Navy Tests Mach 8 Electromagnetic Railgun

hargrand writes "Wired magazine has a story and publicly released video of the Navy test firing of a 32 megajoule electromagnetic railgun: 'Reporters were invited to watch the test at the Dalghren Naval Surface Warfare Center. A tangle of two-inch thick coaxial cables hooked up to stacks of refrigerator-sized capacitors took five minutes to power juice into a gun the size of a schoolbus built in a warehouse. With a 1.5-million-ampere spark of light and a boom audible in a room 50 feet away, the bullet left the gun at a speed of Mach 8.'"

Comments

Yay!

[Rix]

You'll finally dominate the USSR militarily, ending the Cold War.

Re:Yay!

[erroneus]

You know, I am all for world peace. I really want us all go just get along. But we are humans. Some of us are passive. Some of us are not. Turns out, the passive end up serving the non-passive and we end up fighting over "stuff." This will never end so long as we are human. No one is "equal" so long as I think I am better than you and the resources you have should be mine.

So while the USSR failed, Russia and the remnants of the USSR's resources still exist. Also, China is showing itself to be a much larger threat than the USSR ever was. (Plus they "look different from us" and so it's much easier to make them an enemy!) There WILL be some serious conflict with China in the near future. Whether it is cold or not remains to be seen, but it is clear that things are changing much faster than we know in Asia. China's influence is moving at an amazing pace and we had better be prepared to defend ourselves. Using powerful, non-nuclear weapons is an important way to prepare.

Re:Yay!

[galvitron]

China has a fast growing nuclear submarine fleet, each armed with multiple ballistic missiles. If U.S. recon picks up a surfacing sub within 100 miles of the gun, we could get a shell there within 8 minutes...maybe fast enough to get 'em before they triple check the orders, launch codes, go through launch procedure, et al. Maybe not.

China also has a fairly large surface fleet, rivaled by only a few countries.

The race never stops, it just has clear leaders at certain points in history.

Re:Yay!

[bcmm]

Submarines don't surface to launch ballistic missiles. They come near to the surface, communicate using an antenna on a small buoy, then launch from just below the surface. See this this pic from Wikipedia.

Re:Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA worries me often. Or to be precise, the US government does. I'd like to believe that they'll use those guns for a good cause, such as against a rogue country who would suddenly decide to conquer the world. But we're in a time where enemy threats are most likely to come in the form of terrorism and nuclear standoffs. The way I see it, there are several reasons why the USA would want to build Railguns:

- They have info that aliens exist and can come to Earth.
- They have confirmation that someone (e.g. China, Iran, North Korea...) really plans to attack the Western World (or only the USA).
- They are planning to conquer the World in the next 10-20 years.
- Or they are really just being careful and making sure they can face the unexpected.

That last option seems to me to be the most reasonable explanation. But there are a few things that bother me:
1) A rogue president (yes, Bush Jr.) had no trouble hijacking the US government, making laws that brought the USA a lot closer to a tyranny*, and manipulating most of the Western World into following him in a criminal war. Bottom line, the US government is vulnerable to hijacking and if that happened again then the world would be in serious trouble if the USA has access to so powerful weapons. Bush did not attack Europe, fair enough. That does not mean the next US president who decides he can do whatever he wants won't attack Europe either.

*Patriot act, Guantano (jail without a trial), use of torture, use of secret evidence in criminal trials, illegal wiretaps and surveillance of citizens, etc. (Note that Obama has added a few more things to the list, like the right to kill people without a trial).

2) The recent leak of diplomatic cables offers more evidence that the USA does not seem to respect it's allies. Like what? You really think France or Germany would attack the USA? Not in 1000 years. Most of Europe is not the military, war-waging type. I have a hard time imagining how the USA can justify spying on these countries and their officials. If even the closest allies of the USA are treated with so little trust and respect, then I'm not certain any country can fully trust the USA.

3) Are the USA planning to share this technology (Railguns) with their allies? Again, I don't see France fighting against the USA in 1000 years unless the USA starts the war. So it would look very suspicious that the USA would not share with them. I also think, as a general principle, that no single country should have far more military power than all others. It's dangerous if a country is so powerful that no other country can stand up to it, even if that country is the USA. I would like to know that should the US government suddenly go rogue and turn against Europe and the rest of the world we stand a chance to fight back. It's too much power for only one country to have.

I think it's very likely that this technology is being developed just to stay on top and be ready in case China attacks. I don't think the USA plans to conquer the World. But there are still reasons to be concerned about the USA having so much power, especially if the rest of the world doesn't have that power. I wish the press would report on what Europe says about these railguns, I'm curious to know what they think over there.

