Update: They did it! Check the article and video here.
If you are near Dahlgren, Virginia tomorrow and you hear a big “WHOOOOOMP”, no need for concern. The Navy is just firing its electromagnetic railgun at a power level untested before:
U.S. Navy Set to Break Electromagnetic Railgun Record
The Office of Naval Research will test fire an electromagnetic railgun (EMRG) at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Va. on Jan. 31, 2008, between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST. The gun will be fired at over 10 megajoules of energy a power level never before achieved by an EMRG.
This weapon is pretty cool — we’ve talked about it before on Defense Tech here and here (among other articles) and with a great article here at Military.com. Using a pulsed power system utilizing electromagnetic energy — the same energy that powers many rollercoasters these days and will power the launching systems of future carriers (at some point) — it will be a powerful system, with a projected range of 250 nautical miles and a speed at launch of mach 7.5 and an impact speed of mach 5 with no explosives or powder or propellant used in the system. The Navy continues to increase its capability to “reach out and touch” someone from its domain in the littorals. Imagine what this thing would do to a pirate boat off HOA?
Ouch.
–Pinch Paisley
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
Imagine what it will do for a beach head the Marines are moving on. Or it could be used to clear a landing site prior to V-22s dropping in.
This is what the Navy needs to be spending it’s money on. And we can do it smartly, just like we did with the Ticonderoga class. Use an existing hull (DDG-51?) and build this thing into it.
I doubt the LCS will be big enough for the power plant necessary to generate the electricity a rail gun would need. The LCS is more of a frigate than anything else. You also need to consider the space requirements for the capacitors that store the energy.
You completement this technology with increasingly lethal Tomahawks and the carrier air wings…….. deadly.
DC2
Hmmm.
It’ll take a LONG time before this system can be used as a battlefield weapon. That’s a lot of kinks to overcome, none of them easy. I’m not even sure railguns are a viable weapon; as a science experiment, transportation sytem or space vehicle launcher they COULD be great, but railguns require a humongous amount of electrical energy. They never are 100% efficient, so the remaining energy has to go somewhere, it’s converted into heat energy which has to dissipated…
Imagine a M1A5 with an even bigger engine and a whopping great big radiator? I say again, hmmmm. Using sea water as a heat conductor is sort-of OK, but air is a different story.
Maybe a Gauss cannon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun) is a better idea.
Still, I believe in keeping things simple. In a policing action such as Iraq or Afghanistan (I won’t even call those wars) advanced weapons are all right, however in a long, protracted war (read WW1 or 2) you need simplicity and ease of manufacture. A lot of your units are going to get destroyed, so no use in making them hyper expensive.
Same story with the F-22, or the Tiger tank (PzKpfw IV) to give an example. These are breakthrough weapons, used for cutting a wedge in the enemy defenses, for landing the first blows. After that, send in the StuGs (or Strykers, F16s, whatever) to clean up the mess.
Also, like I said before: one of these days one of those American Land Warriors is going to be so busy watching all his little dials he doesn’t noticed the Old Man with his Huge Whacking Stick who’s standing behind him. Give me a Kalashnikov any day. (I’m not a Land Warrior, so an AK probably *is* a better choice for me)
Railguns are WAAAAAAAY cool, research into the field should be encouraged but don’t expect any Ereaser Style Schwarzenegger Guns any time soon.
may the force be with you
Pharsalus
Nice, super nice.
Lets test this in Iraq.
Airborne (mini version?).
Revive a BB class for tests.
USS Iowa renewed?
New Battle Cruiser class ( since WW1 era) but armored Battle Cruiser vs the HMS types sunk with the Bismarck in 1941.
Does this thing still inflict damage to itself while shooting?
Futureweapons had a piece on it, and they said after every shot it required fairly extensive repair b/c of its own internal forces.
Still pretty damn awesome either way!
Unless they’ve made fundamental changes in the way the device works, the railgun still causes a fair amount of damage to itself each time the weapon fires. Imagine running an arc welder down the length of a metal rail at several km/s and you’ll get an idea of what happens to it.
