Navy demos railgun to fire projectiles 250 miles
>
> PORTLAND, Ore. - An electromagnetic catapult, or railgun, is on track
> for deployment on U.S. warships around 2012, according to the Office of
> Naval Research (ONR).
>
> A railgun, which uses electricity to magnetically accelerate munitions
> down a track, shoots metal projectiles that hit targets at supersonic
> speed. They can also cause more damage than a high-explosive without
> collateral destruction. With GPS-enabled targeting accuracy of 15 feet,
> when shot from warships up to 275 miles away, the non-explosive railgun
> projectiles could also protect Navy personnel without requiring
> dangerous explosives onboard.

> In the Navy's latest test made history with the world's fastest muzzle
> velocity of 5,637 miles per hour--generating a record 10.6 megajoules of
> energy (1 joule = 1 watt-second). The test was performed at the Naval
> Surface Warfare Center (Dahlgren Va.).
>
> In 2009, ONR will decide whether to award contracts for deployment to
> BAE Systems PLC (Farnborough, U.K.) or General Atomics Technologies Inc.
> (San Diego) for the railgun. Boeing Co. (Chicago) and Charles Stark
> Draper Laboratory (Cambridge, Mass.) are vying for the projectile
> contract.
>
> If the Navy decides to deploy the railgun, it plans to have a final
> design in place for approval by 2012. Initial prototypes will probably
> shoot a single projectile, but plans for rapid-fire versions are already
> on the drawing board.
>
> The final design specification calls for a muzzle velocity of 5,760 mph
> for a weapon that is capable of launching a projectile in a parabolic
> ballistic path 94 miles high. It must strike targets within six minutes
> at 3,840 mph.
>
> Initial tests showed that targets can be obliterated by the kinetic
> force of the impact with pinpoint accuracy without shrapnel, which is
> the most common cause of collateral damage when using high-explosive
> munitions
>

This thing has an effective muzzle velocity of 8,267 feet per second.

I wonder how big the projectile is and what it is made of. I also wonder if the projectile even touches the "rails" of the rail gun or if it is suspended via electromagnetic forces. Gives you pause as to the meaning of barrel life. If it came in contact with anything, the heat of friction would be tremendous.

This has been discussed for about a decade or so, now. The projectile is sorta like a brick and does not ride on the rails themselves - rather, suspended by opposing magnetic forces. Gets past from one set to another to develop the almost unbelievable speed. Also, takes lots of electrical generation (same as the proposed aerial laser for missile shoot-down) to operate and followup shots take a while for the power supply to regenerate. Wonder if they have a capacitor in the system?

I bet it would definetly screw up a good watch.

Holy crap. You wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that!!!!

Wow! As kdub mentioned, must be some horrendous electrical energy storage requirements (depending upon the mass of the projectiles, and rate of fire, of course) because there aren't recips or turbines that can respond quickly enough to supply the instantaneous power supply needed. Neat stuff!

They've been prototyping rollercoasters with this technology for several years now. I watched a dicovery channel episode about it, and it hinted that the technology was being looked at by the military. It's something else. It was launching a coaster weighted to expected car limits to 70 mph in less than 3 seconds.



I want one.:D

Youtube. I'm not sure if i did this right

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Here's another one. I saw this about a year ago, I think its the same technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX6YvWxtrxw

I wonder if it comes in 204 caliber? Bet that would be rough on the ground squirrels.

the technician said 8KV before firing.....

All that juice, in a steel ship.....on water.....


That'll curl yer toes....

Now we finally have something to help out where the USS Wisconsin(BB-64) and USS Missouri(BB-63) left off!

Trust me the ship-to-shore bombardment of those 16's is something to see!;)
That is when your calling it in on dug-in troops and not having it raining **** on you.:cool:

George

They've been prototyping rollercoasters with this technology for several years now...:D
The Hulk roller coaster at Universal Studios FL has one. It's incredible!
No clankety clankety up the initial hill - just whoosh, accelerating almost straight up!

:D:D:D:D:D:eek::eek::D

If you Google around, you'll come across a ton of material on these things. There are a few small, private groups working on these things. Yup, power is big obstacle for practical application...maybe the biggest? I remember seeing one guy who was basically builds small versions in his basement. Nothing extraordinary in terms of distance or accuracy. But given the physics of it, fairly impressing nonetheless.

The details/realities of them are really cool.

Tho, I don't know easy it'd be to strip and clean one if you tripped on a tree root and dropped in the a November mud....:D

jonas

Do they have it in a thumbhole version? With a natural walnut stock?:D

The Navy is testing one in Dalgren Va near me, a buddy of mine got to see it in action, he was pretty impressed.

I'll take one with a supply of nuclear warheads. :)