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Allen McDuffee writes the US Navy's latest weapon is an electromagnetic railgun launcher that can hurl a 23-pound projectile at speeds exceeding Mach 7 with a range of 100 miles turning a destroyer into super-long-range machine gun able to fire up to a dozen relatively inexpensive projectiles every minute. The Navy says the cost differential $25,000 for a railgun projectile versus $500,000 to $1.5 million for a missile will make potential enemies think twice about the economic viability of engaging U.S. forces. "[It] will give our adversaries a huge moment of pause to go: 'Do I even want to go engage a naval ship?'" says Rear Admiral Matt Klunder. "Because you are going to lose. You could throw anything at us, frankly, and the fact that we now can shoot a number of these rounds at a very affordable cost, it's my opinion that they don't win."
Engineers already have tested this futuristic weapon on land, and the Navy plans to begin sea trials aboard a Joint High Speed Vessel Millinocket in 2016. Railguns use electromagnetic energy known as the Lorenz Force to launch a projectile between two conductive rails. The high-power electric pulse generates a magnetic field to fire the projectile with very little recoil, officials say. Weapons like the electromagnetic rail gun could help U.S. forces retain their edge and give them an asymmetric advantage over rivals, making it too expensive to use missiles to attack U.S. warships because of the cheap way to defeat them. "Your magazine never runs out, you just keep shooting, and that's compelling."
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 11 2014, @01:12PM
Seems OK until now. Except that... there's only one Zumwalt-class destroyer [wikipedia.org] built so far, with another two in the pipeline... and that's about it (and, yes, I realize they aren't built for an art show but, God, are they ugly [wikimedia.org] or what?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @02:52PM
Yikes. That thing looks like Steve Jobs's yacht.
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Friday April 11 2014, @03:11PM
They're ugly because of the radar-scattering stealth [wikipedia.org] design. The first-generation stealth fighter [wikipedia.org] didn't win any beauty contests, either. But yeah ... that blocky profile is even uglier in Navy grey than in black.
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(Score: 2) by TK on Friday April 11 2014, @03:16PM
I did a bit of the math here [soylentnews.org]. Long story short, this gun required 6 MW to fire at the quoted rate, assuming no losses. IANAEE, but as I understand it, magnetic acceleration is very efficient.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 11 2014, @03:57PM
Not only ugly, but everything that I've read suggests that they are going to be unseaworthy. They aren't exactly built to run the North Sea in winter. Life might be better aboard a round bottomed Gator Navy hull. France hasn't been a major sea power for a long, long time. God only knows why the Navy is using an old discarded French idea to build a hull.
As you say, there is one afloat, and two on the way. Let's hope that there aren't any more! We already have a dozen different destroyer hull designs that are quite adequate to any proposed missions for the Zumwalt class. A seventy year old Adam's class design would be great.
(Score: 1) by iwoloschin on Friday April 11 2014, @05:33PM
They're that shape for the reduce radar cross section. Supposedly, they've done testing to "validate" the seaworthiness of the design, so they kept the "ugly" design. If it works, awesome, if not, well, it's not the most expensive boondoggle our government has thrown money at. It's a great catch 22. If it works, everyone goes, "Well sure, it makes sense!" but if it fails and sinks, everyone goes, "It's your fault for using a crappy design and we told you so."
My concern would be more about damage control. I think this thing is supposed to be "optimally crewed" which means less busy bodies, but also fewer damage control teams when you're in a fight.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 11 2014, @06:41PM
This isn't the boat that will initially have the Rail Gun.
The first deployment will be on the Joint High Speed Vessel Millinocket [janes.com], which is a transport ship. That boat has a catamaran hull.
As for your assessment of seaworthiness, I suggest you leave that to people with actual degrees in naval architecture.
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 11 2014, @07:25PM
They expect eventual deployment on the DDG 51 class destroyer [wikipedia.org], of which there are 62 in active service, an 13 more planned that Obama is trying furiously to cut.
See the later part of this Video [youtube.com] and the above linked page where indications that this railgun is planned for that ship.
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