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U.S. Navy to Deploy Rail Guns by 2011
Walter Francis writes "The U.S. Navy has apparently been busy. They have been focusing heavily on the next generation of weapons and propulsion systems, including Microwave, Laser, and Electromagnetic-Kinetic weapons, more commonly known as railguns. What specifically surprised me was the fact that the Navy plans to deploy these systems as early as 2011, on their DD(X) frigates. The range of these rail guns is estimated to be over 250 miles."
name USS Abraham Lincoln
set cl_maxpackets 120
set rate 20000
set snaps 40
set cg_fov 80
Sigs cause cancer.
I just know my archnemesis NoobFragger69 will be camping it the moment it's deployed.
Forget the railguns--I wanna hear more about these Dance Dance Xtreme frigates--sounds like a great way for swabbies to get in shape and destroy the enemy at the same time!
P.S. Linking to PDFs in article summaries makes baby Mozilla cry.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Great. The next big American stereotype will be that we're all 'faggot campers'.
"Derp de derp."
Don't forget the Wave Motion Gun!
It's our only hope against Desslok and the Gamalons!
Sing it with me now... "We're off to outer space..."
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...and the server already seems to be having problems, it's mirrored here.
The Army reading list
2. Nitpick: the term 'DD' generally denotes a Destroyer, not a Frigate ('FF').
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Now all they need is a plasma gun and ill join the navy!
I always thought one of these would come in as a great ending to those retarded Gap ads where everyone is dancing around in front of a white background. There are several points during the dance that they are all in a straight line. DA-DA-DA-DA-DA *FOOOM*.."Impressive"
In other news, Arnold will take a break from being the Governor of CA and will be test driving this beauty..
Seriously, what better character to fire this weapon than our very own Governator?
Alright you Illegal Aliens..line up.. preferably in a straight line..Hold...
Rapid Nirvana
"Our bottom line is that if we can put millions of joules of energy onto a target, something will happen."
Indeed.
Your argument is silly and can be applied to just about anything. Say, what if a cruise missile messes up and kills a family 800 miles away? It's an acceptable risk, and it does happen, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
A blog like any other.
gee, let's go back to the hand to hand combat, because the enemy wouldn't dare to use guns.
--- d'oh
I want ships...ships with freakin lasers!
Other sites are also covering this -- without needing to use acrobat reader.
I can't read the original, but according to the link I'm including, they're not just talking railguns - they're also talking free electron lasers and masers. Now, if only they'd provision a banana-fana-fo-faser, we'd be set.
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. -- Aaron Burr
Build your own railgun Today! Kids love this one!
Is anyone else scared shitless by the incredible power the US is pumping into their weapons? Is there even any country in the world that can match this type of military power?
Just a thought.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Ok, so range - 250 miles? What happens if they miss the target... some random object/person gets blasted 250 miles down the road? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea...
The 250 mile range is the ballistic range: a miss means something near the target gets pulped. The direct-fire range, where a miss could hit something well past the target, is probably only around 30 miles.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
And this differs from every other weapon (down to and including the fist) how?
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
check out voltsamps.com on how to build your own railgun
"... if they miss the target..." Er... US Navy - what do you mean "if"? ;)
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Man, this just doesn't sound good. I mean, this is going to lead to a new arms race, etc... Lots of paranoia, military spending, national debt, etc... Oh, joy.
My other question is how well shielded are these things? What does it do to the gunners to be near one of these things when it discharges? How strong is that magnetic field? I know for instance that machinists can't get MRI scans of their head because the magnets will pull little metal fragments out of their faces in a painful / vision endangering manner.
The military doesn't have a stellar record when it comes to safety/health in deploying new weapons. Look at Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium, and the atomic bomb.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
"Our bottom line is that if we can put millions of joules of energy onto a target, something will happen."
Well no shit. Really?
I love my country. I hate what we have let it become
Well that's neat but I'm still not joining the army until they invent the respawn point.
"Derp de derp."
Been able to fire over the horizon since WWII.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
You pessimists always try to get in the way of progress. How about chaining yourselves to the side of the boat so that it can't possibly leave the shore without giving you a drink.
My only regret... is that I have... bonitis..
Interesting, yet so Cold War oriented. This will stop terrorists, how?
See subject if you're wondering why the Navy feels the need to develop/deploy such a weapon.
Much of the US military now focuses on China as their new "war game" adversary. China, of course, is focused on Taiwan with its war games. Of course, the rail guns might be a little late, since China wants to get Taiwan back by 2010.
Casual Games/Downloads
there was something on some show on Discovery (i think?) about how there is interest in basically dropping large steel rods from really really really high up and use some minimal navigation..... the idea is that they would fly like a "smartbomb" and when going at their terminal velocity (or however fast they can get) they don't even need explosives to cause massive destruction apon impact.....
did i dream this? i don't think so but i guess it's possible. then again i didn't think rail guns or private space flights were coming anytime soon either.
Or, to hit stuff in orbit?
I thought the same thing, but it turns out the the DD(X) program is a Multi-Mission Surface Combatant. Seems to blur the distinction between destroyers and frigates altogether.
Bush Lies On the Record.
Actually, they are specifically trying not to be WMD's. They are trying to localize it as much as possible. Consider it a sniper vs the old ICBM's massive destruction. Take out what matters, and avoid hurting others.
They are trying to develop more efficient weapons.
The range of these rail guns is estimated to be over 250 miles.
Yeah, but at that distance, the enemy will be smaller than a single pixel... you won't even be able to see him behind your little aiming dot.
I was created a few years ago, but it seems to apply more and more. America is leaving the classification of "superpower" behind and moving towards what can be defined as a "hyperpower".
Many new weapon systems currently deployed or being staged for deployment are many years advanced, even decades, compared to other nations that it begs to question.
Will the US be perceived more as a threat to the world or will the world be perceived as less of a threat to the US. There is a distiction there that might escape people.
