Yeah, I am sure there is some 8th rate army that needs its mud hut bunkers blown away by some rail gun sporting ships that cost roughly 20,000x the value of the entire country being targeted
Though on the other hand, they are damn cool and I wish the UK had a few
SilverMK2 wrote:Yeah, I am sure there is some 8th rate army that needs its mud hut bunkers blown away by some rail gun sporting ships that cost roughly 20,000x the value of the entire country being targeted
Hey, the rail gun is cheaper than shooting a missile
SilverMK2 wrote:Yeah, I am sure there is some 8th rate army that needs its mud hut bunkers blown away by some rail gun sporting ships that cost roughly 20,000x the value of the entire country being targeted
Hey, the rail gun is cheaper than shooting a missile
I think a missile could do more damage.
The railgun just leaves a really nice hole in whatever it hits, missiles can explode and do more damage, not to mention be far more accurate.
Supposedly the RG is supposed to do damage comparable to a missile at a certain operation range and at cheaper cost which is why the Navy is so interested. I haven't followed any actual testing though so I have no idea how that pans out. I'm sure that we'd still keep missiles for especially long range targets or for when that super cool rail gun doesn't pack enough punch.
Pretty sure with how fast that projectile is going and what not anyone in the immediate area is going to have their guts liquified by the shockwave created by the impact...
Kinetic missiles are actually surprisingly destructive, assuming you can channel enough of the kinetic energy of the missile into destructive power anyway.
Another advantage of the rail gun system is it uses far smaller ammunition (currently at least), meaning you can store more shots in the same area as for a regular gun, and you can potentially fire it a lot faster as well.
SilverMK2 wrote:Kinetic missiles are actually surprisingly destructive, assuming you can channel enough of the kinetic energy of the missile into destructive power anyway.
that's not the principle for APFDS ammo? a DPU "bolt" using speed and heavy weight for kinetic impact?
"One of the big selling points of the Navy’s new destroyer is that it can rain a whole lot of hell — 20 rocket-propelled artillery shells, in less than a minute — on targets up to 63 nautical miles away. Fully armed, two DDG1000s should have the firepower of an entire, 640-man artillery battalion, the Navy promises"
That would be pretty damn impressive. Im glad to see they are doing so well, I saw a small part of that project on TV once a few years ago. Very cool stuff
The thing with railguns isn't the active damage it does, but more the consequential damage. A small hole doesn't seem like much at first, but when the projectile hits at the speed of a railgun shot, whatever it hits would probably have a nice projectile-shaped hole in it, and whatever was inside should it have been a ship of tank would likely have been draged through the exit hole with the projectile and would be a mess of guts.
Even if not used for direct damage, the effects on morale could be huge. A weapon that doesn't outright destroy the main target, but liquefies anything inside would be a huge morale killer. Sure, your tank might only have a hole in it, but whatever was inside probably no longer exists in its previous state.
Of course, direct damage could be applied if the shot was precise; something with the penetration power of a true railgun and the precision of... something really precise could target hidden fuel tanks or armoured generators etc. Even if it doesn't shoot out of the other end, as long as it possesses the power to cut through any armour and into the critical system itself, it doesn't matter.
SilverMK2 wrote:Yeah, I am sure there is some 8th rate army that needs its mud hut bunkers blown away by some rail gun sporting ships that cost roughly 20,000x the value of the entire country being targeted
Hey, the rail gun is cheaper than shooting a missile
I think a missile could do more damage.
The railgun just leaves a really nice hole in whatever it hits, missiles can explode and do more damage, not to mention be far more accurate.
Avatar 720 wrote:The thing with railguns isn't the active damage it does, but more the consequential damage. A small hole doesn't seem like much at first, but when the projectile hits at the speed of a railgun shot, whatever it hits would probably have a nice projectile-shaped hole in it, and whatever was inside should it have been a ship of tank would likely have been draged through the exit hole with the projectile and would be a mess of guts.
Even if not used for direct damage, the effects on morale could be huge. A weapon that doesn't outright destroy the main target, but liquefies anything inside would be a huge morale killer. Sure, your tank might only have a hole in it, but whatever was inside probably no longer exists in its previous state.
