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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @05:47AM (3 children)
You can't explode the projectile AFTER you crash it (and attempt to "burrow", as you call it).
Maximum damage is delivered by exploding the thing ABOVE the target so the blast is transmitted to a larger area beneath it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @08:27AM (1 child)
I guess that depends on your target. I guess if you target a closed structure, there's value in first breaking through the wall, and then exploding inside, in order to destroy as much as possible there. If exploding outside, the structure will provide protection; if exploding inside, the structure will instead prevent the destructive energy go wasted outside.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 27 2017, @02:37PM
You have nailed the definition of "armor piercing" precisely. When a tank is hit with an armor piercing charge, the projectile doesn't enter into the tank at all. Instead, the projectile sets off the internal shaped charge, which is very precisely aimed at a point maybe half as big around as a pencil. The plasma created in that shaped charge burns through, and enters the tank, then ricochets around inside of the steel hull. Anything the plasma touches is toast, whether it be electronics, ammunition, the tank commander, the tank driver, or the pinup taped beside the gunsights.
Most definitely, often times, you want to deliver your destructive energy INSIDE of a target.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday April 27 2017, @11:25AM
Umm.
Tallboy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallboy_(bomb) [wikipedia.org]
Grand Slam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_%28bomb%29 [wikipedia.org]
Ok, bombs rather than shells, but designed to penetrate metres of concrete and then explode.
Lets try armour-piercing shells, a staple of tank warfare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor-piercing_shell [wikipedia.org] - APHE designed to penetrate, then explode.
Or, how about Palliser shell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliser_shot_and_shell [wikipedia.org] , the largest of which, I believe massed 910 kg with a 14.5 kg bursting charge.
It appears one can explode a projectile after one crashes it.