Not to mention the magnetic forces shoving everything apart.
Or the Straits of Hormuz near Iran.
2 words describe this gun: friggin sweet.
BTW, is the DDX class still planning on using these as their primary gun?
> over 10 megajoules of energy
10 MJ is about 5.5 lb of TNT equivalent. Certainly enough to be significant against a range of targets.
Pretty cool! When is it suppoesed to go operational?
It requires so much electrical power it’d need to be on a nuclear-powered platform such as a carrier.
Still, it will be fun to hear and watch the shot.
>This is the amount of energy required to accellerate the projectile, isn’t it?
Well, the story doesn’t quite say what the 10 MJ refers to. I assumed that it’s the kinetic energy of the projectile as it leaves the gun, but it might be the overall energy going into the shot and include energy lost in various ways.
In any event, the article says that the launch velocity is Mach 7.5 and the impact velocity Mach 5, so the ratio of initial to impact energy is (5/7.5)^2 or 0.44.
Wanna know how these things work? Go to http://www.powerlabs.org and check out Sams’ place. We’re building several at our lab for research in rocketry.
Bob Brashear
From the description this is intended as a long-range indirect fire artillery weapon. Much cheaper than cruise missiles or airstrikes. But its projectiles are going to have to include some kind of terminal guidance. GPS perhaps?
FAP FAP FAP FAP
Euhhh..
impact energy = kinetic energy
Kinetic Energy = 1/2 x mass x velocity squared
KE = 1/2 x 1kg x 1701,45 m/s^2
KE = 1.447.466 kg m/s (or Joule)
KE = 1,44 GIGAjoules of impact energy on a solid 1 kilogram metal slug.
Whoohah. Am I getting somewhere?
Once you dractically incrase the projectile’s weight, the energy requirements inrease exponentially. I’m not sure this is a cost-efficient way to deliver ordnance YET.
“We are the superconductors. Resistance is futile.”
Pharsalus
As an afterthought-
Yamato-style battleship with *several* nuclear reactors. Triple 10 inch railguns in each turret.
Pitch *that* against a carrier battlegroup ^_^
Sweet dreams
Pharsalus
I think they are trying to get this gun to fit in a destroyer or at the max a cruiser. Battleship size combatant ships that aren’t aircraft carriers are a thing of the past. They are just too expensive to operate. That is why the decommissioned the Iowa class over 10 years ago.
I don’t think the issue is the capability to generate the electricity, I think the issue is the ability to store the energy. You would need a lot of capacitors of enormous size to use this weapon. Then you are talking about recharge time to bring the capacitors back up to full juice.
They aren’t putting explosives in these projectiles because the kenetic energy of it doing mach 5 is more than enough to destory whatever it is shooting at. I don’t think accuracy is an issue either because of the speed of the projectile.
With a properly shaped projectile, this thing could be an excellent bunker buster (with the exception of the 250 mile range).
This is the future for the main gun on Navy ships.
DC2
IIRC, it’s only partly an issue of capacitor storage. You can also store energy in a flywheel array linked to a pulsed alternator — a.k.a., a “compulsator”. You could spin those up off gas turbine shafts before and after firing (maybe even during).
As for the electrical output, you only need to generate the energy spike while the projectile’s between the rails. It won’t be there for very long. IIRC, you can generate a lot of joules with a doable amount of watts, if the event only lasts a few milliseconds.
> KE = 1,44 GIGAjoules of impact energy on a solid 1 kilogram metal slug.
Math is OK for 1 kg round at Mach 5, but the prefix should be mega, not giga.
A useful point of reference is that, by convention, one kg of TNT yields 4.18 MJ of bang. So the break-even point when kinetic energy per kg equals the chemical energy of a kg of TNT is
(1/2)*(1)*v^2 = 4.18e6
v^2 = 8.36e6
v = 2891 m/s = 2.9 km/s = 9485 ft/s = Mach 8.5
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,160195,00.html
That article states… The Navy
> “Math is OK for 1 kg round at Mach 5, but the prefix should be mega, not giga.”