Of course, direct damage could be applied if the shot was precise; something with the penetration power of a true railgun and the precision of... something really precise could target hidden fuel tanks or armoured generators etc. Even if it doesn't shoot out of the other end, as long as it possesses the power to cut through any armour and into the critical system itself, it doesn't matter.
there seems to be some confusion of what a rail-gun does to its target, First off a cumputer assisted rail-gun would be just as accurate if not more so then a guided missile, secondly this thing ahs 33 megajoules of energy behind it and this is just a prototype. The navy predicts the finale product will hit somethin 200 miles away in under 6 min with 50 mega joules of energy. 1 megajoule is approximately equivaslent to a 1 ton car hitting something at 100 mph. A 50 megajoule impact is a 50 ton object hitting something at 100mph. It's not a small hole it's more of the target ceases to be there, steel would instantly vaporize. the target would cease to exist in any recognizable form.
Wouldn't it still depend on the size of the projectile? It's all well and good when it vaporises steel, but how large would the area of effect of a non-explosive solid projectile be?
SilverMK2 wrote:Yeah, I am sure there is some 8th rate army that needs its mud hut bunkers blown away by some rail gun sporting ships that cost roughly 20,000x the value of the entire country being targeted
Hey, the rail gun is cheaper than shooting a missile
I think a missile could do more damage.
The railgun just leaves a really nice hole in whatever it hits, missiles can explode and do more damage, not to mention be far more accurate.
For line of site purposes, the railgun is a more accurate weapon. Long distance, who knows, but the railgun does way more damage. Fun fact, the sabot launched by a railgun does explode, but the explosion isn't generated by explosives, its generated by the sudden release of built up energy. Watch this video, its the most recent test of the railgun (from earlier this month): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BfU-wMwL2U
Notice what happened to the target? It exploded... The interesting thing is that the size of the explosion is partially dependent on the size/mass of the target. In this case, the explosion was relatively small because the target didn't put up enough of a 'fight' against the sabot, and thus the sabot didn't burn off as much energy as it could have.
There is a reason why the air force was considering 'Tungsten rods from god' as an alternative to nuclear weapons. Dropping a simple tungsten rod from space would have the effect of a low yield nuclear weapon without the radiation impact (and supposedly the theoretical accuracy of the system was within only a handful of meters, not that it matters when the explosion is that large).
Not just that, but missiles cost money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions for the more advanced ones. The sabot only costs a couple hundred, if that.
"One of the big selling points of the Navy’s new destroyer is that it can rain a whole lot of hell — 20 rocket-propelled artillery shells, in less than a minute — on targets up to 63 nautical miles away. Fully armed, two DDG1000s should have the firepower of an entire, 640-man artillery battalion, the Navy promises"
The sad thing is that the DDG-1000 costs almost as much as an aircraft carrier (which can deliver more munitions a farther range), and the navy is only planning on building three of them total, so the chance of two of them being anywhere together at once is slim to none IMO.
Avatar 720 wrote:Wouldn't it still depend on the size of the projectile? It's all well and good when it vaporises steel, but how large would the area of effect of a non-explosive solid projectile be?
If its travelling fast enough it can be exponentially more powerful then an explosive. Think about some thing that weighs 50 tons, like a tank, now imagine it hits another tank at 100 mph
the target would cease to be, its gone to meet its maker, joined the choir invisible, it's an ex target.
The Bringer wrote:http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/01/video-rail-gun/
Real railgun... and just as crazy as the Tau one, although way larger.
Bleh on the video, but this little tidbit in the article is exciting!
One of the big selling points of the Navy’s new destroyer is that it can rain a whole lot of hell — 20 rocket-propelled artillery shells, in less than a minute — on targets up to 63 nautical miles away.
Well now you've got me wondering what you could do to stop one... perhaps some kind of reactive armour to vaporise the slug. Although you still might just end up with a railgun-slug-shaped cloud of plasma blowing a hole in your ship.
And how exactly do you do that? People have trouble enough stepping out of the way of a bullet, a railgun slug is travelling MANY MANY times faster than that.
I didn't make myself clear enough, I don't think there could be any counter-measures.
Its traveling at mach 8... I did the math..
It is traveling at a top speed of 2722 m/s
The radar frequencies vary from 10^7 to 1.11X10^7
You will know exactly where it is, but if it is targeting a ship, you most likely won't be able to turn in time. If it is a land target, you can't just move a bunker or a fort.