The NAVY is moving their big obvious targets further out of range of land based weaponary while also developing non-interceptable technologies (as in very fast projectiles ala a RG). The Air Force is set to deploy the F22 which is literally can fight a squadron of previous generation fighters on its own. With GPS guided everything it puts a big stand off range.
The only wrench in the scenarios, is how do you protect your populace versus terrorist who don't play by normal rules? Will it come down to holding "terrorist" countries hostage to the actions of a few of their people or the groups they support?
Scary times.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It will be a total flop. A missile system that is supposed to protect the US but needs listening posts in the EU for it to work, which wouldn't be protected by the shield.
What will happen is the budget will be overrun, and all of bushes friends in the Carlyle Group will get that bit richer.
I deployed rail guns in Quake almost a decade ago.
Nobody attacks the position of strength. What good is a BFG when we're the only target and small groups pick at us piece by piece?
The range of these rail guns is estimated to be over 250 miles.
That is damn impressive! The railgun I used back in the mid 1990s could barely fire all the way across 2fort4!
Well, considering that we have precision wesapons NOW that are as accurate, and with much greater range (The Tomahawk cruise missile, for one), it's easy to imagine.
What makes this gun so revolutionary is a) safety for the user. No gunpowder to go boom at inconvienent times and b) cost per round. Rather than spend the million+ to fire a Harpoon or SLAM at a target, we can now lob a few shells from this baby at it, at much lower cost.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Yeah, I'd go with Betty, but I'd be thinkin' of Wilma.
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How long till there's a 5 day waiting period and background check to purchase one of these babies for "home defense" or "sporting / hunting" purposes from your local Wal-Mart? Aside from the 250 mile range, it still sounds more sporting than your average assault rifle...
Railgun project
Don't be silly; our military doesn't kill civilians. If they're killed by our military, they're either "collateral damage" or "enemy combattants". Haven't you ever watched embedded coverage?
Besides, there's no way to really know how many died, so we shouldn't take the effort to count....
I just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain; now it's on to Grammar Poland.
We're off to outer space
We're leaving Mother Earth
To save the human race
Our Star Blazers
Searching for a distant star
Heading off to Iscandar
Leaving all we love behind
Who knows what danger we'll find?
We must be strong and brave
Our home we've got to save
If we don't in just one year
Mother Earth will disappear
Fighting with the Gamilons
We won't stop until we've won
Then we'll return and when we arrive
The Earth will survive
With our Star Blazers
Back in my day, we had Star Blazers, Astro Boy, and Kimba the White Lion. We didn't have no 'Adult Swim' or fancy cable so we had to stand next to the TV doing the UHF stance and stare through a staticy mess to see our anime, and WE LIKED IT!
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Could this gun be used to shoot stuff into orbit? Or, to hit stuff in orbit?
The lowest commonly-used orbits are in the 200-300 mile range, so this couldn't hit them. Even something in a 100-mile transfer orbit is iffy. However, with good enough targeting, it could hit a ballistic missile during boost or re-entry, and could probably hit any aircraft.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I recall reading somewhere (I forget where) that new ships are now beginning to use electrical power for their propulsion systems. As a result of this, they are also going to be using nuclear power, or very large diesel-electric generators. In order to fire the railguns, they divert power from the propulsion systems temporarily to the firing system. Once the job is done, they can continue under power. :-/
I wish I could remember where I read it
Obviously, we can't predict the future of conflict, but I can't help but think that the biggest danger that is faced by the United States comes from small groups of individuals using terrorist tactics in protest at US Foreign Policy
;-p
The attack on the USS Cole in Aden, on 12th October 2000, is a typical example. A small speedboat loaded with explosives was navigated to a position against the destroyer's hull and exploded, 17 sailors were killed. A friend of mine was a medical orderly on a Royal Navy anti-submarine cruiser which rendered assistance and described it as a scene of devastation.
A rail-gun is a formidable weapon, but its only really of use for attacking a rival navy, or a military establishment on a coastal shore. No nation nowadays has that sort of power. The USSR's navy is largely laid up in shipyards and few ships are still serviceable. China has a warm-water navy and has shown little interest in Ocean-going ships for over a millennium. N.Korea, Libya, Iran aren't naval powers in any real sense at all.
Which leads me to the conclusion that the USA sees Britain or France as the biggest threat to its current security! A rail-gun won't defend against a zodiac full of nitrate explosive, or a saboteur with a limpet mine.
It seems to be thinking grounded in the 1980s when the *enemy* had Aircraft-carriers, destroyers, cruisers and subs. That just doesn't seem to be the case now
Bet someone's said this in shorter form now and I get modded redundant
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This kind of thing is almost always fired from a huge bank of caps. After all, you don't really NEED continuous fire! Actually, the fire rate of a railgun is probably going to be limited by heat at the rails anyway. Which is not to mention rail erosion which will limit how many times you can fire...
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Artillery is much lower cost, but typically limited to LOS (13-21 miles). 250 miles is a substantial increase in that. And cheaper per pound of explosive on target. None of that fussy electronics on the missile to get in the way.
Cost effectiveness, rate of fire and magazine capacity, judging by what I could gather from reading through the 'article'. Also a bit of safety thrown in- the rail gun rounds require no propellants (read: explosives), so there's no the problem of a hit to a turret sparking off a chain reaction of explosions. What this effectively does is put the firepower & range of the battleships into the smaller ships.
Cheaper than missiles. The ammo is smaller, so more can be carried. And since it's a kinetic, non-incendiary (non explosive) weapon, there's less to worry about as far as storing them:
"Captain! They've hit our ammo storage!"
"Not to worry, it may be damaged, but at least the rest of the ship won't be destroyed."
I hear their dancing to some kickass tracks laid down by the Party Posse. Yvan eht nioj, hctib.
