imported_Lothar
Diamond Member
Lag targetting dude.
You haven't played MechWarrior before? :laugh:
http://www.mechwarrior3.org/trm/lag.htm
http://www.mechwarrior3.org/trm/lag_img.htm
http://www.mechwarrior3.org/trm/lag_speed.htm
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US Navy successfully tests railgun weapon
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Lag targetting dude.
You haven't played MechWarrior before? :laugh:
http://www.mechwarrior3.org/trm/lag.htm
http://www.mechwarrior3.org/trm/lag_img.htm
http://www.mechwarrior3.org/trm/lag_speed.htm
Lemon law
Lifer
Apparently none of you have heard of sailing a zig zag course---SOP in sub infested waters.
Our naval personnel may not all be geniuses--but they don't get to be captains by being dummies
either. As soon as they go into war footing and come within range of enemy rail gun batteries, you
can bet they will not sail the same course for longer than a minute or so.
Our naval personnel may not all be geniuses--but they don't get to be captains by being dummies
either. As soon as they go into war footing and come within range of enemy rail gun batteries, you
can bet they will not sail the same course for longer than a minute or so.
K1052
Elite Member
With the advent of the acoustic/wire guided torpedo and anti-ship cruise missile, evasive action is a LOT less effective. The zig zag course was to throw off the relatively primitive firing computers of first half+ of the century.
A railgun fired warhead equipped with a guidance-sensor package could most likely hit other ships at great range once they figure out how to protect the electronics. I don't even want to think about what they could do to something at minimal range.
Agent11
Diamond Member
We need to stop using depleted uranium.. With this weapon I doubt we would even need to.
Google depleted uranium, it is nasty stuff after impact.
If we would not want to use a material on US soil because of contamination we shouldn't use it elsewhere.
Not to mention the hazard to our operations personal.
Google depleted uranium, it is nasty stuff after impact.
If we would not want to use a material on US soil because of contamination we shouldn't use it elsewhere.
Not to mention the hazard to our operations personal.
LegendKiller
Lifer
There is no conclusive evidence that DU causes any of the problems that people say it does. GW Syndrome was not caused by DU, nor have any other widely recognized studies shown to prove any other linkages.
Lemon law
Lifer
Well---do the math---lets say the travel time is five minutes---your air craft carrier is going 15 MPH.
Its on a given course---so you aim at where it will be in five minutes---a minute after you fire it executes a 15 degree course change----its now will be 1366 feet from where you think it will be---not all that long when you consider your carrier may be around 1000 ft long---but really big---when you consider its beam is around 200 ft.---and when you consider the big arcing parabolic course--the final vector will be basically straight down.
So now you propose to add the electronics and guidance system to continuously track the target. And now its no longer cheap---even if you can invent the electronics to withstand the G forces---in short
your cheap rail gun round is now the same cost as a cruise missile.---and its fins will be totally ineffective in the thin air it will spend about 90% of its flight time in.
Now do the math for a 35 degree course change---and speed the carrier up or down. Zig Zags may be passe for subs but can be very effective against rail guns.---and the ships captain can do the math also---and will have radar and computers that detect those rounds going off when fired.---you can bet the ship will do everything it can not to be in the vicinity when that huge weight comes down.
Its on a given course---so you aim at where it will be in five minutes---a minute after you fire it executes a 15 degree course change----its now will be 1366 feet from where you think it will be---not all that long when you consider your carrier may be around 1000 ft long---but really big---when you consider its beam is around 200 ft.---and when you consider the big arcing parabolic course--the final vector will be basically straight down.
So now you propose to add the electronics and guidance system to continuously track the target. And now its no longer cheap---even if you can invent the electronics to withstand the G forces---in short
your cheap rail gun round is now the same cost as a cruise missile.---and its fins will be totally ineffective in the thin air it will spend about 90% of its flight time in.
Now do the math for a 35 degree course change---and speed the carrier up or down. Zig Zags may be passe for subs but can be very effective against rail guns.---and the ships captain can do the math also---and will have radar and computers that detect those rounds going off when fired.---you can bet the ship will do everything it can not to be in the vicinity when that huge weight comes down.
Either way it's excellent for stationary targets. I don't think you would want to use it for fast moving targets at long range. If anything I would think that this is preferrable to bombing or missiles for the former case regardless of ocst as damage is more concentrated in one area compared to an exploding projectile.
Arglebargle
Senior member
Gotta like railguns....It is mad science in action. I may not have a flying car yet, but railguns.....!
The Navy has to be pleased as all get out that they can get something that the other services can't field. Increases their force projection pretty seriously once fielded.
The Navy has to be pleased as all get out that they can get something that the other services can't field. Increases their force projection pretty seriously once fielded.
VisionxOrb
Member
They already have precision guided artillery fired projectiles that self guide and fix there course midflight (excalibur I belive) and If I recall theyre not that exspensive giving the fact they result in a 100% kill ratio. Just shield them to the EMP from the rail gun and your set.
Besides doesnt anyone else see the benifet to this program? evantually a cheap way of launching satillites and supplies into space.
I don't see how it's any worse than existing large caliber naval guns for anti-ship warfare. I agree that you aren't going to be hitting a ship from 100 miles away with one but at reasonable ranges it would be great against ships. It's trying to drop a projectile on top of a tank on land or on some guy's lap that you would probably want to stick to cruise missiles or guided munitions.