Re:Yay!

[Dunbal]

such as against a rogue country who would suddenly decide to conquer the world.

I fail to see how the US can use this technology against itself.

Re:Yay!

[The Warlock]

You're forgetting the obvious explanation: that ever since WWII, we don't know how to run an economy that isn't propped up by military spending.

Re:Yay!

[TheRaven64]

Option 5: The guns are manufactured in Congressman A's district. Congressman A doesn't really understand them, but will vote against Congressman B's bill unless he is allowed to attach a rider to it funding their deployment, to keep money flowing into his state and buy him the next election.

Re:Yay!

[mcneely.mike]

And, i think it is that something like 90% of Canadians live within 100 km of the U.S. border..... man, they could shoot us all, 1 bullet at a time.
(That is, until we learn to duck just in time while holding the beer bottle just so and the bullet spins the screw cap off. Oh, yeah. Beer. Mmmmmm.)

Re:Yay!

[gtall]

Well, the U.S. economy has a GDP of a little north of $14 trillion. The current defense bill is about $720 billion. And somehow this $720 is supporting a GDP of $14 trillion?

Incidentally, the U.S. deficit is about $1.4 trillion for FY2010 which ended Sept. 30. The total debt is about $14 trillion (no relation to the GDP number, the latter is per year, the former spans decades of financial mismanagement).

The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.

It is important to have a sense of proportion, it can keep you from making unwarranted assumptions.

Re:Yay!

[hedwards]

I think the problem is that there's a lot of folks here that don't think we're winning by enough. They're willing to chuck all quality of life down the crapper in order to get a modicum of security. At least measures like this actually provide some of that, unlike the other things.

Re:Yay!

[WindBourne]

Actually, America remains the worlds largest producer. However, we need to quit importing from China and bring back a large number of those jobs.

Re:Yay!

[marcosdumay]

That word "most" is dispensable here. You in the US spend more on military than the rest of the world combined.

Re:Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.

Yet that top 1% control 99% of the capital. It looks like that 37% is a fucking good deal. For them.

And think how much tax the government could be bringing in if that narrow section of society didn't expend massive efforts in hiding their income and assets in tax havens?

Whilst those at the bottom might not be paying income tax, they still have to pay the other taxes that exist, and generally those taxes are much more of a burden than they are on the rich. A rich person can easily afford a couple of extra percent on purchases, but it is much more of a poor person's income, so relatively those taxes are higher.

If an something has a dollar of tax on it, for someone earning 15kUSD a year that tax is 0.0067% of their annual income. For someone earning a million a year, it is 0.0001% of their income, 67 times less!

Re:Yay!

[Grond]

The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.

The rich earn most of the money, so of course they pay most of the income tax. And the bottom 47% (not 50) still pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, certain state and local income taxes, sales tax, and excise taxes on things like gasoline and alcohol.

The utility of wealth is not linear. Progressive taxation makes economic and psychological sense, and it was supported by, among others, Benjamin Franklin."the most equal of all Taxes...is generally in proportion to Mens Wealth." (Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Ruston, October 9, 1780).

Re:Yay!

[DesScorp]

And the bottom 47% (not 50) still pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, certain state and local income taxes, sales tax, and excise taxes on things like gasoline and alcohol.

And? Questions about the programs aside, those Medicare and SS taxes are nothing compared to what they'll actually get from those programs. Historically, we've received more money from Medicare and SS than we've actually put into it. So that's a net gain. And those state and local taxes and alchohol and gas taxes go for things like police departments and roads... stuff that they benefit from directly. You make it sound like not paying an income tax is OK because they pay those other things, when they come out ahead even without paying an income tax. In fact, most people under the 50K line (with families) end up being paid by other taxpayers when January rolls around. Most tax "refunds" aren't refunds at all, but are cash bonuses, courtesy of richer taxpayers. The "Earned Income Tax Credit" may be the most misnamed tax statute on the books. You get extra cash, gratis, if you fall below a certain income and have kids. How is that "earned"?

The utility of wealth is not linear. Progressive taxation makes economic and psychological sense, and it was supported by, among others, Benjamin Franklin."the most equal of all Taxes...is generally in proportion to Mens Wealth." (Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Ruston, October 9, 1780).

Your mistake is in assuming that "proportion" has to be your so-called progressive taxation scheme. With a flat tax, ALL taxation would be in proportion to wealth. You make more, you pay more. You make less, you pay less. But everybody actually pays taxes in that system, which is important in a Democratic Republic, lest a significant portion of the public comes to see those richer than them as their meal ticket, and develop an entitlement to what others have earned. Which is exactly what has happened. That chunk of the populace has discovered that they can vote themselves other people's money. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, in a kind of way.

