Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

Taira: Kinda funny that they were for a short time seriously considering a 50mm CIWS system. I think it might be tied to our tendency to forget SHORAD.

I had forgotten about rail guns. Hyper velocity projectiles would absolutely shred a plane or missile if it gets caught in the cloud.

Depending on the velocity and size of the shot and the range of the foe, you may only need fire once.

Indeed. It would likely end whatever it hit. Which of course is why there is serious consideration for Rail Guns as a missile defense weapon even against ballistic missiles.

It would also have versatility. Imagine an LAV-AD or Shilka or Tunguska or VADS kitted out with a smallbore rail cannon. It would require very few shots to defend local airspace but because of the nature of hypervelocity ammunition it could also defend itself against a reasonably armored foe without resorting to carrying 5 different types of ammo.

Railguns tend to suffer from pretty significant recoil since their muzzle velocity tends to be so high. Whatever it's mounted on needs to be unusually wide or have an anchoring system to prevent it from tipping.

So don't mount a railgun on a hovercraft.

Rail guns recoil yes but not in the same way traditional fire arms do. Some papers suggest a lot of the recoil forces occur up and down and to the sides in a pattern along the rails with the rearward recoil being less then traditional weapons platforms. The other part is the projectiles used are not even quite as large and heavy as traditional artillery platforms.

I saw a rather simplified explanation to understand the differences of the forces in action.

Make a finger gun with one hand. Thumb straight up index finger extended and three fingers pointing back. That is the rough equivalent of what you expect in force direction from modern weapons.

For rail guns make the hand gun again only this time extend your middle finger at a right angle to the other fingers. Not only is the expected direction of recoil forces but also the pattern of lorenz fields used to fire the rail gun.

Its very simplified but it is the basic concept at play. There is recoil forces to the rear but not as much because some forces are heading in a different direction.

edited 30th Aug '14 9:59:55 PM by TuefelHundenIV

^ Then you have to consider, the type of railgun in question probably isn't firing very large rounds to begin with. A 40mm railgun would produce a lot less recoil in any direction than a 105mm M68 tank gun. (And we can fit those on fucking Strykers.)

It is producing the recoil forces but they are moving in different directions then traditional weapons. There is definitely some rearward recoil even the floor mounted test model has a recoil compensator clearly visible in action in the demo vid.

Its more a question of a scale of weapon like it is now. The big artillery rail gun is looking to be more like a 105mm platform but with lighter rounds and longer range performances.

Smaller guns scale down in similar fashion but work a bit differently then their traditional counterparts.

Automated 120mm Turret system Good for boats and can supposedly be mounted on APC's.

The Power Walk A energy harvesting device that charges batteries and devices as you move around.

LWS 25 25mm Air Burst Sensor fuse short barreled gun system. Kinda neat.

Another example

Your Aim Point targeting system

edited 30th Aug '14 10:25:39 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Laser Zeppelins.

I don't have a big enough newspaper to thwap you with.

AA guns that shoot rolled up newspapers! Filled with dynamite!

You could probably mount a mirror on a balloon to reflect a ground based laser at targets but I have no idea how to stabilize the balloon.

Orbital mirrors could reflect ground based lasers.

I wouldn't trust airborne (or orbital) platforms to reflect lasers or particle beams back onto the ground.

Nor I, in fact I can't think of anything that would reflect a particle beam.

Something that I think would be a major part of any future air defence system is increased synchronicity and connectivity, particularly the latter. They would be able to hand off information more easily, quickly, and share more of it. Effectively, whatever one part of the IADS knows, all of them would know. More systems would be able to communicate with each other - hell, depending on how things pan out, you might even have MANPADS with datalink capability!

I tried to take this into account with that fictional SAM I came up with earlier in the thread.

No love for guided munitions?

What do you think a SAM is?

I meant a projectile. Of course missiles are guided...

You mean like guided shells? Projectile is a pretty generic term that refers to anything fired from bullets to rockets and missiles and can even include bombs. As for guided shells. That is what the firing computers and advanced fusing is for. The rest is to keep the payload balance in favor of shell content. Missiles are a lot better at the guided weapon role compared to shells unless you are firing one at time with something like a laser seeker. If your firing a dozen to hundreds at once it starts to get a bit difficult to accurately every single projectile in a stream at the target at once. Plus you can't spoof an unguided projectile.

edited 3rd Sep '14 6:34:37 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Are you assuming that the targeting and tracking mechanism must be inside the firing weapon? You dont think miniturization wont result in self-guided munitions?

I'm curious how much of an improvement you'd get. I was under the impression that artillerymen have a far simpler set of math to deal with in delivering their fire than a pilot does (for one thing, your typical artillery piece is usually stationary at a known location, unlike a plane which is a constantly (fast) moving three dimensional reference point. Figure out the windage, the range, how much propellant you need, and have the spotter check your work to see how close you got it.

Of course, you need a spotter for this to work at all, while a pilot can at least try to find his own targets from above.

The problem with that is radar controlled counter fire. You want to keep moving around, my friend.

A shell fired by either a conventional gun or a railgun could have fins or some kind of a propellent to steer itself. It then receives guidance from the firing gun,, it could be too small for "track via missile".

Now, if you have a gun that was the size of the old World War One railway guns, you could put a small missile inside it. It would get high enough to reach escape velocity and then ignite it's own rocket. The seeker head would then talk back to the ground as the gun and the projectile work together.

The Sun Gun as seen in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory might work but it would take time and the mirrors would also be a target.

As for the warhead:

• Fragmentation andContinuous-rod warhead, they work well today and versus a Drop Ship, Space Fighter or unarmored craft they would be enough.

• Nuke 'em: I'm with Frank Herbert on this. Against a military base on a moon, a military space station or a capital ship they're fine. Drop them on an enemy city and you better have Space!Harmon Rabb's contact info on your Holocron.

edited 3rd Sep '14 7:38:44 PM by TairaMai

What if each shell had it's own heat seeker, or even a small radar?