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In other words, it brings a lot to a Real World(TM) battle.
A missile has the *disadvantage* that it is slower--it can be shot down. A missile has the *disadvantage* that is self-guided--so the enemy can spoof that guidance and decoy the missile off target. This is easier than spoofing the firing ship because the ship has a lot more room for countermeasures. You mention battleships--battleships are big, and *very* expensive and nobody wants to use the big guns on battleships because they're too big to put on anything but those big, expensive battleships. The problem was never the guns, it was the fact that you had to have a battleship to use them. But a railgun you can put on a frigate--that changes things.
Chris Mattern
I for one would rather be so far ahead that people don't want to challenge us, rather than get into a conflict and realize that our systems are not effective.
If you look at it from an engineering point of view, rail guns offer a simpler system that is more easily maintained. You don't have to worry so much about your ship's explosive ordnance being hit and destroying your ship as your armory blows up. The thing will fire metal slugs. There is no worry of static discharges setting off your explosives, no worry about the chemicals in your explosives breaking down, no need to fret over whether or not the materials you are using in your ammunition are toxic or cancerous to your crew, and so on.
You make things simpler and it increases the reliability, decrease the cost (usually), and increase the usability.
Also, if an agency's job is to protect the United States, they're not going to want to do that with sticks and bad words. They're going to want the best and greatest hardware, so that more of the enemy is killed and more of your friends come home.
Why should islam have to fall? Do you not mean militant islamic terrorists? Not all muslims are bad.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
what kind of tactical advantage does a railgun bring
Faster cycle time, more shots without having to reprovision/reload, projectile will travel faster than a missile and be impossible to decoy/evade. All good things.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Hmm... Well, let's ask Mr. Google. Hey, Google, how far is it to the horizon at sea level? In fact, say you're actually 100' up on the bridge of a cruiser. Google says: "11 miles".
So, yes, 250 miles is farther than the horizon. Theoretically.
And is this a new thing? Well, let's let Google tell us again...
So, in other words, nothing new here in terms of "targets that have no way of retaliating". That's been the case since WWII, when in nearly all of the carrier battles, the opposing forces would be over the horizon and everything was either via plane or via large guns with planes as spotters.
-T
nope, that would be *France*.
Not to mention that France only has ONE active aircraft carrier (Charles de Gaulle) which is about 1/4th the size of a standard US carrier. How pathetic is that? At least they used Nuclear instead of Diesel.
Speaking of which, I don't understand why they don't simply fit these destroyers with Nuclear Power Plants instead of Gas Turbines. Sure, the turbines are powerful, but they won't provide the same amount of power draw that nuclear plants can. I'd hate to be the captain who has to choose between firing the Railgun, the Maser, or moving the ship. If he was captaining a Nuclear ship, he could order all three options at the same time!
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It has a few obvious benefits, especially as compared to rockets/missiles:
1: It cannot be tracked in a meaningful amount of time. In other words, because of the comparatively high speed (6 minutes in the air, as compared to 60 minutes or 10 minutes for the ERGM and LRLAP), and significally smaller size (30 inches as compared to 60 inches for an ERGM or 88 inches for an LRLAP) and higher impact force (16.9 MJ as compared to 2.2MJ and 7.8 MJ for the ERGM and LRLAP respectively) the rail cannot be anticipated anywhere nearly as easily.
2: Because of this, it is almost impossible to deflect it/move out of the way.
3: Also, the cost of individual rails will be significantly less than the cost of an individual missile.
"Stumble before you crawl"
Dunno about the railgun they will use, but they could fire projectiles that don't have any explosives in them (or at the very least, no propellent). If I have to sit out on a boat in the middle of the ocean, I would be much happier if it had as few explosives onboard as possible (i.e. fewer chances of random catastrophic explosions, especially after being hit by enemy fire). Just a random thought.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
size
weight
cost
effiency
crew requirements
I agree completely with this. The US military is idiotic if they think that it is sane to return to the era of "Bigger Better Battleship" as the measure of naval power. Now, Naval power is measured by speed of deployment and how well you can take a hit. The goal should be things like small fast stealthy (hydrofoil? lifting body?) vtol-aircraft carriers, or missile launchers. If you lose one... it's sad, but at least you don't lose a couple hundred crew and a huge investment...
I just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain; now it's on to Grammar Poland.
In other news, the Army plans to deploy Quad Damage by 2009.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Don't get too proud of this technological terror you have constructed. The ability to destroy target from 250 miles is insignificant next to the power of the Force...
in my pants.
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Cost effectiveness
Is it? All that energy has to come from somewhere. If you're charging your railgun with a few hundred gigajoules of energy, you're burning a LOT of fuel. For a Nuclear Vessel, this wouldn't be that big of a deal. It would simply need to carry a bit more material, or double its refueling stops. (e.g. Instead of every 10 years, they refuel every 5 years.) But these ships are Gas Turbine powered.
rate of fire
This one I definitely don't follow. Where's the energy coming from for a high rate of fire? Does the captain have to order a pre-charge cycle? Would that mean that he'd be able to fire 5-10 shells before having to wait for a 10-20 minute recharge cycle? That's going to have a serious impact on the ship's tactical ability.
Also a bit of safety thrown in- the rail gun rounds require no propellants (read: explosives), so there's no the problem of a hit to a turret sparking off a chain reaction of explosions.
Fair enough. Magazine hits are always a big problem. But couldn't one argue that the magazine storage no longer matters when fighting battles with such powerful weapons? If you're hit by a nuke/railgun/maser/large missile, your ship is dead anyway.
What this effectively does is put the firepower & range of the battleships into the smaller ships.
This is definitely nice. But what I'd like to know is if military doctrine has swung back in the direction of Battleships? AFAIK, the invention of the Aircraft Carrier made Battleships obsolete. Since a carrier can launch planes at nearly any range (even outside the 250 miles of the Railgun), it has far better strike capability. In addition, pilots provide intelligence to both the offensive weapons and evasive maneuvers that not even a missile can achieve.
