Railguns are nearly "war-ready": how does this change things?

Here's the thing about using HARP as a comparison: It's fucking HUGE. It's a 16" L/100 cannon firing a massively undercaliber (6.6" slug out of a 16" barrel) sabot round. I'm also fairly sure they ran through a few barrels over the course of about 200 test shots. I mean your using an ENOURMOUS gun against a (much much smaller) prototype railgun to argue that we can (presumably practically) match railguns with current ballistic technology, when the railgun is a far less tested technology. CURRENT guns can outperform CURRENT railguns, but they're also a much older and more thoroughly researched technology. It's kind of like arguing that gun research should have been abandoned because arbalests could outperform early guns.

edited 4th Apr '12 9:35:37 PM by Balmung

Thanks Balmung, that's exactly what I'm trying to say...

edited 4th Apr '12 9:37:08 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

I can almost guarantee you they did not go through a few barrels in 200 shots. Your underplaying how durable a naval gun is. Try a few thousand shots before they need real serious maintenance. Two the weapons are a lot more robust then a rail gun by far and also far more efficient. Lets take a look at how much energy it took the rail gun to even fire 3.2 kg projectile. It measures in the MEGA JOULES. It also needed a series of quite impressively large capacitor banks to be fired.

You two let me know when it becomes a lot more practical. The HARP can very easily be modified. I already pointed out it was firing a far larger projectile and achieved higher velocities using less energy. If you two can't wrap your heads around the simple fact that current tech is out performing this latest high tech toy I can't help you.

As for why not use them. It is called fucked up military procurement system. Politicians ultimately decide who gets what funding. Just look at the mess that is the F-22 and F-35 as well as a host of other weapon systems that turned out to be less then ideal.

For you Balmung since your not paying attention. 180kg projectile at nearly 3 times the velocity vs 3.2 kg projectile. One needed a shit load of power to even reach its velocity. Halve the weight of the HARP projectile. It will still weigh more, be easily far more efficient, be far more reliable, and still out perform the rail gun. Implementing it is easy. Like you pointed out tech we already know how to handle. Also the Gun Barrel length doesn't matter all that much in this case. Large and long barreled artillery is nothing new.

Or how about this. We stick with the reliable proven missiles that can be carried and fired from a larger variety of platforms and are yet another proven reliable tech.

Lets compare the tech again. A system of proven,durable, reliable weapons tech we could easily adapt to our current systems vs. a high tech inefficient toy that breaks it self when you fire it. Remind me which one is closer to being a military weapon. Oh yeah the one that is made with military weapons. When your done being stuck with "oooh ahhh sci-fi stuff cool" blinders on come back and talk to me about real expectations for weapons and weapon development. My expectations are efficiency and durability. The rail gun fails both miserably. Short of us inventing a new miraculous power source and uber incredible material science the rail gun will never be more then a prototype with pipe dreams of being a real reliable weapon. For comparison lets go look at military lasers oops that fell pretty flat too. Lots of similar issues. More hype then efficiency.

Onyhow:Your analogy falls flat and makes no sense because there was a shit load more tech that occurred between modern artillery pieces and black powder cannons.

Who watches the watchmen?

No, my analogy means that "why use new shit if the old shit works good?" Why do we even have guns if hurling rocks and pointy stick works? Why holographic storage when magnetic tape works? Why airplane when balloon works? You're having that attitude, and that's detrimental to general technological development...

And before you retort, all the old tech I mentioned still works...and the cannon/trebuchet is there because early cannons are not that reliable and we already have prefectly functional trebuchet, by your logic, we shouldn't change! Why do we need this new gun when we can just optimize the thing to throw larger rock, change its ammunition,etc? And trebuchet can easily hurl ammo over the wall, not son easily with cannon...sound familiar with Railgun and Tomahawk? And this is only example...I. An do it with other pieces of technology if you want...hmm, what about agriculture vs hunter-gathering? Or just early gun vs bows / crossbows?

It seems like you're not even trying to understand my argument...

edited 4th Apr '12 10:34:28 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

I didn't say that it wasn't out performing CURRENT railgun technology, but railguns have at most a few decades of theory and research compared to hundreds of years of research on guns.

Also, can you tell me in what universe 3600 m/s is 3 times faster than 2520 m/s?

Look at early guns. They required very frequent cleaning due to fouling, were highly inaccurate, and fired rather slowly. Compared to contemporary crossbows, which could fire faster, at least as accurately, and didn't need to be cleaned after being shot for a while, the gun doesn't look like a terribly promising weapon, does it? Based on that time, what if I told you to find a miraculous powder that burned cleaner, some way to make the gun more accurate, and a way to make it shoot faster? Surely all those would take miracles! Oh, wait, we developed all that, and it only took about four hundred years to bring it all together.

Early forms of a new weapon aren't necessarily going to stack up well to advanced forms of an older one. I never said that current railguns were ready for military use, more that you seem to be judging them as something that will never be useful.

