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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: 2, Insightful) by qzm on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:56AM (1 child)
Great, care to post any evidence of that?
*My* understanding, based on all the available test information on this actual device is that it fires completely passive ordinance.
There would be significant issues is developing active ordinance for this, due to both the huge accelerations involved (much higher that existing guns),
and the small issue of the massive electromagnetic fields that are an essential part of its basic operation.
So, anyone care to provide one small shred of evidence of a guided shell? We have seen images of the proposed shell, and have an approximate scale of
18 inches by 'several inches' round..
But since people here dont like facts, here are a few more.
We also have a price, of $25k per round. The Zumwalt was SUPPOSED to have guided shells, and they were priced at $800k each.. There is a cheaper
howitzer guided round, much shorter range and MUCH lower accelleration capability, at 'only' 68k each.. Those guided 25k rounds are a steal! (not to
mention that those howitzer rounds are 155mm... a little larger...)
Of course they are going to have to fit in a rather small package, and work at mach 6.. with GPS reception.. I'll leave that little bit of thinking up to you.
so come on, lets see your evidence of these mythical guided rounds?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @07:28AM
There would be significant issues is developing active ordinance for this, due to both the huge accelerations involved (much higher that existing guns),
and the small issue of the massive electromagnetic fields that are an essential part of its basic operation.
Not just massive magnetic fields. This is a rail gun, not a coil gun - the projectile is a part of the circuit, and there is a ton of power being put into that circuit. It's basically a single loop electromagnet, consisting of two rails connected by the projectile.
The amount of heat involved is also enormous, both from the electrical power and from the Mach 6 speed.