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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, Informative) by qzm on Thursday April 27 2017, @07:19AM
Just to add a little more 'fact' to these boys need to fantasies about this actual weapon.
What they are dreaming of is the 'hyper velocity projectile' project, which the navy has been chasing for some time.
So fact it has achieved exactly one thing, the firing of a solid dummy load, with no active capability.
The HPV has been a dream for a few generations now, but still there is no actual evidence that it is actually possible.
After all, they only have to be able to receive GPS and radio guidance through the plasma sheath generated at mach 6+, in a unit a
small fraction of the size of existing guided munitions, and control its hypersonic flight.
And of course make that hold up in the 100,000+G acceleration of these guns..
should be ready just as soon as they find that bad of unobtanium they left in the back of the lab.
Damn those facts.