And Now We Have Rail Guns. For Real.

[PanzerWulff]

As far as projectiles go, they need to develop one that is biodegradable such as a frozen chicken or turkey.  Something that will fertilize the devastated area after it has been destroyed.  

So a Manure Mortar Offensive Organic Ordinance or M.M.O.O.O for short       (Sorry I just woke up )

[Mossie]

Just you wait,next thing you know it'll be sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads!!!!

Or Bees trained to sniff explosives.  I'm not kidding yer:

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseact...y/story_id/9475

[Son of Damian]

So do you think that by the time the Navy nails down what exactly they want out of the DDX that its armament will include rail guns???

IIRC they was an article in Popular Mechanics/Science a few months ago that mentioned the USAF was looking to put rail guns on aircraft...  

[cthulhu77]

^_^  

[Mossie]

A model of a tank fitted with a rail gun by UT-IAT, the designers of the weapon:



Hope that's useful Carlos!

[anthonyp]

So do you think that by the time the Navy nails down what exactly they want out of the DDX that its armament will include rail guns???

IIRC they was an article in Popular Mechanics/Science a few months ago that mentioned the USAF was looking to put rail guns on aircraft...

No, as the 155mm AGS is going to go on the ships when built.  Had this confirmed from the ASD guy sitting in the next cube at work, who's working on one of the DDG-1000 projects.

More likely, any rail gun will be refit to the ships at a later time.  

[Maverick]

they have a model of a vehicle with a rail-gun and it's an LAV, c'mon, i thought this jigger was supposed to be a BFG??

[grayman]

As far as projectiles go, they need to develop one that is biodegradable such as a frozen chicken or turkey.  Something that will fertilize the devastated area after it has been destroyed. 

So a Manure Mortar Offensive Organic Ordinance or M.M.O.O.O for short       (Sorry I just woke up )

Actually, this has happened. In Algeria ('50's?) some French troops came under harassing fire and responded by lobbing back mortar shells with the explosive replaced by, umm, lets say "latrine waste".

Needless to say the account I read went on to mention that the harassing fire soon stopped.

[Howard of Effingham]

Just you wait,next thing you know it'll be sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads!!!!

Or Bees trained to sniff explosives.  I'm not kidding yer:

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseact...y/story_id/9475

iirc this one was also mentioned on BBC radio 4 a few weeks back.

anyhow i can't believe that a USN officer would be so  :dum: as to speak like this without it being cleared first.

there is probably also a report on it on the news stand section of the USN website, but i don't have the time to look right now.

trevor

[Mossie]

they have a model of a vehicle with a rail-gun and it's an LAV, c'mon, i thought this jigger was supposed to be a BFG??

It's not so much the size of the gun as the power source needed to propell the round.  The model is probably only a concept, but it shows to good effect the space taken up by the capacitors, theres no room left for any troops in there.  Even if you wanted an assault rifle, at the moment you'd still need to cart around a power source the size of a small bus!  Until the technology moves on, any tank that carries one is going to have an enormous weight penalty.  Saying that, semi mobile artillery or even self propelled artillery might be possible if the capabilities of the weapon warrant it.

What about escalation?  What technologies would protect against this weapon?  The Metal Storm guns may provide some level of protection, anything else?  Something capable of disrupting the capacitors, or even overloading them?

[Maverick]

i guess given the flight path (ie Ballistic) and speed () lasers or perhaps a new generation Patriot might be feasible

[Mossie]

Speed, your looking in the high hypersonic range at around mach 8, possibly faster in the future.  Patriot would need beefing up somewhat for that & if your looking at shells launched at a high rate of fire your just not going to be able to defend against them with missiles.  Lasers would be a better idea, a ground or naval based version of the ABL.  Again, this is another system that is very large because of the power source & may reduce in size in the not too distant future.

[Howard of Effingham]

the picture gallery of the US Navy website has a few pictures of the rail gun tests that they are doing at dahlgren at the mo' a few pages in. from reading the attached story it seems that any fully operational rail gun [mounting on a DDX or
FFX type was talked of] is at least 10 years off. LOTS of problems to get the weapon usable. but even on test it looks very effective.

trevor

[wagnersm]

<snip>
edit----
I would assume that if the bird was wrapped in a conductive material such as aluminum foil it could be propelled at hypervelocity towards a distant target...

Or a new way to quick cook chicken for the crew's mess. <grin>

[BlackOps]

I love it when Sci-Fi meets reality!

OK, not being wise in the way that such things work, could such a weapon be incapacitated by a large EMP? Can they shield against something like that? I keep thinking with everything so dependant upon electronics how do we protect against EMP's?