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 bugamn on Friday April 11 2014, @02:34PM
I might not have read TFA properly, but I didn't understand some things: why does a rail gun needs an explosion? It is quite visible in the video. I showed it to my father, who has more understanding of guns than me, and he also found it strange that the projectile used sabot and that it seemed to curve relatively early for a gun that has a 100 mile range.
(Score: 5, Informative) by tynin on Friday April 11 2014, @03:11PM
I'll try to answer.
It isn't an explosion, but superheated gases. Friction from a 22 lb object going ~2380 m/s is going to cause the air to literally burn. Think of the space shuttle de-orbiting, and the streaking fireball across the sky it makes.
I suspect they are using a sabot to protect the rather long barrel, to get more shots out of them before they need to be replaced. I haven't seen it mentioned on this rail gun, but I know earlier ones could only get a few shots fired before replacing the barrel.
That 22 lb bullet has a guidance system in it, likely causing course corrections.
(Score: 1) by DeKO on Friday April 11 2014, @05:18PM
That's no friction, that's shock heating.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Friday April 11 2014, @06:22PM
I wasn't aware of that term, thanks for sharing :)
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Friday April 11 2014, @10:01PM
Thank you for your answers, kind internet stranger.