Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the eggs-and-heads-will-roll dept.

[...] An anonymous source, identified as a former Dynex exec, told The Sunday Times that the acquisition of Dynex Semiconductor by Chinese railway firm Zhouzhou CRRC Times Electric in 2008 "could have helped the development" of the Chinese navy's new railguns.

Dynex produces, as its name suggests, semiconductors, in particular insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). These can be used as critical components in railguns and similar catapult-type technologies thanks to their very high voltage and current ratings.

"In these big electronic systems... you need to be able to turn on and off big power very, very quickly. And your standard power switches are too slow," the former Dynex exec told the newspaper.

The basic principle behind a railgun is that a current passed between two rails via a sliding armature generates an electromagnetic field that flings a projectile carried in the armature out into the great beyond. A little lateral thinking easily turns this into an electromagnetic catapult. To make it work you need seriously high currents and voltages – sufficient to generate 160MJ, if this paper is taken at face value.

[...] The national security implications of this tech transfer are obvious, and troubling. Britain's post-Brexit answer to maintaining national prosperity is to go full throttle into cutting-edge technologies, racing ahead of other countries to commercialise and license the technologies we develop. If that comes into conflict with our strategy of using Chinese capital to cover the upfront costs, and the result is that British advanced technologies find their way into Chinese weapon systems, that will not only make the world a less safe place, it will potentially harm Britain's standing with its allies – particularly the US, which is keen to confront Chinese challenges to its hegemony.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:16AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:16AM (#648369)

    There are examples active, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Gerald_R._Ford [wikipedia.org] with it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_Aircraft_Launch_System [wikipedia.org] which also lists the energy (look for one gallon gasoline equivalent) and cycle time (faster than steam catapults). China should be developing their own if the report is true, because the tech is known to be viable.

  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:19AM (#648370)

    Why did the man grin at the little boy? Why was the little boy's naked, brutalized corpse found in a dumpster? To know the answer to the first question, you must first find the answer to the second.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by tonyPick on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:38AM (2 children)

    by tonyPick (1237) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:38AM (#648384) Homepage Journal

    Not Anymore

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/trump-wants-goddamned-steam-not-digital-catapults-on-aircraft-carriers/526386/ [theatlantic.com]

    Or to Quote Trump Directly:

    It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said—and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said, “What system are you going to be—” “Sir, we’re staying with digital.” I said, “No you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @11:49AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @11:49AM (#648457)

      Sounds like Trump has been burned too with "marketspeak".

      He may be in the same camp as I am, in believing that my old bimetallic thermostat may be superior to the latest NEST device when it comes to pure old robustness and reliability in an era where the marketeers are far more interested in getting me to open my wallet, only for me to discover I must agree to all sorts of terms and conditions before that I just bought might be allowed to work.

      Believe me, military-industrial-complex executives spout off the virtues of high tech spending like preachers spout off the virtues of tithing.

      ( Well, as long as you are tithing to them, not something else you may think far more deserving of your support! )

      Everybody is trying to sell crap to the Government, and Trump looks like he's wise to their monkey-business.

      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:28PM

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:28PM (#648714)

        Sounds like Trump has been burned too with "marketspeak"

        It sounds like Mr. Trump has no clue what the US military is for. It's primary purpose is to siphon lots of money out of the public's pockets, and into the pockets of the people who run the place.

        These sorts of people will be quick to pull him back into line.

        The best method for that seems to be to have someone on Fox & Friends tell him what to think, so look out for a piece about how great the Navy's new technology is.