…over conventional ballistics? They’re practically a staple of any futuristic sci-fi work, whether they’re called rail guns, mass drivers, MAC’s, gauss rifles, etc.
Obviously, since the ammo would basically be a solid slug of metal (presumably a sabot or some other penetration-round shape), you wouldn’t have to worry about it being detonated while in storage, or anything like that.
I’m imagining any such thing would need a tremendous amount of electrical energy to work, would it be enough to produce visible phenoma when the round leaves the barrel? Or would it not have any “muzzle flare?”
How about sound? Would there be any significant noise besides the round breaking the sound barrier? How loud would the buzz of the electrical components get?
Obviously as a means of accelerating masses in space without using fuel it’d have all kinds of advantages, but I’m asking for the oft-depicted combat applications of such a weapon?
PS. While this is speculation, it’s based on enough known scientific phenomena that it seemed as though there ought to be objective answers, but if this is in the wrong forum, could someone alert a mod to move it?
[QUOTE=H3Knuckles]
…over conventional ballistics? They’re practically a staple of any futuristic sci-fi work, whether they’re called rail guns, mass drivers, MAC’s, gauss rifles, etc.
[quote]
Not many. Thing is, conventional ballistics are very robust systems with few requirements.
This is true, but has the countering factor of having more vulnerable systems. You’d need to have complicated electronics controls and magnetic accelerators all along it. The slightest problem would render that gun useless.
No, it would not leave visible phenomenon.
Not enough data. It’s be pretty loud when not in space, I’d bet. The power generators and the shot leaving the barrel would make a hefty bang.
Actully, not so much. Thing is, unless your target is very close (relatively speaking), your more likely to want a smart missile. At long ranges, well, they can move a tiny bit and you miss, unless your volume of fire or capacity to track and predict is ungodly.
thanks for the response smiling bandit. As you probably picked up from my OP, I was skeptical of how often it’s taken for granted that they’d be as effective as they’re often portrayed. That is, barring some Halo type situation where they’re essentially using orbital platforms to hurl arrested asteroids at enemy ships, the unqiue scope of which alone makes not needing to manufacture ammo a key advantage (not to mention having super-intelligent sentient AI to calculate shots).
I just figured there’d be plenty of people on the SDMB who know a lot more about physics, ballistics, and/or the experimental rail guns I occasionally hear stories of (no idea if they’re true, but since they’re almost always along the lines of “…but they can’t actually make it work well enough to be practical,” I figure some of them might be true) to give some real-world perspective on this.
No propellent needed (assuming you have a limitless supply of energy, it’s that much less weight you need to carry).
Gun structure can be made lighter than an explosion-based system.
High velocities.
Rapid fire.
No barrel wear.
Along the same lines, I saw a video recently of a new anti-tank missile. I has no explosive, it just uses it’s enormous kinetic energy to destroy the tank. The missile travels at something greater than Mach 4.
true, but there’s no such thing as infinite power. if you had that, why would you be bothering around with a cannon? Even if you just had really gargantuan amounts of power, a laser is much faster.
Not really. Remember that in space or ion earth it has to be able to take the shocks of ordinary life and protect the delicate components without breaking. That’s no simple task. Especially in space. And on earth. Which just about covers things.
This one is not really shown, either. Yes, you can theretically reach really huge upper limits - with gobs of energy and an extremely long barrel. Neither of which works all that hot.
Likewise, more problems. You ahve to time the magnetic impulses to fire without pulling back on the bullets already leaving the barrel. And you’re never going to get the kind of rapid-fire you can get with conventional munitions.
Bwah ha ha! Look, it’s true you don’t get the same kind of thermal stress. But it’s not liek that’s a constant problem, and at the same time, you’re going to be creating sonic booms in any kind of atmosphere. Out of atmosphere, it’s an easier task, but you’ll still be getting impacts and debris (you’re planning to take this into war), which is going to be nasty problem since you’ve got electronics and wires all down the sucker.
A few years ago I saw pictures of a gun somebody made that shot steel washer shaped rings the size of donuts. He sent them through some materials that your normal gun would have never pierced. I would have liked to see it fired.
I don’t think a magnetic accelerated mass would have to make a loud noise. You should be able to design something that was more quiet than a regular gun. Air guns are very quiet, why should one of these not be?
They had the same gun on Future Weapons the other day. The operator said it wasn’t very loud, I’m not sure if the sonic boom happens in the barrel and is muffled or why it wouldn’t be loud. He said that a smaller model was like popping a bottle of champagne.
I’m pretty sure that the rail guns in the science fiction I’ve read, the authors have claimed them to have no or little recoil. That would be a pretty major benefit.
The sonic boom doesn’t happen in one place. The projectile would be generating one all along its path as long as it was supersonic.
Sorry, no. It wouldn’t matter how you’re propelling the mass, the recoil would still be the same…dang, where’s that formula…anyway, for every action, there’s an equal & opposite reaction.
Doesn’t matter if you’re throwing it, firing it from a spear gun, firing it from a conventional rifle, or using compressed air. Recoil is still gonna be there, undimished.
Wouldn’t that be impossible? I mean, the old “for action there is an equal yet opposite reaction” thing? It would seem that if you project a mass away, you would have to have recoil. I would think that if nothing else, than at least the air pushed past the round as it travels down the barrel pressing the barrel itself backwards.
Lasers dissipate, especially in atmosphere ( and clouds, and reflective chaff, etc ). With a solid projectile you don’t have to worry about that. And as I understand it, guns are generally more energy efficient than lasers; with “really gargantuan amounts of power”, you could do more damage farther with a projectile than a laser with the same energy input. And at long range in space, gun or laser you’ll miss if the target can move at all, so the speed doesn’t matter much.
And it’s much easier to mount rockets on a solid object to change a projectile’s trajectory, than it is to do the same for a laser beam.
Actually there is extreme barrel wear. These things are being developed by DARPA in the US as well as a few other countries I believe and one of the main problems right now is essentially having to replace the whole barrel (with all its magnets and such) after just one shot. They are working on that.
These things are actually being proposed for a new Destroyer (DD (X)). As a possibility anyway. A naval ship would be able to have sufficient space and power generation capacity to mount one (the capacitor for these things is rather large so it limits what can actually carry one around).
As for why…well…if working the “bullets” are MUCH cheaper than a missile would be and actually deliver as much destructive force as a missile. You can likewise carry a lot more ammo and fire them much, much faster than even a conventional gas powered weapon (no cartridge to expel). Velocities are so high they feel they can be used effectively as an anti-missile weapon and their high velocity could give it ranges of up to 300 miles.
So plenty of good reasons to have one. Another spin on kinetic strike weapons are the Rods from God Star Wars idea. No need for a rail gun. Just take 20 foot long tungsten rods and drop them from space. They would be going very fast when they hit and deliver bunker buster quality energy with no explosives. Just gives you an idea here of how dangerous a fast moving projectile can really be.
