The US Navy's Railgun Program

RougeFive writes "Imagine a warship weapon that can launch projectiles at Mach 10 without explosives (more than three times the muzzle speed of an M16 rifle), that has a range of 220 miles and that uses the enormous speed to destroy the target by causing as much damage as a Tomahawk missile. Meet the U.S. Navy's electromagnetic railgun program."

Comments

What's old is new again

[Lucas123]

Schwerer Gustav built rail guns for the Nazis in the late 1930s. Those twin guns weighed about 1,350 tons and could lob 80 centimeter shells weighing 7 tons up to 29 miles. Of course that was using gun powder and this new one uses electromagnets to toss shells 220 miles. Still, it's interesting how little guns in general have changed throughout history.

let me rephrase

[nimbius]

Imagine a warship weapon that can launch projectiles at Mach 10 without explosives

its offtopic but No. just, hell no. Every slashdot story about war-tech needs to have an icon of dick cheney, then perhaps we would begin to understand that every advancement in the american arsenal is diametrically opposed to the idea of technology as a whole, which is to make life better.

imagine a land where violent crime, grinding poverty, intractable inequality, and disease are a part of everyday life. its a nation with a standing debt of around sixteen trillion dollars, and it can think of no better use of its time or limited remaining resources than to invent a superweapon for an enemy that does not exist, to defend the collective interests of a handful of elites.