I acknowledge that current railguns are basically high-tech sciency toys compared to current guns, but that doesn't automatically make them a dead end to research.

edited 4th Apr '12 10:50:32 PM by Balmung

I disargee with the thread title. Unless 'nearly' means 20 years at least.

"Urge to thump... rising." -Fighteer

I think there is a bit too much heat going on on this debate just now. In fact, I don't even think it is a debate anymore. I am too polite to say what I actually think it IS.

High velocity nuclear shit-storm?

@Tuefel: Basically, I think Balmung is trying to say that railguns right now aren't feasible due to inefficient power usage and durability issues, but they'll eventually replace regular guns when those problems are solved with better tech in the nearish-future.

You are all that's right with the world. Have an .

edited 5th Apr '12 1:17:37 PM by Ekuran

And like said we would need quite an impressive revolution in power and material sciences to even come close to achieving that. Railguns are another sci-fi pipe dream. IF the material and power sciences are not up to snuff there is no reason to keep dumping money into the program.

That money coudl be better spent on other programs we can use in 5 years not 20+ whatever time is needed for the rest of the sciences needed to make it feasible to reach a point of usefulness for the project. The more I look at the rail gun the worse the picture is. It is more and more pork project then feasible military platform.

Balmung: They are a dead end. Unlike guns which are a lot simpler and more effecient in function from their invetion the rail gun is trying to do the exact same thing with added complication. The improvements in the gun were slow because of the environment they were created in. You can not even reasonably compare the era when guns were invented to this. Once we hit the industrial era fire arms development took off like a bat out of hell. We went from Muzzle loaded flint locks to smokless powder self contained metallic catrdiges with conical bullets and the earliest jacketed bullets. We are to the point where we can guide any one projectile we fire from a bullet to common artillery rounds. We even do crazy things like strap Rocket Boosters onto the shells and push their range even further. We are chasing a pipe dream as usual. Would not be first time and it will not be the last. We are far better off improving our current weapon systems then feeding the pork barrel.

There has been a lot of research and actually combat fielded tech for extending the range and projectile speed of artillery pieces. we already actively use such technology with the military. The only reason they stopped further development is their funding got cut to feed more useless pork projects. Pretty common thing in the U.S. The rail gun is just another pork project. The tech to make it feasible does not exist yet and is not likely to magically crop up in 20 years. The project should never have even gone past the initial test stages once they realized how much more tech we needed. Once they realized they need tech to advance even more they should have halted the program until tech catches up IF it catches up or is even developed. I highly doubt 20 years to the first fieldable rail gun is realistic if at all.

Why not look into other related tech with the same funding. It is pretty clear rail guns are not going anywhere for quite a while. I will say this for you lot again. Unless we magically pull some serious power and material science tech out of our asses in the next 20 years the rail gun is a dead end period. Just like the military combat laser, the lightning gun, and countless other thankfully dead projects.

onyhow: We do still use those various pieces of technology today.

edited 5th Apr '12 5:38:47 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

And that's why you're not in charge of R&D.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'd advocate railgun research solely due to the side-benefits of that funding helping to develop the tech that goes along with it. The advancements in material science and superconductor research would be well worth the cost.

Very true.

We can't just sit on current tech forever, ya gotta keep moving ahead.

I'm baaaaaaack

That's it, I'll stop arguing with Tuefel...seriously...you still miss my point, and Balmung's for that matter...and I'm not going to elaborate anymore because I can understand your point perfectly but you don't try to understand mine...

I agree with Vehuder...it's good people like you aren't in charge of R&D...

edited 5th Apr '12 7:51:26 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

Not helping.

I'm baaaaaaack

^ Yeah, sorry, but right now I think it's pointless to argue further if the other side don't even try to understand your explanation...

edited 5th Apr '12 7:54:25 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

I mean calling him a idiot...

I'm baaaaaaack

Yeah I already cut that out...check the post again...I kind of blew up, sorry...

edited 5th Apr '12 8:12:47 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

I think we already have a weapon system that fits this description...

Anyways, we want to avoid the derail of "what's the right mindset with which to approach military R&D?", because then pacifists like me are gonna be getting all up in yo biznass.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Well just because it starts as military project doesn't mean it can't be adapted for civilian use...Railgun would have been a cheap launcher if we got base on the moon or something....

Give me cute or give me...something?

Technically it could be, but I think a coil gun would be better for something like that. It'd put a lot less stress on the ship and the gun would/could be modular. Plus they have very little wear, which would be useful in space.

I'm baaaaaaack

^ Quite true, but I hear that construction for power switching for coilgun is much more complex than building a railgun...

Also there's limit to how much you can accelerate coilgun projectile...

And I was talking about ground installation launcher type...kind of like one in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress...

edited 6th Apr '12 8:46:51 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

I know. Not many other ways you could build a coil gun or rail gun for launching stuff into space.

I'm baaaaaaack

I recall a limitation for coilguns being how saturated with magnetic fields the projectile could be.

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

^ Yeah, that sets the limit on how fast can coilgun projectile be accelerated...railgun projectile has no such limitation though...

Give me cute or give me...something?