Oops. My bad. v = 2891 m/s vs. 1kg TNT seems good reasoming, hadn’t thought of that. Cool!
> “Chaboki calculates that firing the 64-megajoule weapon…”
WHAT? That’s way off our humble calculations! That’s an impact speed around 11300 m/s or a very heavy projectile…
“Nice, super nice.
Lets test this in Iraq.”
At what? Two guys with a battered pickup truck?
(I think that goes beyond ‘overkill’ :-) )
Railguns are something you can’t really get much use out of except in some future free fire engagement with a proper military or critical military target that the USN might be considering a need to shoot at in future (cough!Iran!cough!North Korea!cough!PRC!).
As a battleship, railguns are a superb armament (assuming you’ve the power for them) but armament power was never the reason battleships were retired. To use the awesome range and hitting power a naval-calibre railgun could offer against anything but a static emplacement, you need over-the-horizon targeting in real time. In wartime that means aircraft. Since you need a carrier force with you to maintain this, it was felt simpler and more logical to make that the striking power.
As a strategic artillery-piece it’s exceptional because you’re looking at a salvo of metal slugs rather than million-dollar munitions, and active defences can’t really react to something that’s fundamentally unguided and moving at mach 5. Terminal guidance would be nice but depends what it would do to the cost – and if they can survive being exposed to a massive magnetic field and then accellerated from rest to mach 7.5 in the length of the barrel.
As noted, simple co-ordinate-plotted naval artillery fire has historically been a lot more effective than air force types have liked to give it credit for, and the value of those 18″ guns against shore targets was one of the reasons the US battleships were kept on in mothballs so long after everyone else had finished with the concept
Joe,
I don’t understand your comments. Naval artillery has always been used for ship to ship battle and fire support for landing Marines. The rail gun would serve the same purpose, arrive on target faster, and be more accurate due to the lack of required corrections from wind.
You do not need manned aircraft to loiter over the battlespace when you use naval artillery fire. The Iowa class used UAVs launched from the back of the boat during Desert Storm. The Navy is currently developing the Fire Scout for the same purpose.
Naval artillery has been directed using fire control radars for the past 60 years. I’m not a Fire Controlman, but I don’t think it has been directed using coordinate plotting for quite some time. And the Iowas had 16″ main guns, not 18″.
DC2
> “Chaboki calculates that firing the 64-megajoule weapon…”
WHAT? That’s way off our humble calculations! That’s an impact speed around 11300 m/s or a very heavy projectile…
Posted by: Pharsalus at January 31, 2008 05:00 AM
I think that chaboki was calculating as to what the weapon is meant to be in 2027 or whenever it is in it’s “final” form. This one is most powerful yet but it is not as big as the navies goal. But that guy even thinks in it’s final very powerful form a ddg 1000 should have ample power to fire 16 in a minute as long as you aren’t trying to also power the propulsion at over 25 percent wich 0 percent is more likely when firing a very long range indirect fire support weapon
I guess now we know how the Americans are gonna bring down that spy satellite. Can’t let it ‘fall’ into enemy hands… lol
Who wants to bet it passes over Virginia before “breaking up harmless into the atmosphere?”
@SW:
You can still do arc fire; it’s just a shallower arc.
The “terminal velocity” of an aerodynamic projectile in controlled flight can be substantial.
As for being too powerful, a railgun can be dialed down to function as a mass driver. You can theoretically launch a variety payloads, at a variety of velocities.
As for plausibility, it’s an R&D program. IIRC, nobody’s talking about a fielded system in this decade, or next.
i think they should make a freaking huge one of these just as a one time use stand-off weapon mounted on a satellite platform (halo anyone?) so we can say ” attack us and we will vaporize your country”
Test it in Berkley.
