article-1.1749616

Now this will mess up a merchant hull at a starport.

This is cool. I saw a test video of this a couple years ago. Great for planetary combat. Useless for space combat ranges though.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Once more, we get one step closer to real world Traveller.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/rail-gun-u-s-navy-top-gun-article-1.1749616

Now this will mess up a merchant hull at a starport.

You know they had rail guns as early as World War I? The Germans mounted a gun on a rail and attacked Paris with it!

 

[Condottiere]

 

[DivineWrath]

Thats not what most people think of rail guns these days. These days, a railgun is a pair of electromagnetic "rails" that accelerates a magnetic projectile to dangerously high speeds. In scifi games with gravity technology, the rails might be based upon gravity to accelerate any projectile instead of just magnetic projectiles.

 

[sideranautae]

In scifi games with gravity technology, the rails might be based upon gravity to accelerate any projectile instead of just magnetic projectiles.

In Traveller the name Gauss rifle denotes magnetic propulsion. Larger than man portable weapons of that type are assumed to be magnetic in Trav also...

"Railguns are huge gauss weapons, using a coil of electromagnets to
accelerate ferrous projectiles to great speed."

 

[simonh]

Just to be pedantic, note that Gauss guns in Traveller are not actually railguns, but a type of coil gun.

Rail Gun

Coil Gun

Simon Hibbs

 

[sideranautae]

The current US Navy version has mid-flight course correction capabilities built into the projectile. This is needed for use against targets that are mobile. Without that the weapon would be pretty useless versus anything but large, static targets.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Just to be pedantic, note that Gauss guns in Traveller are not actually railguns, but a type of coil gun.

Rail Gun

Coil Gun

Simon Hibbs

So a gun with parallel Railroad tracks with cross ties along its muzzle would be an actual Rail Gun, right?