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Navy Tests High-Powered Electromagnetic Railgun

foxnews.com — Futuristic weapon can fire solid projectiles at speeds up to Mach 5.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 1, 2008

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  • ZeroFeetAbove, on 02/01/2008, -1/+41We'll have railguns before we have Duke Nukem Forever...
  • RGWX, on 02/01/2008, -0/+25Daddy likes.
  • MacEnvy, on 02/01/2008, -1/+25Under my 2nd Amendment rights as a citizen, I hereby demand the ability to purchase one of these at Wal*Mart without showing ID.

    My neighbor's dog is in for such a surprise!
  • ratherbeinvegas, on 02/01/2008, -1/+24Is the BFG next?
  • nihilite, on 02/01/2008, -0/+22yeah, but you know the US navy is just going to get ***** frags by finding a spot and sniping all the time.
  • NoCt1, on 02/01/2008, -2/+20thinking the squirrel problem in my attic would be a good use for this.. fun times.
  • gummih, on 02/01/2008, -0/+16*****, if you can shoot a projectile 200nautical miles from a ship then a bigger land based assembly should be able to shoot projectiles into sub-orbit, enabling to target any place in the world. Similar to ICBMs except you wont be spending a billion dollars per shot, just the price of a metal slug. (And the electricity bill will be a bitch) At mach 5 you reach the far side of the Earth within 4 hours. In 4 hours a single railgun ought to be able to fire thousands of projectiles. This gives HEavy artillery an all new meaning, all harbors are in range and even though your delay means that you can't hit a moving target like an aircraft carrier, the insane firepower of a railgun means that you can carpet a reasonably large area which the carrier is most likely to be in after x-minutes, thus forcing such targets to be under constant evasive action in time of conflict.
  • Chromatik, on 02/01/2008, -0/+15/Quake 3 announcer voice:

    IMPRESSIVE!!!

    Now if the could only get it down to the size of a rifle we'd have the ultimate sniper
  • inactive, on 02/01/2008, -0/+14We will have ***** Warp Drive before we have Duke Nukem Forever.
  • ours, on 02/01/2008, -1/+14That thing packs a whole lot of woopass! Look at that huge flame trail behind the slug... and that's without any chemical propellant.
  • fzammetti, on 02/01/2008, -0/+12Modern ship armaments do typically need electricity for things like loading mechanisms. In the old days it was literally a couple of guys flinging rounds down a convey belt and manually loading them. On modern ships, i.e., those built over maybe the last 10-20 years, it's more like one guy pressing the right button, watching the round come down the belt, pressing another to get it into the chamber, and making sure the whole process goes smoothly. It's not *quite* that simple, but I have a relative that's a life-long Navy guy and he described it to me and it really is pretty close to that. So, most modern ships, if they were to suffer a complete loss of power, would be seriously in trouble. Now, there *are*, as I understand it, some degree of manual ability to fire, so they aren't totally defenseless, but not in good shape to be sure. More importantly though, the engineering that goes into these ships is amazing: the possibility of losing power completely is about as close to zero as makes no odds, to quote Douglas Adams. I dare say that any ship armed with rail guns will be using nuclear power, and the engineering in those things is even *more* robust. So losing power probably isn't any real concern, it's probably the case that if you lose power then the ship was probably going down anyway.

    The big things that makes rail guns attractive is safety, supplies and kinetic kill potential. As the article points out, not having to store explosive rounds onboard is a huge advantage. For a long time it's been true that to sink a ship you kinda have to get lucky and hit a storage magazine, which are naturally protected *very* well. Short of that, it's pretty damned tough to sink a modern warship. More improtantly though, there's quite a few more accidents that happen onboard ships than you'd like to think there are. Most aren't all that catastrophic, but there's certainly been a couple of biggies over the years. Getting rid of that danger alone is worth the money it costs to develop these things. Also, although I don't know this to be true, I'd be willing to bet that the overall weight of the ship can be brought down fairly significantly by not having to carry ammunition (I'm guessing a metal rail gun slug weighs less than a traditional chemical projectile, but I might be wrong there).

    Also important is the issue of supplies. Think of it this way: if you have nuclear power, you've pretty much got an unlimited supply of energy for all intents and purposes. Instead of carrying maybe 300 conventional shells, which will definitely take up more space than a rail gun slug, you can carry maybe 2-4 times as many slugs. You can hang longer in a fight, plain and simple.

    Lastly, rail guns offer higher kinetic kill potential, meaning the kinetic energy at the point of impact is greater. Modern warships are designed to be able to take a hell of a beating. They are designed to that modern conventional weapons will have a hard time penetrating the hull. And even if that happens, they are designed with enough resiliency so that a hull breach isn't automatically a kill. With rail guns though, they are traveling *so* much faster than any conventional weapon that the force of impact is vastly superior. They can, in theory, simply tear through a ship's hull, defeating virtually any kind of redundant design that might be employed to protect against flooding. A hole in one side of a ship you can deal with if it's designed properly, a hole blown *clear through* a ship's hull from side to side isn't nearly as easy, maybe even impossible. And besides, if rail guns can deal with Wraith darts and even hive ships, they've got to be good! :)
  • g0blin, on 02/01/2008, -0/+11Head Shot
  • mike2312, on 02/01/2008, -1/+12The REAL video FTA:
    http://www.onr.navy.mil/newimage/railgunSM.wmv
  • KarlH, on 02/01/2008, -0/+10"A joule is defined as the energy needed to produce one watt of electricity for one second."