Counter measures for something at mach 8 would have to be incredibly accurate. You would have to calculate the trajectory of the shot and launch something to intercept it, and all in the very little time before it hit your craft. I would imagine it extremely unlikely that you would be successful. And even if you did make it once, you'll have many more shots following.
The Dreadnote wrote:What about reactive armour? In fact, would that even work on a ship? Any hit below the waterline would still let in water...maybe double hulls?
Reactive armour would still have an effect but it wouldnt be very effective given the size, shape, and speed of the slug.
I doubt they would put reactive armor on a ship. For one thing, it would slow the ships speed (the panels aren't very hydrodynamic, otherwise they would have to build the ship from scratch with the panels in place already). Another thing is that reactive armor (the effective explosive kinds anyway), have the nasty sideeffect of killing nearby people when they do their job, so running around on deck would be a bad thing (although I think SOP for the Navy these days is to have everyone inside the ship during combat anyway, but it gets hairy when people are abandoning ship and getting ripped to pieces...).
I don't get how it can hit a target at up to 200 miles. I mean, this is more or less a direct fire weapon, yeah? So it'll be firing at something close to a flat line over those 200 miles - how often are targets going to present themselves at 200 miles away, with direct LOS? Surely there will be buildings and stuff in the way?
The Dreadnote wrote:What about reactive armour? In fact, would that even work on a ship? Any hit below the waterline would still let in water...maybe double hulls?
What we consider "reactive armor" is useful against shaped charges (i.e. the RPG-9). A solid slug of metal will go right through reactive armor. A weapon like this is very fearsome, with almost guaranteed destruction of the target and near instantaneous reaction. It wont take nearly as long as a cruise missile to reach it's target.
There isn't a countermeasure to this type of projectile. All of it's destructive capability comes from it's inertia, not explosive yield. Unless they make concrete that isn't prone to cracking.
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sebster wrote:I don't get how it can hit a target at up to 200 miles. I mean, this is more or less a direct fire weapon, yeah? So it'll be firing at something close to a flat line over those 200 miles - how often are targets going to present themselves at 200 miles away, with direct LOS? Surely there will be buildings and stuff in the way?
That would be phyiscally impossible to flat shoot something that far. I am sure they use it at an angle in their theoretical models.
Stormrider wrote:That would be phyiscally impossible to flat shoot something that far. I am sure they use it at an angle in their theoretical models.
It wouldn't be completely flat, but it'd be a lot flatter than anything else that gets used, yeah? To the point where it'd be quite useless against any target in a built up area...
Stormrider wrote:That would be phyiscally impossible to flat shoot something that far. I am sure they use it at an angle in their theoretical models.
It wouldn't be completely flat, but it'd be a lot flatter than anything else that gets used, yeah? To the point where it'd be quite useless against any target in a built up area...
what goes up comes down
if you fire at a high enough angle it can come down almost vertical
Reactive armour will do squat when faced with a projective hitting with such force.
There are things which can help, there is the goalkeeper sytems on ships which is the last ditch defence where all you need to do is hit it and deflect the course so it misses.
These things will not be fired flat. Even small arms are sighted so that the trajectory of the bullets means it will hit where the sight is aimed at. Unless you are firing something with wings all projectiles, if fired flat, will hit the ground at the same time as dropping the same round at the same height as the horizontal motion is independant of the vertical motion. You have to sight something for the round to travel in an arc on order to hit a target.
Stormrider wrote:That would be phyiscally impossible to flat shoot something that far. I am sure they use it at an angle in their theoretical models.
It wouldn't be completely flat, but it'd be a lot flatter than anything else that gets used, yeah? To the point where it'd be quite useless against any target in a built up area...
what goes up comes down
if you fire at a high enough angle it can come down almost vertical
If you're firing it vertically you might as well drop bricks out of a helicopter. It'll be at terminal velocity anyway.
To get line-of-sight to a land-based target 200 miles away, you would have to be about 27000 feet up in the air, so I'm fairly certain they're not going to be firing it at things they can see... (Distance to horizon calculator: http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm)
Did the math again, it would be fired at a 40 degree angle, roughly, in order to hit targets near maximum range... though there are some other factors in there I didn't account for.