Re:Yay!

[shilly]

Only the kind of fuckin' unempathetic eedjit who's never had to worry about where his next meal is coming from and doesn't recognise this as an extraordinary piece of luck compared with the situation of 99% of humanity throughout history and far too many people in the US today writes this kind of garbage.

If it was that fucking great to be poor -- if you got to receive so many privileges without having to work for them -- then rich people would be giving up their earned income for the plentiful largesse of the state. Funnily enough, those rubbing along on the $250k+ that earns them the major benefit from the Bush tax cut (now perpetuated by the pusillanimous Obama administration) aren't rushing to give up 90% of their income and live on $25k p.a. instead. That's cos they've recognised that life earning that much money is shit shit shit. Shit food, early death, violence, just shit.

You need to get a fucking grip, mate, and see what the real world is like. That 1% of people paying 37% of income tax are doing so because they are richer than fucking Croesus and are, practically speaking, living in a completely different world to the rest of their "fellow" Americans, who have practically no assets to their name, no discretionary income, and virtually no life chances. They are born in poverty, will live in poverty and will die in poverty. But that statistical truth will be ignored while the other statistical truth -- normal distribution -- will throw up enough who do escape to allow people to keep pointing to rags-to-riches stories as endorsements of this setup as "the American way".

I've heard that before

[marcovanb]

I've heard that before "Rule Britannia, Brittania rules the waves...".

Re:I've heard that before

[hairyfeet]

Sadly I think your joke just hit the nail on the head of one of the things that is seriously fucked up about this country. I mean here we are, factories shuttered all over the place, people losing their homes left and right, over 22,000 factories offshored since 2001, and debt climbing like there is no tomorrow and THIS, this is what we spend our non existent money on? Giant fricking superguns? who in the fuck are we gonna use that stupid thing on? We already have the largest aircraft carrier fleet on the entire planet, our most likely enemies are groups like NK and Iran that would be lucky to come at us with kamikaze speedboats, and THIS is what we add even more debt for?

It just shows old Ike was right all those years ago. Once the military industrial complex got "too big to fail" no matter what is going on with our economy or the state of our enemies we are gonna be handing them ever increasing truckloads of cash. If we had ANY sense at all we'd cancel this crap, along with any new supercarriers being built (we already have 11 carriers for the love of Pete) and cancel that stupid F35 and just stick with the F15,16,18 combo. Oh and kill that stupid Osprey turkey while we are at it. We already have the most tech heavy military on the planet but as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan all that means exactly jack and squat against the enemies of today. quit blowing money on stupid weapons already, Sheesh.

Re:I've heard that before

[Charliemopps]

if you're done ranting now... railguns have plenty of non-military uses. The research into how to charge and quickly discharge those huge capacitors alone is very useful. Not to mention the applications for launching stuff into orbit, or in fusion reactors. As weapons they are great for taking down incoming missles. Also, if they were to make portable versions it would eliminate the need to carry dangerous explosives (gun powder, C4, etc..) and the projectile itself wouldn't be a dangerous heavy metal like lead. I'd rather see the military spend their time doing research like this than invading another 3rd world country.

Re:I've heard that before

[rolfwind]

As long as the development of said supergun is in the US, you are doing it right.

Problem starts when mass production starts ordering equipment overseas - development and production of military equipment = jobs which help the economy, where ever it takes place, trick is to make sure you build it in your own garden.

Really, is that the depth of your economic thinking, whoever has the biggest guns rules? I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union never outsourced the production of its weapons either.

Re:I've heard that before

[Xaositecte]

Y'know, if we hired a little kid to start throwing rocks through windows all over the city, so many that we'd have to open another glass production plant to meet up with the demand for new windows, we'd also help the economy. Especially if we built it here in America.

Re:I've heard that before

[TubeSteak]

We already have the largest aircraft carrier fleet on the entire planet, our most likely enemies are groups like NK and Iran that would be lucky to come at us with kamikaze speedboats, and THIS is what we add even more debt for?

BTW - When we did red vs blue naval wargames a few years back, those kamikaze speedboats kicked the blue team's ass.

It was so embarassing that...

When the Red Team sank much of the Blue navy despite the Blue navy's firing of guns and missiles, it illustrated a cheap way to beat a very expensive fleet. After the Blue force was sunk, the game was ordered to begin again, with the Blue Team eventually declared the victor.

The last few meaningful encounters the USA has had with low-tech asymmetric warfare have gone relatively poorly for them.

