Using electromagnetic energy, the gun can fire a shell weighing 10kg at up to 5,400mph over 100 miles with such force and accuracy it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates.
Two prototypes of the weapon have been developed for the US Navy one by British arms manufacturer BAE Systems and the second by a US firm.
Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, head of US Naval Research, said the futuristic electromagnetic railgun so called because it fires from two parallel rails had already undergone extensive testing on land.
It will be mounted on high-speed vessel the USNS Millinocket for sea trials in 2016.
Its now reality and its not science fiction, Admiral Klunder said.
Its firing. An electromagnetic railgun is a gun that uses just electricity no gun powder andcan shoot a projectile well over 100 miles at Mach 7. Energetic weapons, such as EM railguns, are the future of naval combat.
Electromagnetic launchers were one of the areas researched by Ronald Reagans Strategic Defence Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars after the science fiction film franchise.
Admiral Klunder added: It will help us in air defence, it will help us in cruise missile defence, it will help us in ballistic missile defencewere also talking about a gun thats going to shoot a projectile thats about one one-hundredth of the cost of an existing missile system today.
Itwill give our adversaries a huge moment of pause to go, Do I even want to go engage a naval ship?.
Warships can carry dozens of conventional missiles, which cost around 600,000 each, but could be loaded with hundreds of railgun projectiles, at only 15,000 each.
The weapon uses speed rather than explosives to destroy its target and comes equipped with the menacing Latin motto I, who am speed, eradicate.
Full Article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2601864/Star-Wars-gun-fire-shells-concrete-100-miles-away.html#ixzz2yagl9oLA
They should be trying to apply this technology to space flight if they want to put it to a good use. Think of how much NASA could reduce its expenses if they could harness this.
It can be done with the technology that we have now, mostly using off the shelf components. It simply takes money (a lot of money). The rail system has to be longer (on the order of 10-20 miles long), since a lower acceleration must be applied for a longer period of time. The version they're talking about would apply very high acceleration (possibly as much as 50-100 G's) over a relatively short distance. To achieve the same speed without killing anybody riding it, you can use no more than 5-7 G's of acceleration. Therefore, it must be applied over a much longer distance. Also, since the projectile would be much heavier, the power source must be much stronger (the entire output of a medium sized nuclear plant). Doing it, however, is not a matter of new scientific discoveries. It's simply a matter of engineering something large and strong enough to do the job. While this particular application is relatively recent, the concept behind it has been around for a hundred years. Essentially, it's the same concept that is used to run an electric motor.
Cool article Larry and thanks. Can't wait to see oe of them in action!
:~)
They can keep the size down for something like a projectile weapon. They can use an extremely high acceleration on a relatively small projectile to achieve high velocity within a short distance.
Launching something like a space craft into orbit, possibly with humans aboard, can't use that high an acceleration, though, so a lower acceleration has to be applied over a longer distance. No way you could do that at sea. For that, the rail system would have to be much longer than a ship could carry and be solidly anchored to bedrock.
First field tests should be very interesting to say the least.
Another advantage of this weapon is the ammo is a lot cheaper . Those large explosive filled shells are quite expensive ...
This is gonna be so cool. We have a high speed rail testing area at White Sands - 10 miles long. Four folks go out and inspect the rail two hours before test to make sure nothing is on them and that there are absolutely no defects or warps in the rails. They have eliminated a few wildlife that wandered a bit too close though.