So, chances are nothing will be in the way, it would fly clear over mountains and anything remotely in the way.
sebster wrote:I don't get how it can hit a target at up to 200 miles. I mean, this is more or less a direct fire weapon, yeah? So it'll be firing at something close to a flat line over those 200 miles - how often are targets going to present themselves at 200 miles away, with direct LOS? Surely there will be buildings and stuff in the way?
Nope, it can be fired at an angle much like an artillery piece. The physics work out in such a way that little energy is lost in the process.
To get line-of-sight to a land-based target 200 miles away, you would have to be about 27000 feet up in the air, so I'm fairly certain they're not going to be firing it at things they can see...
Who says they need line of sight? In the real world, we have what are known as "Forward Observers," "Joint Terminal Attack Controllers," etc. With the weapons ability to fire at an inclined trajectory, you only need someone up front to give coordinates for the fire control system to calculate firing angle, etc.
chaos0xomega wrote:
Nope, it can be fired at an angle much like an artillery piece. The physics work out in such a way that little energy is lost in the process.
Well, as with any ballistic projectile, energy is lost. It's simply that energy is then regained through free fall.
If energy were not lost we would be talking about shooting down satellites.
That's ultimately going to be the issue with using this as an over the horizon weapons; solid slugs require direct hits, and that isn't easy to achieve given a ballistic trajectory.
One of the points of using a railgun is that you don't have to use explosives. You could get the same damage as a missile from a little bit of metal, which is much easier and safer to store.
Some of you are really underestimating just how much kinetic energy is stored in the fired round. Even if it is a solid slug, on impact, it will create a huge explosion.
This slug is leaving the gun with over 33 megajoules of energy and it's expected to get up to 64 MJ when it's fully operational! When that slug hits a solid object, there is going to be quite a large explosion and that object won't be there any longer.
There's no need to make explosive slugs, and that's the big advantage to the Navy. Not having to have a giant stockpile of explosives sitting inside your ship is a really nice change.
This is all very Star Trek and kinda pointless considering the whole thing is still experiemental.
I vote we abandon such comic book weapons and invest in real weapons. Baseball bats.
I'd rather take a bullet than take a beating from someone with a bat!
Elmodiddly wrote:This is all very Star Trek and kinda pointless considering the whole thing is still experiemental.
I vote we abandon such comic book weapons and invest in real weapons. Baseball bats.
I'd rather take a bullet than take a beating from someone with a bat!
I agree, I too would rather take a railgun slug to the head (or any body part for that matter, doesn't really matter) than get beaten to death by a baseball bat-wielding looney! Still, I say we modify the railgun to fire aluminium (yes, aluminium, that's how the rest of the world spells it! ) baseball bats! Imagine the horror!
Grakmar wrote:Some of you are really underestimating just how much kinetic energy is stored in the fired round. Even if it is a solid slug, on impact, it will create a huge explosion.
This slug is leaving the gun with over 33 megajoules of energy and it's expected to get up to 64 MJ when it's fully operational! When that slug hits a solid object, there is going to be quite a large explosion and that object won't be there any longer.
There's no need to make explosive slugs, and that's the big advantage to the Navy. Not having to have a giant stockpile of explosives sitting inside your ship is a really nice change.
This exactly, cutting down on explosives makes it much safer for the ship overall, Railguns have incredible range and destructive power.
"The main problem the Navy has had with implementing a railgun cannon system is that the guns wear out due to the immense heat produced by firing. Such weapons are expected to be powerful enough to do a little more damage than a BGM-109 Tomahawk missile at a fraction of the projectile cost"
Also,
Grakmar wrote:it's expected to get up to 64 MJ when it's fully operational
Our battleship is fully operational!
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AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Elmodiddly wrote:This is all very Star Trek and kinda pointless considering the whole thing is still experiemental.
I vote we abandon such comic book weapons and invest in real weapons. Baseball bats.
I'd rather take a bullet than take a beating from someone with a bat!
I agree, I too would rather take a railgun slug to the head (or any body part for that matter, doesn't really matter) than get beaten to death by a baseball bat-wielding looney! Still, I say we modify the railgun to fire aluminium (yes, aluminium, that's how the rest of the world spells it! ) baseball bats! Imagine the horror!
What about many railguns that fire baseball bats at such a distance that by the time they reach you they are going subsonic non lethal speed? HUH? WELL? Beated to death from hundreds of miles away
Stormrider wrote:That would be phyiscally impossible to flat shoot something that far. I am sure they use it at an angle in their theoretical models.