It depends what you mean by reasonable ranges. It should be a bit better than current options due to the greater speed of the shells reducing the time it takes to reach the target after being fired, but you still run into real limitations hitting targets too far out. By contrast, anti-ship missiles can be utilized and potentially hit enemy ships from 100 miles out or more potentially with some of the newer anti-ship missiles, which can course correct along the way to account for how the target ship has moved in the meantime. What it comes down to is you're still going to need anti-ship missiles or you will be at a disadvantage in ship to ship combat, so the primary use of the rail gun would be to bombard land targets.
What you're missing is that missiles and guided munitions are quite expensive. (The assumption is you're not talking about aircraft launched ones and not ship gun guided rounds because ones fired from conventional guns lack the same sort of range and would put a ship engaging in bombardment at greater risk by being closer to the coast, which exposes it more to enemy artillery and antiship missiles among other things. While antiship missiles may have greater range, a ship well away from the coast would make it much tougher for an opponent to pin down its position and come up with a firing solution for their missiles.) Aircraft with precision munitions have to worry about any SAM systems still in the area, can only deploy so many munitions, and can't loiter in the area indefinitely in case the amphibious invasion force needs sudden fire support. Specifically cruise missiles also are much larger in comparison to their explosive power since they need a rocket engine to power them to their target instead of simply being electromagnetically propelled there. You can be pretty confident of hitting a stationary target with enough shots, (and a rail gun shell could penetrate fortifications that a Tomahawk Cruise Missile could not) and most of the time the purpose of bombardment would be primarily an area effect in preperation for an amphibious invasion force landing. If you're rather enemy forces are in a fairly limited area, you can fire a bunch of rail gun shells into that area and you're going to hit some of your targets.
The thing is most of these rounds are GPS guided, so they self correct to hit a specific location, but they don't account for the target moving in the meantime, which is the primary problem here. Even if the round receives course updates from something like a drone watching the enemy ship, the round probably can't receive the drone's updates until its fairly close to the ship. The GPS guided round generally has to adjust less for things such as wind speed and other variables, while a ship could really be in a different location by the time a round arrives near the target. Furthermore a missile has allot more ability to adjust its course suddenly in comparison to a mere guided shell. One final issue is I believe the rail gun shells will still be going at a significantly higher speed than even current generation supersonic missiles as they approach their target. This means the shells have less time once they are aware of the new position of their target until they are either going to hit their target or go right past it and miss. (Even some currently existing supersonic antiship missiles can apparently end up missing primarily because they don't have enough time always to course correct in order to hit their target.) Basically antiship missiles are still more effective for longer range ship to ship warfare. (Rails guns do extend the limits of gunfire being effective though and possibly what you define as longer range.)
VisionxOrb
Member
The test I saw I think they fired the shell 35* off course and It corrected that to hit a target 2km away. With the range there talking about with a rail launcher Im sure It would have enough time to correct for an change in location on a *slow* ( IE navel vessel ). The only thing needed to add to the system would be able to receive realtime GPS target location updates via a land,sea or space based tracking system.
The primarily thing you're missing is that ships are really not that slow. Many ships can move at over 30 knots, (about 34.5 miles) and if we're talking about a large distance where it takes several minutes for the rail gun to hit its target, the ship can move quite substancially in the meantime. What you seem to be utterly missing is that GPS updates won't do much good at all. Since the target is moving, what the shell needs are updates specifically on where its designated target has now moved to. A huge issue here is something like a drone is going to have trouble producing enough power for a shell to easily pick up the signal, especially since you can't stick a giant antenna onto the shell. Even if a drone can create an increadibly powerful signal, that creates a really blatant target for the targeting ship to fire a SAM that homes onto the signal in question. The basic issue is the shell isn't likely to be able to receive target updates until its already fairly close to the target in question. Something to keep in mind about that demonstration as well is that the sort of shell in question in the demonstration you saw doesn't move as fast, which gives it effectively more time to course correct.
VisionxOrb
Member
next to the speed of the shells from the rail gun, 34mph is extremely slow. And im not missing the point about the GPS updates as I mentioned realtime gps TARGET LOCATION updates. The shells already pick up GPS signals, Its not that difficault to use on of the various TACSATs in orbit to send out a data signal with just cordnate updates for the shell to pickup in the same manor as it recieves the GPS signals. In order to use the tacsat system there would only be a 1-2 sec lag between tracking and the shell reciving the information. The shell would be doing its inflight correction for the entire flight so im sure it would have plenty of time to adjust to any movement a large boat could possibly make with in the short amount of time between firing and hitting the target, especially if you have say 100 miles inbetween the rail gun and the target.
BTW I belive the current generation of self guided shells is launched at around 1900mph which isnt exaclty slow. 15 years from a rail launched self guided system is very possible.
Ok, in that case you appear to be talking about effectively non-existent satellite technology. At least ordinarily, the US isn't going to have a satellite in perfect position to track the exact location of a ship. Communicating between the shell, a drone, and the satellite in question is a radically different proposition than you seem to think it is. It takes a powerful signal to reach a satellite. More significantly you seem to misunderstand how GPS works. GPS coordinate units calculate the current location of an object by sensing the different positional strengths of GPS satellites. These are very widely beamed signals that only need to be weakly detected to be able to determine the coordinates in question. Specific coordination info on where a particular target is would put a far higher demand on what sort of information needs to be beamed for the shells to obtain it, and such information is ordinarily aimed at specific locations with large antennas to receive the data. Spoofing and jamming this sort of signal would also be much easier than doing so simply against GPS technology.
By the way to put the speed issue in perspective, a rail gun shell would move closer to about 5327 miles per hour, which puts far more strain on course adjustment capabilities.
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