Shape of projectile can play a large roll in terminal velocity. A bullet tumbling straight down might not get a lot of velocity but a bullet fired at just enough of an angle to maintain it’s spiral from the rifleing is going to be deadly. Plus even if something is only to fall at a certain speed doesnt mean it can’t be shot sideways at a super high velocity… two components of a parabola, the x, and y one is effect by gravity and wind resistance and the other just wind resistance
Strategypage has a couple of pics…
http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/2008131214349.aspx
http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/200813121488.aspx
On a side note. A cut-scene from the game “Tiberium” shows the main character using a rail-gun assault rifle… it’s not going to replace the M-4 anytime soon, but none-the-less the graphics are kick’n.
Cut-scene:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29781.html
In-game footage:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/30010.html
video up at Danger Room and YouTube:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/video-rail-guns.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_OjZyQ6LGE
Anything is worth a try. If we don’t do it then someone else will.
Dear Mil type idiots of limited brain energy if you were to take one millionth of the energy required to power the rail gun and connect it in parallel directly to the other idiots sitting in that pentaGONE maybe one of them might just might have an idea that would render your Rail Gun a Stale gun come to the Butt ignorant conclusion that if these Briliant WAR Toys Boys can figure out new and exiting ways to STEAL the general publics Tax Cash One would only guess there natural progression would be to some how control the CASH or track it from A to B so the idea of purchasing large ammounts of say WMD would be academic because once any ammount of cash was wired to an account bell’s would sound let’s get honest people it’s not like bank’s aren’t all wired up so the very second a truck load of capital moves from point to point anyone of the 2 million or so Law enforcement agencys Clown’s could be johnny on the spot. Didn’t any of you idiots play with models or was it all cowboys and indians for you ? Hey did you find them thar WMD yet ? Oh and by the by how is that DU you have running rampant thru your body coming along ? Now please make sure you all have a NICE HALF/LIFE ! GET IT just think long after your gone you’ll still be glowing in the dark.
Seems to me that everybody here is kiinda tied up in the “here and now”. This weapon could be the future weapons deployed on ships, thats why it is under development. As for the electro-magnetic pulse of the weapon, yes it does create one, yes it is controlled, and no it wont interupt any other shipboard equipment, as stated in the article the system is already in use around the world to launch roller coaster trains, sure a plane weighs a bit more but the science is the same. The rail gun will be a much safer alternative for people like me, n more explosives to handle and less risk of a accidental cook off on board the ship due to high heat. I think people need to open their minds to the future, it wasnt long ago that precision guided bombs and missles were considered impossible. Oh and a side note almost ALL large shipboard weapons are controlled by radar, sonar, or some other electronic fire control system, grid plotting and all that is “ancient” technology.
Fortunately, military tech programs have better track records than most social programs, govt. depts, and higher education systems, failures that continue to this day that really are a waste of taxpayer money. Military Technology has contributed more to society, and it is measurable. Unlike say, social sciences! Every once in awhile an example pops up in these discussions.
The government could get additional funding for programs like this and other infrastructure (planes, VA, and pay raises) necessities by shifting funding away from said programs and begin to reward success again.
Now, testing?
Since the pacific was used disproportionately after WWII, it would be fair to focus on islands in Gulf of Mexico?
GM1,
I agree with you completely. The only issue with the rail gun would be energy stored in capacitors. If those things went off, it would be just like a high explosive going off. Of course, these could be placed in away from the gun and in a more safe location.
DC2
Clean up on aisle Roguelement. Seems that he/she/it lost control of his bowels.
Clean up on aisle Roguelement. Seems that he/she/it lost control of his bowels.
The claim is that the delivered rail gun system can operate at 32 MJ. The Navy wants a system that works at 64 MJ. There must be some expectation that the system delivered will fire more than 30-100 times (see the IEEE papers for the published research), as otherwise it’d be pretty useless as other than a fancy anti-satellite battery.
In truth, it’s hard to see why the Navy’s sticking it’s neck out to demonstrate a system like this for public consumption before they know if they got what they paid for. Maybe it’s just a political gimmick to remind the Russians how expensive SDI programs are?
We have nukes, so who needs a gun? With guns we keep losing kids that are required to take the hill over and over again. Remove the hill.