It wouldn't be completely flat, but it'd be a lot flatter than anything else that gets used, yeah? To the point where it'd be quite useless against any target in a built up area...
what goes up comes down
if you fire at a high enough angle it can come down almost vertical
If you're firing it vertically you might as well drop bricks out of a helicopter. It'll be at terminal velocity anyway.
Good lord, will all of you go back to highschool physics please. It maintains a ballistic trajectory, therefore it comes down at almost the speed it was fired at, it how mortars and howitzers work
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dogma wrote:Rail guns don't need to have LOS so long as the slug doesn't reach escape velocity.
Damn it, ninjaed.
That shouldn't be a problem then, you need something like the force of a small yield nuke to launch something into space.
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Grakmar wrote:Some of you are really underestimating just how much kinetic energy is stored in the fired round. Even if it is a solid slug, on impact, it will create a huge explosion.
This slug is leaving the gun with over 33 megajoules of energy and it's expected to get up to 64 MJ when it's fully operational! When that slug hits a solid object, there is going to be quite a large explosion and that object won't be there any longer.
There's no need to make explosive slugs, and that's the big advantage to the Navy. Not having to have a giant stockpile of explosives sitting inside your ship is a really nice change.
Exactly, imagine an Abrams hitting something at 100mph. Thats going to be a sizable boom
youbedead wrote:Good lord, will all of you go back to highschool physics please. It maintains a ballistic trajectory, therefore it comes down at almost the speed it was fired at, it how mortars and howitzers work
bs. Anything that's had it's upward motion arrested by gravity - like a mortar shell past the peak of it's arc - will be accelerated downwards by gravity alone, eventually reaching terminal velocity. It maintains it's horizontal velocity just fine, however. Gotta think about vectors.
youbedead wrote:Good lord, will all of you go back to highschool physics please. It maintains a ballistic trajectory, therefore it comes down at almost the speed it was fired at, it how mortars and howitzers work
bs. Anything that's had it's upward motion arrested by gravity - like a mortar shell past the peak of it's arc - will be accelerated downwards by gravity alone, eventually reaching terminal velocity. It maintains it's horizontal velocity just fine, however. Gotta think about vectors.
Only if it it loses all energy on the way up and doesn't maintain a ballistic trajectory.
This is not a ballistic trajectory. notice that this is not a perfect parabolic curve
the missle lose the majority of energy at the apogee then falls to earth.
whereas the rail gun would use the trajectory of a projectile, which is a perfect parabolic curve
If the shell were to reach a speed of zero then fall it would only reach terminal velocity, but it still has forward motion form the firiing
I disagree, the railgun would not have a perfect parabolic curve.
Really, air resistance. I think it would be less parabolic and more like the first curve in the diagram, just not so short relative to the apex of the curve.
chaos0xomega wrote:
Nope, it can be fired at an angle much like an artillery piece. The physics work out in such a way that little energy is lost in the process.
Well, as with any ballistic projectile, energy is lost. It's simply that energy is then regained through free fall.
If energy were not lost we would be talking about shooting down satellites.
Yes, that is correct, but its the same difference to me in terms of net gains/loss. It was an attempt to to tailor my post to the audience, that being a group that isn't necessarily familiar with the way physics works.
That's ultimately going to be the issue with using this as an over the horizon weapons; solid slugs require direct hits, and that isn't easy to achieve given a ballistic trajectory.
This is true. Since you seem to know what you're talking about: With modern fire control systems we should be able to account for most of the major variables at play (coriolis effect being the one that strikes me as being the biggest issue), and those that aren't unaccounted for should have minimal effect (since the horizontal component of the projectiles velocity should be sufficiently high to not be significantly effected by things such as wind direction, etc.)
I am sure they could deploy explosive rounds the same as they do now so indirect fire is just as effective.
My understanding was that there is no explosive stable enough to NOT explode on launch (either it was an issue with the EM field generated by the thing or it had something to do with the large amounts of energy in general that is put into the round when its fired). Could be wrong on that one though.
The Bringer wrote:I disagree, the railgun would not have a perfect parabolic curve.
Really, air resistance. I think it would be less parabolic and more like the first curve in the diagram, just not so short relative to the apex of the curve.