Re:I've heard that before

[Hal_Porter]

Sadly I think your joke just hit the nail on the head of one of the things that is seriously fucked up about this country. I mean here we are, factories shuttered all over the place, people losing their homes left and right, over 22,000 factories offshored since 2001, and debt climbing like there is no tomorrow and

BOOM

stupid Osprey turkey while we are at it. We already have the most tech heavy military on the planet but as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan all that means exactly jack and squat against the enemies of today. quit blowing money on stupid weapons already, Sheesh.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear you over the sound of how awesome my 32MJ rail gun is.

Re:I've heard that before

[KonoWatakushi]

While the defense budget is no doubt way out of control, this is not at all the sort of thing that worries me. It has no practical military value in the near term, and at least produced interesting results.

I'm more concerned about other high-tech anti-personel weapons or robots, that will inevitably be pointed at people, possible even at our own citizens before long.

Speaking of waste, and far more disturbing at that, take a look at what the anti-terrorism efforts have spawned. I really had no idea of the scale of it. Having this turned against our own citizens as the fascism ramps up is truly frightening.

Re:I've heard that before

[__aaqvdr516]

Overheard somewhere in Europe 9000BC

"Bejeebus mister Grok. We're out here starvin' and you're trying to fix a piece of string on a flimsy rod so you can what? Shoot projectiles at things?!? We already have a spear and it's worked so well for us. All those animals don't have spears! The best they have are horns! Harharhar Now come help me kill this stupid turkey."

Re:I've heard that before

[nospam007]

"Launching stuff into orbit is a bit weird - You're still going to use a comparable amount of energy in order to do so."

As the motor, the tank, the fuel, the cooling etc doesn't have to be lifted with the orbiter, actually the energy is not at all comparable.

Re:I've heard that before

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew I recognised that story - but it seemed to miss some fairly interesting points for whatever reason...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

At this point, the exercise was suspended and Blue's ships were "re-floated" and changes were made to the rules of engagement; later this was justified by General Peter Pace as: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" In the new restarted exercise the different sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action, leading to allegations that the exercise was scripted and "$250 million was wasted". Due to his concerns about the scripted nature of the new exercise, Van Riper resigned his position in the midst of the war game. Van Riper later expressed concern that the wargame's purpose had shifted to reinforce existing doctrine and notions of infallibility within the U.S. military rather than serve as a learning experience.

The re-floating of blue teams boats was just the start of embarrassing behaviour.

Quite interesting how US media differs from other parts of the world when telling this story - obviously it might look insulting to you guys, but isn't this the sort of shit you would like to know about? - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/06/usa.iraq

Re:I've heard that before

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't know if education works optimally unless people have to earn the opportunity for an education, not just offering a way to earn a degree. You can give people tuition and they'll go, but if they don't have an appreciation for the cost of what they've been given, they're likely to spend as much of the time as possible partying, squandering the opportunity they've been given.

Re:I've heard that before

[RicktheBrick]

Lets see - in your list of possible uses - Launching stuff into orbit is a bit weird - You're still going to use a comparable amount of energy in order to do so. And I'm pretty sure accelerating humans that quickly will kill them. Fusion reactions - I have no idea.

They are launching only the payload. They are not launching two or more rocket motors and the fuel necessary to make them work and yet you think they are going to use a comparable amount of energy. I am sure the rate of launches and success rate would be much better. We need to launch automated factories into space and than launch the raw material for them. They could than manufacture huge solar collectors which could provide the world with all its energy needs many times over. You call it a bit weird. I call it one of the greatest advancement in human history.

Re:I've heard that before

[Jenming]

The energy is not the same, however, it might not be less.
When you launch with a rocket, the rocket accelerates throughout the journey, making the maximum in atmosphere speed lower.
If you launch with a railgun, it starts _really_ fast and then slows down until it hits orbit. The fastest part of this trip is done at the highest air pressure. Which is really bad due to the exponential increase in drag as you increase speed. You would also need to take into account the added weight of heat shielding.

The comparable amount of energy would be launching a rocket with one large explosion on the ground. I would imagine that many of the same problems would exist whether this was done with a railgun or a bomb. I would not assume that the energy used was less.

Now if you launched from the moon (or anywhere else without an atm) then the railgun would have energy advantages.

Re:I've heard that before

[Alef]

Which is really bad due to the exponential increase in drag as you increase speed.

Drag increases quadratically with regard to speed, not exponentially. People really ought to stop using the term "exponentially" to mean "more than linearly".