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Don't forget ricochet range. A projectile that skipped off the ocean (for example) could wind up somewhere much farther downrange than 30 miles.
I've seen plain old ordinary machine gun rounds do some amazing and unexpected things. I expect that scales with velocity.
Interesting point from the article - the author sees this system fitting into existing 5" gun mounts, and sees one gun as being able to deliver equivelent fire as a squadron of F18s. That means destroyers become as powerful as aircraft carriers.
How about that - the return of the battleship.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
What's happening by and large is that most countries are spending less and less on the military.
America spends more than say Europe, but has declined quite a bit from the Cold War peak of the late 80's. Most notable is that the absolute size and war fighting capability of the Army has declined dramatically from the Gulf War 1 era, particularly sea lift. The US isn't capable of something like Gulf War 1 anymore. All we have left is strategic bombing or Nukes which is a poor choice.
Current defense spending seems focused on "stand off" capabilities where the US can inflict damage on adversaries while putting few of it's servicemen at risk. The model seems to be Serbia of the late Nineties where Clinton led a bombing campaign that helped bring Milosevic to the bargaining table.
Rail guns, long range missles, air superiority, and various precision munitions including cruise missles and bombs are all useful things to have with a military facing uncertain threats from unstable countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran all come to mind). But it's only part of the package and the ability of the US to decisively defeat an enemy by taking over their territory and more importantly destroying their military is not very high. [Hitler, North Korea, North Vietnam, Serbia, and Saddam all had their military forces intact despite extensive bombing]
Part of the problem is an unwillingness to face real conflict and the sacrifices on a society that War (which is *always* destructive) requires. The main reason I suspect however is that there's a lot more money in systems like the F 22 or Rail Guns than creating an army with sea lift capability that can destroy an adversary's military and therefore stop things which are contrary to US interests (like say, a dirty bomb in Chicago assembled with Pakistani help as a hypothetical).
Stand off bombing has not served to destroy any military, and it only serves to encourage adversaries to negotiate and isn't decisive. Milosevic like North Vietnam had his own reasons to bargain and the bombing campaign only helped wasn't decisive.
It's also time to get realistic. "Terrorists" are usually allied with significant elements in unstable countries that have factions in the military and elites. Significant elements of Pakistan's Army and Intelligence services for example are PART of the Taliban and Al Queda network. They can however be deterred from helping nuke a major American city if there is a realistic chance that doing so would remove them and their comfortable regime. And so far America's woeful war-fighting capability is very good at bombing specific targets and very bad at removing regimes to provide that deterrence.
Your numbers are a little misleading. Here is a quote for my /. peeps(bold added for emphasis):
At least 5,000 civilians may have been killed during the invasion of Iraq, an independent research group has claimed. As more evidence is collated, it says, the figure could reach 10,000.
We all get your point, but it makes more of an impact if you are honest with the numbers.
As usual the Japanese are way ahead of us.
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
Conservation of momentum. You cannot blow a projectile into "harmless" bits, because the total momentum of the pieces remains the same. Instead of getting hit by one big projectile, you get hit by a bunch of dust, or vapor, or droplets of liquid metal. The total impact impulse will remain the same.
You also can't just deflect the projectile, because the force applied to deflect the projectile would be equally applied to the deflector device. Even if you did this via a magnetic field, the deflector would suffer damage.
There's simply not much you can do to stop a projectile moving at such velocities.
But that's exactly what this is for... First, you survive hits better because your ammo won't explode. Second, this weapon -- with quite a bit more range/power than many larger weapon systems -- can fit on a destroyer instead of a huge battleship. It's a step in the right direction.
The enemies of Democracy are
What was the last major conflict in which the Navy played a significant role?
Err, how about all of them ? Or do you think men and equipment just teleport themselves to the theatre? (The Air Force can't move all that stuff, it's not cost effective and in some cases not possible; think heavy artillery.)
You obviously have no clue.
So? Not all of us are into reading military porn. Besides, the Navy's plans were previously described in a fully buzzword compliant series called "Sea Power 21" in the Naval Institute Proceedings Magazine back in 2002--2003.
I always knew all those late night quake 3 sessions would help me score a job.
This is roughly 1/100 the circumference of the earth. (and who would really want to shoot more than half of that but still suborbital anyway, right?) Most of the world's population and industry is within 250 miles of deep sea, so this is rather effective anti-ground artillery. Anyone who the U.S. could conceivably face off against squarely in a naval battle (Russia or China?) would still only attack its fleet with long-range, transsonic cruise missiles, potentailly nuclear. Of course, the conventional logic is that if the U.S. military claims distances of 250 miles, it will probably be something like 400 in reality.
I did.
The advantages of railguns have little to do with their effectiveness. As far as I can tell, they're not remarkably more effective than the guns mounted on naval warships now -- you know, the ones that fire explosive shells. The damage done by a railgun projectile is from the kinetic energy alone. That translates to much safer handling aboard ship. It's most certainly not a WMD, a weapon designed to massacre whole populations. Neither are any of the beam weapons mentioned -- pretty much by definition: beam weapons can only be trained on a single target at a time. And probably not people; that would be a huge waste of energy.
Consider this from the article:
So what's this? You favor the weapons in the current arsenal, where it's extremely difficult to avoid collateral damage and huge losses of life? And you disparage new weapons that allows the Navy to achieve its objectives while avoiding these things as much as possible?So yes, you're a troll.
And the brethren went away edified.
Cause YOU know how much energy each of those weapons would draw compared to a reactor that would fit on the ship?
A fair enough answer. I have to mostly guess at the power requirements due to the exact design being classified, but there is a lower ceiling on how much power these things can use. The laws of physics don't allow you to obtain energy for free. It HAS to come from somewhere.