Enough to ensure a consistent ballistic trajectory though, for something to fall to earth at terminal velocity it must be aided by only gravity, nothing else. If this is travelling at mach 8 it will hit the target at mach 7-8. The thruster form the missile in the first diagram is actually fairly low powered once it runs out of fuel the missile will peter out quickly, then fall to earth once most of its forward momentum is lost.
Elmodiddly wrote:These things will not be fired flat. Even small arms are sighted so that the trajectory of the bullets means it will hit where the sight is aimed at. Unless you are firing something with wings all projectiles, if fired flat, will hit the ground at the same time as dropping the same round at the same height as the horizontal motion is independant of the vertical motion. You have to sight something for the round to travel in an arc on order to hit a target.
Yes, bullets have an arc. I would think the arc of this weapon will be closer to a bullet than to conventional artillery, and nothing like the controlled flight of a missle, which I would think would limit the targets available to the weapon.
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The Dreadnote wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:Who says they need line of sight?
Sebster, whom you quoted.
No, I didn't. Read.
I am wondering if the much flatter trajectory of this weapon will significantly reduce the number of potential uses it might have.
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youbedead wrote:Good lord, will all of you go back to highschool physics please. It maintains a ballistic trajectory, therefore it comes down at almost the speed it was fired at, it how mortars and howitzers work
It would maintain its horizontal velocity. Which, in the example given, was minimal given it was fired at near vertical. Meanwhile, most of the energe would be put into the vertical velocity, which would be lost.
Your understanding of highschool physics might be very strong, but you need to read the thread much more closely.
chaos0xomega wrote:
This is true. Since you seem to know what you're talking about: With modern fire control systems we should be able to account for most of the major variables at play (coriolis effect being the one that strikes me as being the biggest issue), and those that aren't unaccounted for should have minimal effect (since the horizontal component of the projectiles velocity should be sufficiently high to not be significantly effected by things such as wind direction, etc.)
From my understanding the biggest issue would be standard error rates in the calculation. Er can predict, within a range, where a given projectile will land, but that range is established by the expected error (standard error) in the calculation that establishes the relevant parabolic function. In most cases, as in those with explosive rounds, such thing don't matter much, but when you're firing KEPs its a huge deal.
Hell, standard error on most artillery calculations is ~15 meters, and they don't have 200 mile ranges. I would expect the standard error of the function for this weapon to be much, much larger.
For line of site purposes, the railgun is a more accurate weapon. Long distance, who knows, but the railgun does way more damage. Fun fact, the sabot launched by a railgun does explode, but the explosion isn't generated by explosives, its generated by the sudden release of built up energy. Watch this video, its the most recent test of the railgun (from earlier this month): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BfU-wMwL2U
Notice what happened to the target? It exploded... The interesting thing is that the size of the explosion is partially dependent on the size/mass of the target. In this case, the explosion was relatively small because the target didn't put up enough of a 'fight' against the sabot, and thus the sabot didn't burn off as much energy as it could have.
That video doesn't show it hitting anything. It shows it firing from the side and from the front, the "explosion" is the expulsion of gas and the projective as it leaves the "barrel". That second video segment was taken from inside the white tube shown in the first portion.
chaos0xomega wrote:
This is true. Since you seem to know what you're talking about: With modern fire control systems we should be able to account for most of the major variables at play (coriolis effect being the one that strikes me as being the biggest issue), and those that aren't unaccounted for should have minimal effect (since the horizontal component of the projectiles velocity should be sufficiently high to not be significantly effected by things such as wind direction, etc.)
From my understanding the biggest issue would be standard error rates in the calculation. Er can predict, within a range, where a given projectile will land, but that range is established by the expected error (standard error) in the calculation that establishes the relevant parabolic function. In most cases, as in those with explosive rounds, such thing don't matter much, but when you're firing KEPs its a huge deal.
Hell, standard error on most artillery calculations is ~15 meters, and they don't have 200 mile ranges. I would expect the standard error of the function for this weapon to be much, much larger.
However normal artillery shells aren't travelling this fast, with something going this fast there is little the wind can do to effect it, which is the primary cause of deviation in artillery shells. In addition artillary systems where every thing is under computer contorl can get up to a ~5 meter accuracy rate.
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sebster wrote:
Elmodiddly wrote:These things will not be fired flat. Even small arms are sighted so that the trajectory of the bullets means it will hit where the sight is aimed at. Unless you are firing something with wings all projectiles, if fired flat, will hit the ground at the same time as dropping the same round at the same height as the horizontal motion is independant of the vertical motion. You have to sight something for the round to travel in an arc on order to hit a target.
