What The Heck Is A "Rail-Gun"?

[Shin-Tao]

Keep in mind, with respect to theoretical small arms, that most alloy projectiles will burn up quickly past 5,600 odd fps.

A possible railgun small arm projectile might be a jacketed ceramic bolt roughly 4x10mm and weighing 30 grns. The jacket provides the conductivity and burns away after leaving the muzzle at 5,800 fps.
Keep in mind also that recoil with a rail rifle would be differant. The force is delivered evenly along the length of the "track" instead of in one sharp chemical push.

 

[Badger Arms]

George. The figure I heard for the Sabot Tank round is roughly 5000 FPS which is more-or-less two Kilometers per second. There is literally no military vehicle capable of withstanding the 120mm bun on the modern M-1 Tanks.

Shin: It's the virtue of the rail-gun that it will accelerate at a constant rate rather than the mountain at the beginning of a firearm projectiles curve that tapers off quickly. Higher velocity requires only longer rails or more power and no pressure limits.

To launch a satelite, you'd need an escape velocity that would still not subject the payload to more than, say 10G. It's correct to say that an orbital transfer booster would be needed but this could be some of the highly efficient plasma or ion types that have already been fielded... Wait, wrong forum. Sorry. Uh. Guns are cool. I like them.

 

[Ruben Nasser]

Just how capable is an old time "rail (or naval) gun"?

As mentioned before, some time ago a rail gun was a very large cannon mounted on railway tracks. The germans in WWII even had a monster that required special rails!!
Go to: http://home.sprynet.com/~frfrog/miscellg.htm#Iowa
to see how efective are 16" naval guns.
And in the same site, below, check the "silver bullet" fired by the Abrams tank.
While you are in FrFrog place, check the excellent balistics info. Worth it!!

 

[Dave Finfrock]

The WWII weapon you're referring to was "Gustav." It was a monster and required two full gauge railways in parallel to move the thing. It had a crew of 1500. Bore diameter was 24". It threw a 9000lbs projectile a distance of 36000yds (I think...the distance figure might be wrong). It's most famous (and about only) use in WWII was reducing the fortifications around Sevastopol. It did this in a convincing manner, though General Manstein was rather critical of the whole concept.

 

[twoblink]

I don't know how old this thread is/was, but I thought I'd mention the fact that I have seen drawings of naval stuff, rail guns on destroyers. They (in theory) have a big enough charge (capacitors) to launch metal at very impressive rates.

For example, a 2"x2"x2" metal block on a rail, can be launched at such a speed as to go 0- MACH 9 in less than 1 second, which means it will liquify before it gets out of the rails. That makes the rails a 1 time use deal, but I think the theory is you can drop a object between the rails, not touching the rails, and thus avoid the rail melt.

Also, that means that the patriot missiles are cr*p (but we all knew that, they don't hit anything at all) but a railgun based anti-missile would be a point and shoot. Stick a laser targeting system on it, and where the laser points is where it goes... Almost no lead time required at MACH 9.

That also means though, that if a Destroyer was parked 200 miles off the coast of Nice, France, it can shoot and go through 20 tanks parked in _PARIS_ as the math works out to be only something like a 3 inch drop every 200 miles at that rate.

You can buy a small unit that shoots washers...
http://www.amazing1.com/

The thing is seriously dangerous though, not a toy! It shoots upwards of 600fps, and at the weight of a washer, that is 9mm territory as far as impact. So if you buy one, don't screw around.

Rail guns are based on the fact that energy cross products of 2 vectors yield a vector that is perpendicular to both the original vectors... (right hand thumb rule) but we won't get into that.

My question is, now you all got me thinking about it, should my next gun be a .243Win, or a .22 Rail?

Albert

 

[ChrisW]

I read an article on one of these sites (cannot remember which one) that out west (USA) someone at a nuclear plant now has a rail gun that shoots a projectile 45,000mph (it was figured that if it was a 168gr bullet, the energy would be in the 1.5 million ft lbs at the muzzel) and they are calling it the fastest gun in the west.

When the price comes down, in 30 years or so, sign me up!

ChrisW

Just found the article (or one of them)

Meet the fastest gun in the West, and likely the world, with the potential
to shoot a pellet from Ottawa to Toronto in less than 18 seconds.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, say they have developed a pulse-power accelerator -- a
machine that creates a powerful magnetic field -- that fires dime-sized aluminum
pellets faster than anything except a nuclear explosion. In the testing ground,
the pellets move 20 kilometres per second. A rifle bullet is typically propelled
at one kilometre per second.

The pulse-power, or Z accelerator, could fire a pellet from New York to
Boston in half a minute, researchers say.

The technology, says lead scientist Marcus Knudson, could be used some day as
a weapon, excellent for piercing heavy armour. "It would be hard to stop that
momentum without damaging whatever it is that you're hitting," he said. It is
also being considered as an alternative for launching spacecraft.

Inside the Z accelerator, 33 metres in diameter and six metres deep, is a
sphere with 20-million amps of electricity produced around the outside, and four
aluminum pellets, each facing outwards in a different direction. Within about
200 nanoseconds of the electric charge being produced, the pellets shot
off the power of the magnetic pulse.

Currently, researchers shoot the pellets only three millimetres. Mr. Knudson
says to shoot them farther could damage the machine. One problem to overcome:
the Z accelerator's too big. But Mr. Knudson notes it was once thought
impossible to make a hand-held computer.

[Edited by ChrisW on 03-15-2001 at 03:10 PM]

 

[Trouble]

Greetings all:

For a discussion (within the confines of a science fiction story)of some of the military implications of rail guns which are small enough to be mounted on battleship-sized naval vessels, see "Surface Action" by David Drake.

I also read an article well over a decade ago discussing the potential of rail-guns mounted on armored vehicles, but haven't heard anything else in that vein since.

Certainly the possibilities are there, if we crack the energy storage density problem.

Regards,

Trouble

 

[twoblink]

I read an article by a guy who basically was the advocate of rail guns, and thought all the patriot missile money should go to rail gun. This basically shows how stupid Sadem Hussain is, because he should have built one of these, they he could have shot at Kuwait from seriously long range. Of course if any of the Iraqies or Iranians decide to build one, they can hit Israel from there, with no problem, and nothing can really stop it.

I've always joked about building a few cartercopters
http://www.cartercopter.com/
and mounting a belly rail gun. At 6 alternators in the rear, and 24 high capacity capacitors in the front, you can shoot 2 square inch projectiles at rapid fire... the Capacitors only take .3 seconds to charge... keep in mind that's a bullet twice the mass of a .50BMG, with about 750,000 ftlbs of energy...

I was going to move to New Zealand and start an Airforce for them. The Cartercopters BTW, have all the advantages of copters, without the disadvantages. They can (almost) hover, have a fixed wing so they won't crash, and can fly as low as 3 feet. So you can go under radar with no problem. Coupled with a belly rail gun, it now becomes one of the most formidable air forces in the world...

Albert