Re:I've heard that before

[AK Marc]

Socialism is apparently anything you don't like. I'm not a liar. I may be wrong, but my opinion can never be a lie. But then, you obviously don't let the truth get in the way of your insane inane and irrelevant rants.

And the military spending is redistributive. Unless you had some unstated adjectives in there you were implying that you'll only reveal when called wrong, in which case you would be the only liar here. As saying something with the intention of deceiving others is a lie, and purposefully hiding constraints on your vile and incorrect spew to make it sound like you were right all along is something the greater internet fuckwads like to do.

Civilian version?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I'm still trying to get them kids off my lawn. But kids on bikes are quick, wily and seem to move in Brownian Motion tracks. Mach 8 could give me a good tactical advantage . . .

Re:Mach 8 to Orbit?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Mach 8 = 2 722.32 m/s.

Escape velocity being 11.2 km/s, so the answer is no.

Re:Mach 8 to Orbit?

[DirePickle]

You win again, gravity!

Re:Mach 8 to Orbit?

[Interoperable]

Escape velocity is the velocity required to leave orbit, not to maintain a stable orbit. Of course, low Earth orbit is about 8 km/s, so still no.

Re:Mach 8 to Orbit?

[sulimma]

If something is thrown or shot, the orbit will go through the point the shot was fired. You have a problem if that is on earth surface. Even if you are fast enough for a stable orbit you need a rocket to shift that orbit away from your starting point.

50 feet away?

[Sowelu]

Summary says the boom was audible in a room 50 feet away? If I tip over a chair, it's audible in a room 50 feet away...

Re:Mach 8 to Orbit?

[Rockoon]

At a deceleration of a constant 10m/s^2, it would still take 270 seconds to stop going up (the deceleration would actually decrease the higher it goes, but I'm not accounting for drag.. so its a tradeoff) it will have an average speed of 1.35km/s.

Thats 270s * 1.35km/s = a height of 364.5km, so it could conceivably enter into the region we call 'low earth orbit' which is between 160km to 2000km.

I dont know where to begin to calculate the drag as it rises, so I wont bother to calculate the decreasing deceleration either.

Might be able to shoot down satellites .. or throw some stuff up for the International Space Station to catch (347km altitude at perigee)

Re:The video is cool, but...

[Ksevio]

Well according to the Washington Post article on it:

It streaked down range, generating a small sonic boom, and traveled about 5,500 feet before tumbling to the ground harmlessly.

So not all that interesting.

Advantage of a rail gun

[mdsolar]

The main advantage of a rail gun is that its muzzle velocity is not limited by the sound speed in a hot gas. Guns that use chemical propellant can't have arbitrarily high muzzle speeds because the propellant gas can't be arbitrarily hot. If you want to go faster, you have to switch from a gun to a rocket and carry the propellant with you. A rail gun gets you back to a gun with rocket speeds and ranges but faster. Since the response can be faster than a rocket, it can provide missile defense by the barrage method and be very effective. It could also be used as intercontinental ballistic artillery eventually. Very powerful and destabilizing....

Quote Fail

[DarthStrydre]

It is difficult to understand how you could have pulled that BF quote so far out of context. It was referring to the devaluation of currency being effectively a tax and was not related to income tax whatsoever. If anything is would be similar to a tax on the value of savings and investments (not the numeric amount), due to inflation.

Even if it were referring to income tax (e.g. "the most equal of all taxes...is generally proportional to Men's income"), it is per the wording not a progressive tax. A Tax is a nominal value of money paid for some reason, not a rate. Progressive taxes are by definition defined by a tax RATE that is proportional to income/assets/whatever. In a progressive tax, not only does a person with more taxable assets pay more in taxes due to a fixed percentage of the larger value... the percentage itself rises. This is not what is referred to here. Fail.

(Now one could argue that a flat tax on paper assets integrated over time is a progressive tax, since wealthier people would potentially have more money "in the bank" being taxed in relation to total assets, which may be true... The interesting bit about that is it would punish those who saved paper assets, which would likely result in the wealthy moving away from that paper currency as a container of wealth. Franklin argued against use of Gold and metals as wealth containers since the prices were volatile at the time, and with paper effectively taxed, by deflation, other methods of escaping the deflation would likely be sought.)

Re:Yay!(income is not wealth)

[DarthStrydre]

If you can look at those charts and see any trendline I applaud you. To me it appears the numbers are statistically brownian noise.
Your first paragraph is ok, but then you dive into the deep end... You give no basis for why para 1 is "poison to democracy". Speaking of which, what is this Democracy to which you refer? People like you, with no basis in economics, or civics, are what make the long term prospects of the US "not good".