Yes, bullets have an arc. I would think the arc of this weapon will be closer to a bullet than to conventional artillery, and nothing like the controlled flight of a missle, which I would think would limit the targets available to the weapon.
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The Dreadnote wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:Who says they need line of sight?
Sebster, whom you quoted.
No, I didn't. Read.
I am wondering if the much flatter trajectory of this weapon will significantly reduce the number of potential uses it might have.
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youbedead wrote:Good lord, will all of you go back to highschool physics please. It maintains a ballistic trajectory, therefore it comes down at almost the speed it was fired at, it how mortars and howitzers work
It would maintain its horizontal velocity. Which, in the example given, was minimal given it was fired at near vertical. Meanwhile, most of the energe would be put into the vertical velocity, which would be lost.
Your understanding of highschool physics might be very strong, but you need to read the thread much more closely.
What is you definition of near vertical, because for artillery purposes anything over 50 degrees can be a high angle, also yes much of its energy would be lost on the way up but on the way down if it follows the trajectory of a projectile it will accelerate at the same rate it decelerated, it will also supass turm,inal velocity since it has a force acting on ti other then gravity.
So yes if fired at 89 degrees it will have little impact but for it do come down at a steep enough angle all it needs is a 60-75 degree angle.
youbedead wrote:
However normal artillery shells aren't travelling this fast, with something going this fast there is little the wind can do to effect it, which is the primary cause of deviation in artillery shells. In addition artillary systems where every thing is under computer contorl can get up to a ~5 meter accuracy rate.
Inside a given range, that's the main criticism of things like the NLOS; they post great target statistics, but they never discus (publicly) in what range those statistics were obtained. In this sort of application distance to target is everything, and velocity means relatively little.
Remember, all ballistic projectiles slow down before descending to target.
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youbedead wrote:it will accelerate at the same rate it decelerated, it will also supass turm,inal velocity since it has a force acting on ti other then gravity.
But it will be limited by critical velocity in free fall, whereas under acceleration after firing it will not be. Or, rather, the critical velocity is much lower under gravity than it is under explosive acceleration.
youbedead wrote:
However normal artillery shells aren't travelling this fast, with something going this fast there is little the wind can do to effect it, which is the primary cause of deviation in artillery shells. In addition artillary systems where every thing is under computer contorl can get up to a ~5 meter accuracy rate.
Inside a given range, that's the main criticism of things like the NLOS; they post great target statistics, but they never discus (publicly) in what range those statistics were obtained. In this sort of application distance to target is everything, and velocity means relatively little.
Remember, all ballistic projectiles slow down before descending to target.
the velocity is generally reduced by a factor of 3-4 meaning that the Mach 8 shell will strike at mach 2-3 wich is still amy magnitudes faster then conventional rounds. So yes it is impossible to get 100% accuracy with this at 100 mile, but at that range it should still impact within 10-15 meters. At shorter ranges it will stirke faster and will easily get a 2-5 meter acuracy rate.
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youbedead wrote:it will accelerate at the same rate it decelerated, it will also supass turm,inal velocity since it has a force acting on ti other then gravity.
But it will be limited by critical velocity in free fall, whereas under acceleration after firing it will not be. Or, rather, the critical velocity is much lower under gravity than it is under explosive acceleration.
There's the crux. Free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only or dominant force acting upon it. Gravity is not the dominant force here, the acceleration form the cannon is
most of the energy lost to the force of gravity will be regained on the downward trip, however it can get past the gravitational critical velocity because of the lateral force of the cannon. Just a a gun fired into the air can kill, the only way a ballistic projectile will only fall due to gravity will be if its fired at 90 degrees vertical.
youbedead wrote:What is you definition of near vertical, because for artillery purposes anything over 50 degrees can be a high angle, also yes much of its energy would be lost on the way up but on the way down if it follows the trajectory of a projectile it will accelerate at the same rate it decelerated, it will also supass turm,inal velocity since it has a force acting on ti other then gravity.
So yes if fired at 89 degrees it will have little impact but for it do come down at a steep enough angle all it needs is a 60-75 degree angle.