One gentlemen was kind enough to provide some numbers on energy delivered to a target. 16.9 MJ is tremendous in of itself, and would require the full output of a gas turbine to power. There is a trick however. The poster gave the figure in energy delivered to the target. The actual launch energy must be significantly higher for it to reach its destination. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if 10x the 16.9 MJ is actually a low figure.
Assuming that it takes 10x the energy for launch, you are now requiring 169 MJ of energy to launch a single projectile. That's one HELL of a lot of energy. Even if we assume that you have several Gas Turbines to cover the energy costs, you still have the issue of fuel. Given that kerosine has an energy density of 36.8 MJ/liter, you'll easily burn through about 4.5 litres of fuel for every launch. (Probably a lot more due to inefficiencies.) That may not seem like much, but once the ship is out of fuel, it can't maneuver and it can't power its weapon systems. In other words, if these ships were nuclear powered, they could stay in a fight much longer (having MONTHS to YEARS worth of power with all systems at maximum draw) instead of bowing out after only an hour or so of fighting.
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The article mentions all this. Traditional gas powered navy ships have two sets of turbines, one for propulsion the other for electric. The ships that will be carrying the rails guns will have turbines that power electric motors, the guns, and the rest of the ship. Sounds like it couldn't fire while moving but I doubt they'd really need to.
Additionally, it's a lot cheaper and safer to drop shells on an enemy from 250 miles away than it is to send an aircraft. Even though these shells are ballistic the do have guidance systems that let them control their 'fall'. They should be just as accurate as a cruise missle.
The rate of fire is slower than with traditional artillery(6 per minute), but their time to target is faster. So they can drop the same amount of rounds in a 15 minute engagement.
They won't replace carriers, but may lighten the load for the pilots. If we can take out the radar sites with these before sending in the planes it will save some lives.
Non gratis rodentus anus
A friend and I started building an EM rail gun for a high school science project in 1985. We didn't even know about any military projects. We just thought it was cool to accelerate a nail using solenoids. It was years later that I found out our idea was being pursued by the military, and I looked up what I could find on the projects to see how it differed from ours. Besides bigger magnets and more power, it functions very much like what we built. In our case, the inside of the gun barrel had a "railroad track" of wires that used the metal projectile to complete a circuit and conduct electricity (through the projectile) to the correct solenoid (the one that would continue to accelerate the projectile). The only problem we had was that part of the momentum of the projectile would be thwarted by the fact that the iron in the nail would stick to the wire when current was passed through. The military solved this problem by using a tungsten rod positioned above a wad of metal foil (iron or steel). The metal foil completes the circuit and also, due to the extreme amounts of electricity, vaporizes. The foil plasma vapors are then pulled along the magnetic field just like the nail in our experiment, but without the sticking problem. The accelerating (and expanding) vapors push the projectile through the barrel, causing it to exit with astounding velocity. This kind of weapon goes through armor plating like a knife through butter.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Old news. Artillerymen refer to "direct fire" - shooting at things you can see - and "indirect fire" - shooting over the horizon. Been going on since the 19th century. Originally you needed spotters, who would signal back how you were doing and correct your aim. That is why the British Army had a Balloon Corps before any radar existed. The original function of the Royal Flying Corps was artillery observation - and the fighters only developed to attack/defend the artillery observation planes.
Now radar does it for you. You can have on-ship radar, land or carrier based radar aircraft. The arcraft, provided they are high enough, can be well away from the target - but need defence.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
the USA contracts out most of the supply chain.
Navy still does battle site deployments but I was under the impression that most of the hauling is now private companies work.
Range of 250 miles? That's impressive.
The era of the big gun pretty much ended with the battle of Midway. After that, it became obvious that aircraft carriers could both defend themselves and attack enemy shipping without need for battleships and their guns. (Or, more to the point, without big guns and the battleships needed to haul 'em around.)
But I wonder what this development means? The railgun projectile is better in several respects than a missle: cheaper, higher rate of fire, harder to spoof or shoot down, apparently more hitting power. It seems to me that this railgun is closer to carrier based aircraft in relative performance than any guns have been since before WW2.
It's almost enough to make one think that the big gun could be effective again. Envision the "bad guys" having a submarine with railguns sneaking up to within 200 miles of a carrier battle group. It could surface to rapidly launch a few dozen hypersonic projectiles at the carrier. If it could launch a big salvo rapidly enough, the carrier would be in a world of hurt. The sub probably wouldn't survive the counterattack, but to disable a carrier that's probably a good trade.
Can an effective ASW umbrella be extended to beyond the range of these guns?
Hmmm.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
But if you could pulverize the projectile into dust, each of those particles would have a much lower terminal velocity and lose a lot of their energy to friction with the atmosphere. Do this far enough back, and it could make a significant difference.
The US is no more of a "hyperpower" now than it was 30 years ago. The only difference between then and now is that there is no one to currently oppose them, but that will change quickly
Give it 50 years and the US will have competition on two fronts - China and the EU. The EU becomes more and more unified every year, and as it does so, the economic and military power of the area comes closer and closer to that of the US (the EU as a whole already surpasses the US in terms of GDP). So on one hand, you have the "friendly" EU competition. On the other hand, you have China - growing incredibly rapidly both technologically and militarily. Plus, they have the population to back up the technology on the ground if it ever came to that.
If you project out, by 2050 you have three huge global superpowers. All nuclear, all space-capable. And who knows what the global political scene will be like - tensions between the US and Europe have never been higher in recent memory, and the true goals of China in areas like Space are yet to be seen.
It's going to be an interesting 50 years for all of us, and rest assured, the US will not remain the "sole superpower" for very long in a historical sense. I mean, just 150 years ago ( a small blip on the global timeline ) the UK was the worlds superpower. 100 years ago the US was in such a depression people wondered if the whole nation was going to collapse. 50 years ago half the western world was under the control of Hitler.
