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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday October 25 2017, @08:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the faster-plinking dept.

The Navy plans to fire 5-inch diameter non-explosive projectiles from deck-mounted railguns:

The Navy plans to fire a high-speed, long-range rail-gun Hypervelocity Projectile from its deck-mounted 5-inch guns to destroy enemy drones, ships, incoming missiles and even submarines, service officials said.

The effort is led by a special Future Naval Capability program.

Navy officials say the program is leveraging commercial electronics miniaturization and computational performance increases to develop a common guided projectile for use in current 5 inch guns and future high velocity gun systems. The HVP effort will seek to increase range and accuracy of the 5-Inch Gun Weapon System in support of multiple mission areas, service developers told Warrior.

Developed initially for an Electromagnetic Rail Gun next-generation weapon, The Hyper Velocity Projectile, or HVP, can travel at speeds up to 2,000 meters per second when fired from a Rail Gun, a speed which is about three times that of most existing weapons.

BAE Systems Hyper Velocity Projectile. 5-inch gun. Found at NBF.

Related: U.S. Military Increasing Development of Directed Energy Weapons
U.S. Navy's New Mach 6 Electro-Magnetic Railgun Almost Ready for Prime Time


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 26 2017, @12:35AM (5 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 26 2017, @12:35AM (#587638) Journal

    I think you've fastened on the wrong problem. A 5"54cal is amazingly agile. I've been pretty intimate with a couple of them. We routinely shot missiles down with them. Our own, actually, because when those old Tartar missiles got confused, the largest metal object on which to home was our own ship.

    The problem that I'm seeing is, how in hell do you turn a solid metal barrel into the electrical guides for a rail gun? You use an insert in the barrel? Some kind of jacket over the barrel? Uhhhh - have we forgotten that the barrel of a naval gun stays right there, on deck, for the life of the ship? That is, in a hostile, salt laden environment? I foresee serious cleaning and corrosion problems. Ultimately, I foresee an unreliable and unusable weapon.

    Better to just remove the old dual purpose gun, and replace it with the new gun, IMO. Since most destroyers have two guns, remove one, and keep one old one. No matter what current doctrine says, I suspect that sometimes, the one weapon will suit the situation better, and sometimes the other.

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  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday October 26 2017, @12:46AM (4 children)

    by mhajicek (51) on Thursday October 26 2017, @12:46AM (#587648)

    I believe they mean to push it with conventional chemical propellants.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:36AM (3 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:36AM (#587674) Journal

      So - we have a standard 72 pound charge, pushing a saboted round that maybe weighs 30 pounds? Mmmm. Maybe, but I don't think we attain that ultra-velocity that a rail gun gets. We only get a faster, lighter round, which would be good in some situations, and possibly bad in other situations.

      Time for work - if I remember, maybe I'll do some searching on this tomorrow.

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday October 26 2017, @03:44AM (2 children)

        by mhajicek (51) on Thursday October 26 2017, @03:44AM (#587692)

        I believe that's exactly what they plan to do, but with the bonus that the round is guided. Do any of the standard rounds have guidance?

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:21PM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:21PM (#587815) Journal

          Ours did not. I can't say for sure, but it shouldn't be terribly hard to put at least some "dumb" guidance into a warhead - depending on what purpose that warhead serves. A penetrator might be very hard to modify, whereas an HE would allow a lot of room to work in. I have read of "smart" shells in larger guns, but I've never been close enough to inspect anything like that.

          Well - wait a second. Just how "dumb" can guidance be, and still be called guidance? Anti-aircraft rounds have proximity sensors. That's enough guidance to tell the shell what the opportune moment is to detonate. Very dumb, but also more effective than using timers. But, none of our shells could alter their courses. Gunplot did all the heavy lifting, prior to firing.

          • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday October 26 2017, @05:07PM

            by mhajicek (51) on Thursday October 26 2017, @05:07PM (#587884)

            I think what you're describing would classify as "fusing", and guidance would refer purely to steering or course correction. I recall reading about how proximity fuses reduced the number of rounds needed to down an aircraft by an order of magnitude in WWII. That was pretty impressive tech for the day. There's also a guided .50 BMG round now.

            --
            The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek