Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Friday April 11 2014, @11:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the Gauss-him?-I-just-met-him! dept.

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."

 
This discussion has been archived.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: 1) by rheaghen on Friday April 11 2014, @08:23PM

    by rheaghen (2470) on Friday April 11 2014, @08:23PM (#30258) Homepage

    according to http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/SeanManning.sh tml [hypertextbook.com]

    modern missiles travel at about 1.3 miles per second, and if the rail-gun never missed a target, and could stop 1 or 2 missiles per 5 seconds, It could take down a theoretical maximum of 50 missiles, if they were simultaneously launched at the same distance from the weapon.

    I'd say 65 missiles per rail-gun is all that is needed. Regardless, you need WAY less than 2000 missiles.