The point is that in historical terms, the length of time the US has been dominant is miniscule. Let me know when the US has been the dominant global superpower for a thousand years ( see: Rome ) then we can start talking about "hyperpower".
Iirc the impact area of a sonic 'boom' is the cone created by the leading edges of the projectile, and it extends laterally away as the projectile moves at greater than mach 1 (not just while it 'breaks' the speed but at all times when it exceeds the speed). This means that the crew and the entire ship will never be in contact with the shock cone, so it will essentially make no noise at all during travel. It will make noise im sure as its fired, but probably nothing compared to a gunpowder projectile.
Am i right, or has high school physics failed again? (or rather did i fail physics...)
jeff
Last time carriers were used in war? I'm sure the crews of The General Belgrano and HMS Sheffield will disagree.
What I meant is that it is much smaller than cannons of comparable power -- of which there really aren't any. Being able to fit something with that much range and power on a destroyer is a big step forward.
A cruise missle isn't really that small -- currently they are fired only from destroyers and cruisers, or large submarines. Each missile is large, having to carry both the fuel and the warhead. While the rail gun itself is larger than a cruise missle and launcher, each rail round is much smaller and much safer since it isn't a mix of high explosives and rocket fuel waiting to be hit by enemy ordinance. And if its speed you want, then the limiting factor is mass, and you can get a lot more rounds for less mass with a rail gun.
I don't see what the distance to the target has to do with its value... Why spend half a million destroying a warehouse when you can use a comparitively free lump of metal?
All in all, I think rail guns are a vastly positive improvement in weapon mobility. I don't see missles as having any advantage, outside of extra range.
The enemies of Democracy are
This Slashdot post is misleading. According to the Navy League article, warships with electric propulsion systems will be deployed in 2011. But the advanced weapons (rail guns, lasers, etc.) will not. The advanced weapons will be made *possible* because of the electricity available from the new propulsion systems. But the article does NOT say that the weapons will be ready by 2011.
Methinks "a lot"...
They also discuss directed-energy weapons, which promise the ability to deny areas to opponents without killing them (unless they can tolerate the agonizing feeling of being on fire... I doubt too many people will be up for that gig).
Actually, if they can tune the output of their directed-energy weapons the way they discuss in the article, it gives all kinds of options unavailable to current vessels, and may be VERY handy in various MOOTW scenarios (Military Operations Other Than War).
Doesn't seem that cold-war-ish to me.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Of course, offsetting the comparative cheapness of the precision made rounds ($3000 each) will be the sunk costs associated with overruns, cost-plus, graft, and other common characteristics of the military procurement process.
Well, here is a quote from the link you gave:
Iraq Body Count (IBC), a volunteer group of British and US academics and researchers, compiled statistics on civilian casualties from media reports and estimated that between 5,000 and 7,000 civilians died in the conflict.
Most people would probably consider it fair if you said 6,000. OTOH, I was looking at the other site you included, which puts the number at over 7,000. Either one would be fair.
It should be noted that both of those estimates include people killed by either side in the war too. Since you were replying to a post regarding acceptable losses by American mistakes(such as errant bombs) that's worth mentioning too. I'm not saying you are wrong, just saying that people need the complete story to make their own decisions.
BTW, I checked out your site. You need to either make the url link "www.costasandsandra.com" instead of "costasandsandra.com" or change your DNS a little. Congrats on your wedding. I'm getting married soon too, on Oct 30th.
The projectiles are neither biological nor chemical in nature. They are not made of radioactive materials. They are, in effect, big crowbars.
They will likely be more precise than current artillery shells and even any bomb short of one which is laser guided. In spite of being ballistic projectiles, they are relatively small and have very limited frontal drag, meaning they will tend to stay on course. This means they are less likely to cause collateral damage.
In other words, these things are weapons of war, and not weapons of completely laying waste to a country.
By the way, we've been doing research on stuff like this at ordinary universities all over the country, and the technology is not exactly new, it's just new that the power requirements can reasonably be met. UT Austin has had an incredibly powerful small-projectile (about the size of your hand, but still pretty nasty when fired at about mach 4) railgun for quite some time now, and it can't be the only one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
battleships are big, and *very* expensive and nobody wants to use the big guns on battleships because they're too big to put on anything but those big, expensive battleships
:-)
Actually Marines with 20 miles of the shore want them.
That was poorly worded. Sorry. A lot of people don't trust the US, so I think it's a good idea to have other parties check Iraq out thoughroughly.
Well I know the story is already two hours old (gasp), but it appears to be ill-supported. The linked article plainly states ...
..."
..."
1. That this warship class will enter service in 2011:
"When the U.S. Navy's first integrated power system (IPS)/electric drive warship arrives in 2011 as the DD(X), the service will mark a technological breakthrough
2. That this warship class will debut without a rail gun or any other advanced weapon system:
" When the new ship arrives in service it will be armed with very advanced, but conventional weaponry, including two United Defense 155mm Advanced Gun System cannons and an 80-cell vertical launch system for various guided missiles. But these systems are stepping stones to greater capabilities
3. The Navy won't even decide whether to fund a rail gun for years:
"Whatever investment decisions are made for weapons the next several years, the Navy already is engineering the potential these technologies require, according to Collins and his IPS/electric drive team for DD(X)."
The speculative linked white paper goes no further, advocating that a rail gun *proof of concept test* *could* happen by 2008:
"A focused technology development program that leads to a series of experiments that culminate in a full-scale extended-range naval rail gun proof-of-concept demonstration in fiscal year 2008
is a sensible approach."
For a sense of how little this means, consider there was a successful "proof of concept" demonstartion for airborne anti-laser systems -- "Star Wars" SDI technology -- in 1984.
Speed of light: 186,000 miles per second .25 It's over 10,000 times less, as a matter of fact.
