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from the is-that-a-railgun-or-are-you-just-happy-to-see-me? dept.
The Motley Fool's Rich Smith writes:
For more than three years now, I've been tracking the U.S. Navy's progress toward building a working electromagnetic railgun prototype — a Mach 6 cannon reputedly capable of striking targets 110 miles away with pinpoint accuracy.
Each railgun projectile would cost about $25,000 to produce — and if you're keeping track, then yes, success on the railgun project would yield a weapon boasting nearly twice the 67-mile range of Boeing's (NYSE:BA) Harpoon II missile but costing just 1/48th the Boeing missile's $1.2 million cost.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/22/navys-new-mach-6-em-railgun-almost-ready-for-prime.aspx
Electromagnetic Railgun - First shot at Dahlgren's new Terminal Range https://youtu.be/Pi-BDIu_umo
(Score: 1) by qzm on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:59AM (3 children)
Good to see 'My understanding is that the shell is guided and can explode at target distance to create high velocity debris field' is a fact!
Of course there is no evidence *I* can find of either of these 'facts', care to present any?
Thought not.. time to come back from some scifi future and stick to actual facts.. even if real math confuses you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @10:21AM
How would you present evidence of 'my understanding is'? A brain scan, maybe?
Note that the fact that something is Zipf's understanding doesn't necessary mean that the something is correct; Zipf correctly stated it as his understanding. The assumption that someone's understanding has to be in any way related to reality may generally be reasonable, but it still remains an assumption, unless you can support that assumption with facts.
In other words, while you are right to criticize Zipf for an understanding that is not backed up with facts, you are not right with your accusation of Zipf claiming wrong facts unless you have any evidence that what Zipf writes is not Zipf's (flawed) understanding, as that is the only thing he claims as fact.
(Score: 3, Informative) by SunTzuWarmaster on Thursday April 27 2017, @12:32PM (1 child)
Um... There was the article in Popular Mechanics from last year (http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21174/navy-electromagnetic-railgun/)... Also reports from Fox news describing navigation sensors within the projectile (http://bgr.com/2016/03/17/futuristic-military-railgun-bullets-could-travel-at-mach-6/).
Of course - you could always just consult the spec sheet (and advertising page), from the manufacturer:
http://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/hyper-velocity-projectile-hvp [baesystems.com]
The HVP’s low drag aerodynamic design enables high-velocity, maneuverability, and decreased time-to-target. These attributes, coupled with accurate guidance electronics, provide low-cost mission effectiveness against current threats and the ability to adapt to air and surface threats of the future.
It is hardly a secret.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:48PM
For the baesystems link, I get:
404 Not Found
404 Not Found
* Code: NoSuchKey
* Message: The specified key does not exist.
* Key: en-us/product/hyper-velocity-projectile-hvp
* RequestId: 90007EDB0A1AF376
* HostId:
vX9frjxmyD/l0vcvbY0YNDT5ZAjGYtETmEfUPNJE4eoT8hnwaow6ue4JtpyrwHKjDJl
2E/AfFm8=
Not sure if it is because I was trying to access from outside the US.