    Minor nitpick: a watt is defined as one joule of energy per second. It's derived from the joule, not the other way around (and there is no need to bring in the concept of electricity). A joule is defined as the amount of energy expended by a force of one newton moving one meter along the direction of the force.
  • Number23, on 02/01/2008, -0/+9Nuclear pulse propulsion, the idea's been around for 60 years. The nuclear test ban treaty killed the project.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nucl ...
  • RicktheBrick, on 02/01/2008, -3/+12It would be far more important if the rail gun could shoot a projectile into orbit around the Earth. We could than put a factory into orbit and construct very useful things there. Huge solar cells to collect energy and transmit it back to Earth is just one example.
  • GiJoeBob, on 02/01/2008, -1/+9I hope when they actually put this on a ship they rig it up like the Wave Motion Gun from Star Blazers.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yama ...
  • inactive, on 02/01/2008, -1/+9They say 2020. I wouldn't be surprised if they were deployed sooner. Anyway, the general public probably wouldn't even know if they were or weren't deployed. Look how long the F117 was kept secret before it was revealed to the public.
  • ApokalypseNow, on 02/01/2008, -0/+8Hitting a deer with a projectile going mach 5 = pink mist.
    You can't eat a pink mist.
  • Number23, on 02/01/2008, -1/+8Sounds great, but the problem is there’s not much that would survive the acceleration, especially delicate electronics
  • Double0Doug, on 02/01/2008, -1/+8It’s not like this new technology is just sitting around being aged to perfection. They are testing it. We should be glad that they aren’t rushing new technology into the field to be tested by our service men and women.
  • Voxxov, on 02/01/2008, -1/+8wtf?
  • nachochease, on 02/01/2008, -2/+9When's the handheld version coming out? I've got a demon infestation RIGHT NOW!
  • Voxxov, on 02/01/2008, -2/+8RTFA
    "In the demonstration Thursday,"
    -Not old
    "The previous railgun power-use record was"
    -In fact news
    They're not reporting on the fact that there is a rail gun, they're reporting about the latest record breaking test.
  • diggB, on 02/01/2008, -1/+6Developed, perhaps. Deployed, not by a long shot!

    (Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all night!)
  • inactive, on 02/01/2008, -0/+5Futuristic weapon? isn't it a weapon already developed?
  • gubin09, on 02/01/2008, -1/+6foxnews has a patents and innovation center?
  • inactive, on 02/01/2008, -2/+7One step away from the BFG9000.
  • Dan11023, on 02/01/2008, -1/+5I Really hope this is in GTA IV,

    This reminds me of the Fusion Rifle In Ratchet: Deadlocked.
  • enicholas, on 02/01/2008, -1/+5Just what I was thinking. It's basically like saying "a mile is defined as the distance travelled when traveling at a speed of 1MPH for 1 hour."
  • ours, on 02/01/2008, -0/+4Today a warship is a sitting duck anyways without power. Those cruise missiles and gun turrets don't turn themselves, there are electric motors and fire tracking systems. Plus no radar, no proper shot.
    Actually, naval warships depend on power for quite some time. I remember reading about the sinking of the Yamato (WWII) and something that helped the US win that is that they had a lucky hit which shut down it's electrical power and the anti-air guns would no longer track anymore because they where on electric motors.
    Anyway, this gun is intended for the next generation of destroyers and those will be 100% electric powered (including the engines). The fuel will power electric generators and this will feed the engines, weapon systems, computer systems etc.
  • MacEnvy, on 02/01/2008, -1/+5Note: Don't click on piterpens link. It's a malware installer.
  • abacadabbra, on 02/01/2008, -0/+4i dont think the person who made the comment about sending stuff into orbit was talking about actual people but cargo that could be intercepted in orbit thus saving lots of money on transporting that material into space.
  • brainflakes, on 02/01/2008, -0/+4The big question is, do the rails need to be rebuilt after each firing or have they worked that bit out now?
  • shniken, on 02/01/2008, -3/+7Hhahahhaha
    [A joule is defined as the energy needed to produce one watt of electricity for one second.]
    Get some learning fox
  • EricAnderton, on 02/01/2008, -1/+5Huh? A Hind-D?
  • EelfinnTy, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3This test was at 10 megajoules and it's max is 32 megajoules!
  • grenden, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3http://youtube.com/watch?v=N-HKYp1bWYI youtube loads waaayyy faster for me, probably the same vid. Or this one http://youtube.com/watch?v=y54aLcC3G74
  • Ju1c3, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3tool.... trying to get spyware onto people computers
  • ultraJesus, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3A surveillance camera?
  • Number23, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3The Navy thinks it can get to 6 times a minute. The biggest hurdle is that the forces unleashed by each shot tends to destroy the barrel.
  • silveravnt, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3OwdenBowden/Pixelante,
    Pass that this way would ya?
  • wrillo, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3i imagine this would be placed on nuclear warcraft... that way they wouldn't need to worry about power consumption
  • EricAnderton, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3Then might I interest you in purchasing the band new and improved EM117 Rail-gun-o-matic?

    It's perfect for this job. It removes unwanted pests from attics, and unwanted attics from pests.
  • Rawler, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3blocked
    btw.. here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRUqx8EOa2U
  • sienar, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3you fail at reading comprehension.
    he said F designations over 100, and he's right.
  • ToadLeg, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2Here's one: http://video.google.com/url?docid=6335930423805021 ...

    There's smaller ones. You just need electromagnets and a metal slug. Why is everyone here acting like railguns are some kind of new technology? The news is that they're finally coming out with their big production warship model, which has been in development for some time.

    oh, I think there's some instructions here: http://www.anothercoilgunsite.com/nf-projects.htm
  • highorbit, on 02/01/2008, -1/+3I wonder how fast it could project Dick Cheney if he was fired from the White House lawn towards the Atlantic ocean?
  • physco827, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2Replace the 120mm with this railgun on an m1a2, and call ourselves GDI.
  • rspeed, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2I think you mean the Flash. Flash Gordon was a normal human, IIRC.
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