Speed of railgun: 6km/second, or 3.73 miles per second
3.37/186,000 = 0.00002
Which, as anyone can see, is nowhere near 1/4th, or
Please, use some math and common sense next time. Better yet, do more than just skim when reading... actually understand what you're looking at.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
:-) I was right - I did get modded as a troll too.
Anyway, this amused me:
Because the US does not use their military might to colonize and subjugate other countries.
The US has a long track record of using their military, political, and economic might not to colonize but subjugate other countries. Take for example South Korea.
A few years back South Korea were looking to upgrade their air force, so they put out tenders to potential suppliers. They ended up with out-dated F-15s. This is widely considered by many Koreans to have been a very bad thing, especially when much better planes were on offer from elsewhere for similar amounts of money. However the Korean government was basically cajouled by the US government into going for the F-15 with threats of decreased investment in Korea and "reconsidered" their original decision to opt for a superior plane.
Now when I was told about this I thought "nah, the F-15's a good plane, they've even flown back home with wings blown off", so I investigated further. Sure enough the version of the F-15 that the Korean Air Force bought is quite a bit inferior to the current models, and it was originally their second choice.
Your points though about European imperialism are well taken.
I would say though that asserting that France duped the US into Vietnam doesn't ring true to me. The US jumped into Vietnam, same as it did in Korea, because of the paranoia about the spread of communism.
The Palestine fiasco can of course be directly linked to WWII and imperialism, however it was imperialistic actions of Britain and the USA that lead to the creation of Israel. It's currently the imperialistic attitude of the Israeli government and the virtually unconditional backing of them by the US government that is the root of the current problems. Given their history you would have thought that Israel would treat people better, however they have created a ghetto in their own country, which is eerily similar to what happened to them in Germany.
You are right that many of the problems in the Middle East come from European Imperialism, but they also come from US interference. Remember that Saddam was an ally of the US only a couple of decades ago.
I live in the EU, and the EU doesn't seem to agree on anything. I wish it were true that the EU is a superpower in 50 years, but we'll probably still be drafting the EU-constitution and letting the voters kill the draft with a referendum.
China on the other hand will be the greatest economy long before 50 years have gone by. Invest in the Chinese stock-market!
Yeah, but its just a matter of time before the army borrows the railgun technology from the Navy . After that they will come up with the idea of shooting nuclear warheads to get passed enemy radar. Then, they only need to stick it on a tank. Perhaps a walking tank with gears? Perhaps it will be called Metal Gear? A nuclear equipped all-terrain capable walking battle tank.
However, alls the terrorists have to do then is invest in some cigarettes and stinger missiles, perhaps some optical camoflauge as well...
SNAKE!!!!!!!
At top speed, a Nimitz class carrier goes 35 mph, and cruises at far less. "Cheap" hydrofoil craft go 40-50mph, and good ones can easily break 100.
The key issue isn't maneuverability, although that can be nice. It's speed of deployment. It took us over a month before we were ready to attack Afghanistan; according to Woodward's interview with Bush, he was furious over this fact (and with good cause!). Now, that wasn't a coastal situation, but the same issue applies: We really need to get away from this cold-war mentality heavy-armor massive-craft fighting style.
Sitting underwater isn't going to protect you from the unexpected. I'm sure many people laughed off the concept of something like the Cole happening before it did. Are we to keep preparing for the last attack again? What if the next "surprise" is, say, surfacable mines buried on the ocean bottom? What if the next attack is a rogue state's first low yield nuclear warhead? What if the next attack comes from a ship that looks like an oil tanker until it fires from 10 miles away? Etc. You can't be fighting the battle of yesterday: you need to fight the battle of tomorrow.
Both hydrofoils and lifting bodies do great in the open ocean (perhaps you're confusing them with SES - Surface Effect Ships? They do poorly in the open ocean). In fact, Australia has a hydrofoil troop transport that was sort of the envy of the US navy when they deployed it to Iraq - very fast, low radar cross section, etc.
VTOL carriers allow for tiny carriers - no need for a big runway.You have small, fast ships that can get within range of their targets in weeks instead of months
"The railgun is not designed to replace aircraft or missiles". That may sound nice and good, but it will. A lot of them. Having the sort of power generation/storage needed to fire projectiles with such incredible force doesn't come cheap. Neither does the space for such a gun. Nor its mass. Etc. It's a tradeoff, and a *major* one.
Oh, and one more thing:
"Given the air and sea power surrounding the modern aircraft carrier, it is virtually invulnerable to anything less than a nuclear attack."
Yes, the same thing was said before the Cole, too, about our naval ships in general.
I just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain; now it's on to Grammar Poland.
At least not in its present form. Too many countries making exceptions to the rules for themselves. Hell their idea of a Constitution is the worst abomination seen yet. They are trying to form a government of unequals which will never work.
China will become less of a threat the freerer its people become. Capitalism will lead them that way. The Chinese government knows this but is smart enough to NOT follow Russia's footsteps.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
(Finally, my nick pays off!)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
I think the major question that will have to be answered there, in the long run, will be effectiveness vs. cost. That's a very different equation now than it was during the cold war - will these weapons be necessary to our ships in future conflicts? Which ones?
I can see smaller versions of these weapons - like ship-mounted AA and CIWS systems being *very* worth the cost of development; but the larger (and currently envisioned) systems most likely only in land bombardment rather than surface actions, against likely naval deployments any potential enemy might make currently.
Here's another idea, tho: DD(X) that can shoot down satellites
Land-based anti-sat-EMK systems, would, of course, be even more effective. I'm kind of surprised that I've seen little on this particular application - it seems obvious (or maybe I'm missing something?)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Terrorism, state-sponsored or otherwise, isn't the only military issue in the world. The Cold War is long over--but in its place have appeared a number of smaller-scale regional conflicts. Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq are three that spring to mind. North Korea is certainly another potential threat that any responsible military commander will consider.
