What is Digg?133 Comments
- wyfflemunky, on 10/12/2007, -9/+50Misleading title.
Sensationalism FTL. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29The problem with maniacal dictators with weapons of mass destruction, is they actually use them.
- ZenKai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Gotta love the phrase "rain a whole lot of hell" linked.
Rail guns: When it absolutely, positively needs atomizing. - BigPapi, on 10/12/2007, -7/+28By then, we'll be finished with all the "I" countries and well on our way to invading the "M"'s.
- Tiabin, on 10/12/2007, -7/+26The title is a bit misleading. But I'll be damned if I didn't digg it just because rail guns are awesome. :)
- psylence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Bush may suck, but comparing him to Kim Jong is doing a huge disservice to the North Koreans suffering underneath him. Any bitching we do here is pathetic compared to their problems...
That said, no where is it written that you should let your enemies or even those who disagree with you have the same weapons you do. That is unless there's a war book written by John Q. Loseeverywar. - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20"could be done around the 2019 time frame."
A bit late to the party I am sure. - nappingcracker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16You kids play too much Quake. Rail guns shoot projectiles. This is surface ship based. On earth. With gravity. It may not be much of an arc over a short distance, but it is still ballistic.
- jesusphreak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16What they really need is a BFG.
- mhockey14221, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15tell me the last time GWB used a nuclear missle or biological warfare and i'll give you $10.
hes not even .005% of the cook in north korea - mc7winkie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I did a project for school one time on these railguns. They are really quite amazing but all that stuff about land based being better is total BS. The reason is because they use amazing amounts power and create huge amounts of heat. That is the reason that the Navy wants to put them on their Battleships. Because they are able to use nuclear reactors and cool the railgun with water from the ocean. If they were land based they would pretty much have to create independant power stations for each rail gun. Now thats just stupid.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17"[quote]"Meanwhile, let me know how a railgun is supposed to hit something when its line of sight is obscured..."
It mows down everything that is obscuring it's path.[/quote]
Like mountains, right? Ok, then...
Now I know the kind of people that are modding me down."
Yes, it mows down any pansy mountain. - elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I can also think of some social situations where this would be useful...
- rodan32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Yeah, the speeds their moving make explosiv warheads impractical. The tungsten shaft provides so much knetic energy that a warhead is moot.
- perseon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Kinda makes you wish we had inertial dampeners, right?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15"Meanwhile, let me know how a railgun is supposed to hit something when its line of sight is obscured..."
It mows down everything that is obscuring it's path. - Durrok, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13kewldude-
That's the point... with 4 boats you can rain death very quickly into any area in NK and they can't do anything about it. Makes it a bit easier to negotiate. :) - mtrip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9It's $9.6 million to develop, that's dirt cheap compared to the $ the military usually spends. And the projectiles have got to be cheaper than 'smart bombs' or whatever.
And about it not being 'fair' that we'll have this and N.Korea won't, well, in a war you want it to be as unfair as possible in your favor. If they had this we'd have to invent a super railgun, and if they had that we'd need a superduper railgun,etc. - seanmac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9At first I thought: whyt? who knows what the world will be like in 13 years? Amd then I thought: exactly.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12"I think the first comment is the best part of the article... The guy's got a point, military applications are just one field a rail gun could be useful in."
That guy's "Use railguns to get into space" idea is beyond absurd! The railgun in question accellerates a round from 0 to mach 7 in under a second. Even if it took a full second, that's a force of over 240 Gs! That sort of force would CRUSH anything more complex than a hunk of iron.
There's a reason we don't launch astronauts and satelites into space using a giant cannon. The necessary force would squash whatever was in it to a pulp. The accelleration has to be stretched out over a (relatively) long period for humans and sensitive electronics to survive.
This is physics 101 *****. Literally. There's actually a question on this exact topic in one of the most common intro to physics textbooks. - pype, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I can think of at least a dozen agricultural and visual arts applications where this technology would be GREAT!
- jjbird, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It's not like a missile couldn't hit anywhere in N. Korea, but still, railguns are neat...
- pype, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17Impressive!
- superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9OBKenobi: two words: Parabolic Arcs
- warmonger48, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I wonder if it will work like the rail gun on the Mammoth Mark II?
- elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12Are you kidding? This gun and the projectiles that it fires would be so incredibly expensive. Firing for simply ONE Minute would cost billions of dollars. 5000 projectiles per minute is quite a bit of explosives. Also, don't forget, firing just ONCE uses such an incredibly amount of electricity ( the boats would need very powerful nuclear generators ( read: expensive ) )
- pype, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I tried the Quake joke earlier to no avail - I pray you fare better than I.
- perseon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You are right, but then again you may not require explosives in the projectiles. At the velocities the article talks about the sheer kinetic energy will do more than enough damage.
- emb3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8And putting NK at risk is troubling how?
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You know all those NK soldiers occupying the border and a wide path behind it with their hands on thousands of mortars? I think the idea is to be able to take them all out in a jiffy before they knew what hit them. Since you are in a boat you can aim from the side of the line and hit more targets more easily.
- cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11This has nothing to do with MetalStorm. RTFA.
- DiamondIce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5That's because the current generation of rail guns are artillery. There aren't any practical non-artillery sized rail guns available.
- antoniojvr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The Naval EMLs won't be ready until the mid 2020s. They are very impressive.
- BurtDiggler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I wonder if Kim Jong-iL has that Schwarzenegger movie "Eraser" with essentially the same kind of gun in his expansive video collection?
- jdkludge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5More information (link within the article)
http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_RailGuns,,00.html - CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7It's about dam time they develop something cheaper than those 1 billion dollar missiles they love to use.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Metalstorms are an awesome weapon... I want to fire over 1000 rounds a minute.
They had a huge thing on them on FutureWeapons on the Military channel. - opless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4And declare war on a random country for a week every month?
ARE YOU MAD? - fatJohn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I think the first comment is the best part of the article... The guy's got a point, military applications are just one field a rail gun could be useful in.
- shogunu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_United_States
Military expenditures
Dollar figure $440 billion (FY2006 est.)
Percent of GDP 3.7% (FY2005 est.)
4% doesn't sound that much, imo.
Yes, i know that the US spends almost 50% of the world's military budget, but as a relative percentage, 4% really isn't all that much. - Wootery, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"$9.6 million to develop, that's dirt cheap", less, I read the US spends $1b/day on the military...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I like these better: http://www.metalstorm.com/
Personal Edition: http://www.metalstorm.com/index.php?src=photo&srctype=lister&album=Advanced%20Individual%20Combat%20Weapon%20%28AICW%29&submenu=Graphics&albumpos=0,1000000,3&category=Photos
Some videos: http://www.metalstorm.com/index.php?src=news&srctype=lister&category=Latest%20Video%20%26%20Live%20Firings
FTW. - cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3MetalStorm fires 1,000,000 rounds a minute. There are many guns that fire over 1000.
- thedonquixote, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Darn, the title got me all excited. Now I have to go back to the crappy railgun I made with the instructions on Make!
- YourTechSupport, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Of course you'd attach it to large, abulatory motion frame, for mobility.
- beni, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We could see battleships in the seas again in the not-so-distant future. Neat.
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wel, it CAN be precise if winds are low or at least predictable.
- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Coolest thing about Rail Guns, they defended Atlantis against the Darts. And they defend the F-303/304
- phatvolvo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4just wait until the GLA research Anthrax Gamma
- dcipjr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Excuse me sir, could you direct me to the naval base in Alameda? It's vhere they keep the nuclear wessels.
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