US military rail gun kills anything 1 shot

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AoBfrost

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This US military/navy railgun shoots at 5,640 miles per an hour, it blasted through a sign easily in the video, but see how the after burn just eats away the sign.

heres another video of it reloading

 
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Wow. Well, looks like we're getting closer to actual MAC cannons. Why would the military need something so powerful? What's wrong with explosives...
 
All it needs now is an xray scope and we're one step closer to matching that sweet Arnold movie 'Eraser'.
 
Spartan 169 said:
Wow. Well, looks like we're getting closer to actual MAC cannons. Why would the military need something so powerful? What's wrong with explosives...
cuz its coooooooooooooool. i just love explosions and things moving realy fast shown at super slow speed. i have no idea why
 
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Because, something which hits you, then burns you to death is much cooler than just being blown to bits.
 
Rail guns are also known to be super accurate at immense distances. In this day and age, the farther you are from your target the better. If anyone doesn't know what a rail gun is, I'd check it out at Wikipedia. It's been a concept for ages, but hasn't been fully realized until now perhaps. It's still a long ways away for person portalable rail guns like in Eraser though, but those would be cool to have one day, except the whole x-ray thing as that just seemed ridiculous to me.
 
Imagine you have an enemy pinned down in the middle of populated city. You want him and his buddies dead, with the area around him left intact. Secondary damage little to zero. Our current weaponry that uses laser guided entrance points penetrate the wall/armor.building, then explode on the interior. Rail guns are not limited to exploding or chemicals for propellant (like gunpowder or gas as in a rifle, very Halo-esque).

So, your bad dude is pinned in the basement of a building in the middle of a city with all kinds of buildings around, the railgun would penetrate at over 5,000ft/sec and kill him, leave the biulding standing and no collateral damage to the area.

OR, take out a ship, tanker, etc.
 
Spartan 169 said:
Wow. Well, looks like we're getting closer to actual MAC cannons. Why would the military need something so powerful? What's wrong with explosives...

Now we just need to scale it up and put a big sucker like that in space.

It's always best to have the biggest, baddest, weapon around.Which country would you consider attacking more, a country that could hurtle a nuclear shell at nearly one mile a second, or a country that still relied on rockets and conventional forms of propulsion? It acts as a good reason for other countries not to attack us. (Trying to think of the correct term...) Even though, we already have enough of those!

But still, it is best to be one step ahead of everybody else.
 
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Aside from what has already been stated, one of the primary advantages of the railgun is that explosives are not needed. A smaller, solid shot fired from a railgun carries the kinetic energy of a larger explosive shell fired from a conventional gun. This means that whatever role a railgun is used in (be it ship, tank, artillery, etc.), you can bring more ammo because the shells are smaller. It is also much safer, especially in naval roles, because the shell do not contain any explosives; if a fire breaks out (from an accident, incoming fire, etc.) you don't have to worry about the ammunition blowing the whole place to pieces.

Plus railguns are awesome. Imagine the psychological effects of such a weapon.
 
Razgriz said:
Now we just need to scale it up and put a big sucker like that in space.

It's always best to have the biggest, baddest, weapon around.Which country would you consider attacking more, a country that could hurtle a nuclear shell at nearly one mile a second, or a country that still relied on rockets and conventional forms of propulsion? It acts as a good reason for other countries not to attack us. (Trying to think of the correct term...) Even though, we already have enough of those!

But still, it is best to be one step ahead of everybody else.
Pre-emptive measures?
 
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It also needs to make the same noise as the Quake Rail gun :D

So the friction and energy is so intense it burns everything... geez... wonder how a hotdog or marshmellow would fair... hmmm...
 
Skullcandy Girl said:
It also needs to make the same noise as the Quake Rail gun :D

So the friction and energy is so intense it burns everything... geez... wonder how a hotdog or marshmellow would fair... hmmm...

No the friction has little to do with anything, it all revolves around the transfer of energy.

A "Large Scale" rail gun would fire a 1 Kilo iron slug. (I am using Metric to make it easyer)

1 Kilo (2.2 Pound) traveling at 5640 MPH (2521.3056 Meters/Second) = 3178490.96429568 Joules of energy

Convert that to Megatons and you have a total desructive force of 6.02 Megatons

The B-83 Nuke missle, the strongest in US service has a force of 1.8Mt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B83_nuclear_bomb.

Look at cost, 1 B-83 Millions, 2.2 pounds of scrap Iron $2-$3.
 
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CMANavy, seems like you understand this stuff very well. Take a lot of physics classes? For everyone interested, this was taken from Wikipedia here.

A railgun is a form of gun that converts electrical energy (rather than the more conventional chemical energy from an explosive propellant) into projectile kinetic energy. It is not to be confused with a coilgun (Gauss gun). Rail guns use magnetic force to drive a projectile. Unlike gas pressure guns, rail guns are not limited by the speed of sound in a compressed gas, so they are capable of accelerating projectiles to extremely high speeds.

Picture:
480px-Railgun-1.svg.png


I don't think anyone said anything about it being propelled through magnetic forces, but I thought you should know that's what's going on here. Again more here.
 
23Magnum said:
CMANavy, seems like you understand this stuff very well. Take a lot of physics classes? For everyone interested, this was taken from Wikipedia here.

Just a few, Physics is important for sailors (officers mostly). That and one of my brother-in-laws has a Masters in Mathmatics and the other is a Nuke Physicist. And excellent pic/diagram!
 
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CMANavy said:
Just a few, Physics is important for sailors (officers mostly). That and one of my brother-in-laws has a Masters in Mathmatics and the other is a Nuke Physicist. And excellent pic/diagram!
The pic is from Wiki too.

I see science is big in your family. I have a Math Minor, nothing really special, but it'll help when I finally get an engineering job. I took a few dynamics and statics courses in college for my major too. Nothing extensive, but they help me understand stuff like this a lot better. I really hate it when people say math is useless in their lives.

^^^^See people!^^^^ Look at the cool stuff that comes out of Math and Science.
 
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No the friction has little to do with anything, it all revolves around the transfer of energy.

Wait, what? Friction is the number one drawback in railgun design; the rapid accelaration of the projectile causes significant rail erosion after each shot. In some videos you'll see bright flashes coming out of the muzzle, that's plasma (pure energy).

From wiki:
the rails need to survive the violence of an accelerating projectile, and heating due to the large currents and friction involved.

Massive amounts of heat are created by the electricity flowing through the rails, as well as the friction of the projectile leaving the device.

Transfer of energy is important also. If the rails are too far apart, nothing happens (obviously; the connection is broken and it doesn't flow). If the energy transfers too well, sometimes the rails and the projectile melt together.
 
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Garland said:
Wait, what? Friction is the number one drawback in railgun design; the rapid accelaration of the projectile causes significant rail erosion after each shot. In some videos you'll see bright flashes coming out of the muzzle, that's plasma (pure energy).

I was talking about one the other end when inflicting damage to a target. You are right about the friction on the fireing of the gun, that is the biggest draw back, that and the engery requirements to create the magnetic fields to fire the gun. Rail guns for the time being will be limited to crew based batteryes or Naval platforms. There is a push to return the battle ship to modern combat but only with rail guns.
 
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