Do you have a world atlas handy? No? Click this link, it will take you to a small map showing North Korea--with a handy map scale in the lower left hand corner. You'll note that the entire Korean peninsula is less than 200 miles wide--meaning that a small handful of U.S. Navy destroyers armed with these railguns could effectively put incredible firepower onto practically any spot in either country. In practice (because there is a range of high mountains running like a spine down the eastern side of the peninsula) you'd have to position 2-3 destroyers on either side, and you'd have 100% fire cover.
That changes all sorts of equations. It lessens aviation requirements in the Korean theater, it lessens troop requirements in theater, and it is a technology that is easy to demonstrate--but well beyond the technological reach of the North Koreans (first because they have limited metalurgical assets to develop the guns, and second because they have very limited ability to find and thus target a ship far out at sea).
The effect may indeed impact anti-terrorism
The ability to inexpensively drop heavy-duty firepower onto the Korean peninsula raises the very real prospect that the U.S. would not need to keep 35,000 combat troops, and thousands of Air Force troops, not to mention planes, ships, and other equipment, focused on North Korea. Some of those forces could be put to better use--such as tracking, identifying, and killing terrorists.
This technology claims to propel projectiles upto extremely high speeds, right, so what happens to the old Newtonian concept of action-reaction? Shouldn't the recoil be brutal on these kinds of weapons?
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
That's being replaced by 4 advanced design turbines that will put out about 80 megawatts, used to power electric ship motors and provide power to the rest of the ship.
Sorry to interject, but 80MW is NOT sufficient power to run both the weapons systems and the propulsion. Keep in mind that 80MW is *maximum* power output. Maximum power output will drain the fuel stores extremely fast. Presumably, some of that power will be automatically assigned to defensive and communication systems such as RADAR, GPS, Radio, Satellite Uplink, Targeting, and simply keeping the lights on. With the remaining power, the ship can either move under military power or charge the rail gun. It simply doesn't have enough power to do both.
Even more interesting is that the article spoke of adding Masers to the inventory of high energy weapons. Now the commander will have one MORE decision to make: Does he move the ship, charge the railguns, or fire the Masers? He'd better make the right decision, because the boat will be sunk if he makes the wrong one. Not to mention that his ship wouldn't be able to sustain battle for more than a few hours. At 80MW, the ship will be running about 130 liters of fuel through the turbines each minute. He simply can't stay in a firefight for very long that way.
No, unless they start equiping these ships with Gigawatt nuclear reactors, they won't be able to help very much in a surface engagement. What they WILL be able to do (and thanks to the posters who pointed this out to me) is bombard stationary installations like RADAR stations, Airfields, and beach defenses. The Marines will love them, and they'll cost less than pulling the battleships out of reserve.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
If you do the simple mechanics math, you see that a ballistic projectile fired at 45 degrees at that speed spends about 180 seconds getting to apogee, which is at over 450k ft, and only about 11 seconds getting to 60k ft. For the vast majority of the flight, there is essentially no air resistance.
Military is also a really good way to get killed. Like, for real. Can't respawn from that.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
Though actually about $300-400 billion is spent on defense for the U.S.
Probably not, but from the articles I've been reading, they're having one hellva time with barrel friction at this stage of development. Every shot is quite literally ripping the barrel apart. Once they nail that down , it'll just be a matter of inflight guidance. Other fun facts-- Did you know they will need to divert power from the engines to bring this thing online? Having Scotty divert power to the weapons has a whole new meaning ^_^
How prophetic of me...
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Is it just me or is the US on some utterly bizarre wild goose chase, spending (read: WASTING) trillions developing military and weapon technology to outdistance itself technologically from other world armies by a factor of 100 instead of (the supposedly insufficient) factor of 50? Just WHO are they going to fight with their Seawolf subs, Aircraft Carriers, railguns, and that entire quadgizillion-consuming army? Terrorists? North Korea? Europe?
/.'ers), wouldn't it be nicer if your government was using YOUR taxmoney to do YOU some good?
Take a look at the UK for an example. They opted for a small fleet of SMALL aircraft carriers that are designed to rush in and handle local skirmishes and cost a helluvalot cheaper than their American leviathan counterparts and their trailing battlegroups (which are there just in case the Soviet Block comes back together and stops being poor all of a sudden, Marxism is revived, all western culture as we know it is abolished there and the Japanese decide to attack Pearl Harbor. Again.)
Yes, I know (;-)), A real live railgun will give any fps gamer who can pronounce "quake" a hard-on, but guys (I'm talking to the americans among us
Get you more IT jobs? Encourage tech-oriented businesses with tax levys? Hell, give it to NASA and have them build a space elevator before China does, that'll be a sure way of giving all us geeks an even bigger erection...
All you have to do is look at [modern, developed, not-dirt-poor] self-oriented countries such as Australia or Germany to see how useful a taxdollar can be when put on the right track.
-
As far as Newton is concerned, yep. It would have to bolted to the deck pretty tightly.
Here's a very short description: Railgun recoil and relativity
All your moon base are belong to the U.S.?
Ah, the old "If we don't have weapons then nobody else will have them either and the world will be a wonderful place of rainbows and marshmellows" argument. Dude, wake up.
The US has been withdrawing from this conflict partly because the South Koreans are no longer interested in proceeding as a US aggressor proxy when in fact it seeks to reunify with the North, not destroy it.
The bottom line is that the only times in the last forty years the US has fought a serious military adversary - Vietnam and Bosnia - much of the high tech that was promoted as being decisive failed. A conflict between he Koreas would probably show this again.
You have a good point. In Vietnam the winning side took 10x the losses but was determined to win. The problem for the US was that their adversary had decided it would fight to the last man. There are two routes you can go in this scenario - a costly 'total' war (as with Japan, that also basically fought to the very end) or abandonment (Vietnam). Its not clear yet what route the US will take in the Middle East.