This is the coolest thing ever. The US Navy EM Railgun. It can deliver a dense metal projectile, about 2 feet long and weighing about 28lbs, accurately to a target 100 miles away, at Mach 6. I'm not a math whiz but I know that as you double the velocity of an object, you increase the force it delivers by 4 times.
Rail guns are popular weapons in sci-fi literature because they operate equally well in space as in an atmosphere....if not better.
It's about time we deployed one for real. Hopefully ISIS will be the target we use it on first.
4 comments:
It's one reason the Navy has been upping the electrical generating capacity of new ships. When this thing is deployable, it will need lots of Joules. As will the directed energy weapons. One good thing about these kinetic energy weapons are totally safe munitions.
Yeah, the ship's magazine will only need to be a small room rather than the better part of a deck.
I want to see this thing fully operational and deployed against an enemy. They'd better get some video or I'll be disappointed.
A sci-fi staple weapon is "rods from gods" whereby long thin heavy arrows are accelerated to some percentage of light speed and targeted on some unfortunate planet. 1/2 MV square is a real bitch at those speeds. The railgun has a loong way to go to reach any percentage of C.
That's true, but even a tiny hole punched in the skin of a hostile ship or enemy planet-based habitat, from a projectile traveling at Mach 5 would be devastating.
Post a Comment