And if you fire at 60 to 75' then most of the energy of the shot is being put into the vertical, and very little into the horizontal. Which would seem to defeat the purpose.
I'm wondering if the primary use of a weapon like this would be in naval bombardment, where you're hitting targets on the coast, with little to get in the way. Being able to undertake that kind of bombardment from 200 miles away would be a pretty awesome advantage. But it'd be a specialised weapon, that wouldn't undertake much modern fighting. Unless Devestator starts wailing on the pyramids again.
chaos0xomega wrote:
This is true. Since you seem to know what you're talking about: With modern fire control systems we should be able to account for most of the major variables at play (coriolis effect being the one that strikes me as being the biggest issue), and those that aren't unaccounted for should have minimal effect (since the horizontal component of the projectiles velocity should be sufficiently high to not be significantly effected by things such as wind direction, etc.)
From my understanding the biggest issue would be standard error rates in the calculation. Er can predict, within a range, where a given projectile will land, but that range is established by the expected error (standard error) in the calculation that establishes the relevant parabolic function. In most cases, as in those with explosive rounds, such thing don't matter much, but when you're firing KEPs its a huge deal.
Hell, standard error on most artillery calculations is ~15 meters, and they don't have 200 mile ranges. I would expect the standard error of the function for this weapon to be much, much larger.
I always figured conventional artillery was less accurate because the arc used to fire tends to be larger (as in, the gun is fired at a greater angle), and the propellant used couldn't be controlled as accurately (as an EM field), as well as being a slower moving round (comparitively), thus suffering greater effect from wind, coriolis, etc.
That video doesn't show it hitting anything. It shows it firing from the side and from the front, the "explosion" is the expulsion of gas and the projective as it leaves the "barrel". That second video segment was taken from inside the white tube shown in the first portion.
No, its actually going through a target. Look again, at approx 21-22 secs, its going through a solid piece of... sheet metal at least thats what it looks like? I'm not really sure what gas would be expelled otherwise...
youbedead wrote:
There's the crux. Free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only or dominant force acting upon it. Gravity is not the dominant force here, the acceleration form the cannon is
Not beyond line of sight.
The only way this particular weapon can crest the horizon is by having the projectile enter free fall. That's the only way any ballistic weapon can have a projectile crest the horizon. If lateral velocity were the dominant force we would talking about orbital intercept paths.
In essence, gravity has to be the dominant force over the horizon because, if it weren't, the projectile would never come towards earth.
youbedead wrote:
most of the energy lost to the force of gravity will be regained on the downward trip, however it can get past the gravitational critical velocity because of the lateral force of the cannon. Just a a gun fired into the air can kill, the only way a ballistic projectile will only fall due to gravity will be if its fired at 90 degrees vertical.
Well, guns fired into the air can kill because the free fall critical velocity of most bullets is sufficient to kill.
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chaos0xomega wrote:
I always figured conventional artillery was less accurate because the arc used to fire tends to be larger (as in, the gun is fired at a greater angle), and the propellant used couldn't be controlled as accurately (as an EM field), as well as being a slower moving round (comparitively), thus suffering greater effect from wind, coriolis, etc.
That's part of the standard error rate.
Standard error is a statistical measure that indicates the mode (or mean, depending on the method of calculation) of all deviations from the predicted value. So, in theory, it includes all variance regardless of source; including things like physical variance in powder burn rates, or powder pack rates.
youbedead wrote: There's the crux. Free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only or dominant force acting upon it. Gravity is not the dominant force here, the acceleration form the cannon is
Not beyond line of sight.
The only way this particular weapon can crest the horizon is by having the projectile enter free fall. That's the only way any ballistic weapon can have a projectile crest the horizon. If lateral velocity were the dominant force we would talking about orbital intercept paths.
In essence, gravity has to be the dominant force over the horizon because, if it weren't, the projectile would never come towards earth.
It is quite possible to fire past the horizon line and maintain a ballistic trajectory, depending on how far away the horizon is. at level ground thats is approximately 50 miles away.
youbedead wrote: most of the energy lost to the force of gravity will be regained on the downward trip, however it can get past the gravitational critical velocity because of the lateral force of the cannon. Just a a gun fired into the air can kill, the only way a ballistic projectile will only fall due to gravity will be if its fired at 90 degrees vertical.
Well, guns fired into the air can kill because the free fall critical velocity of most bullets is sufficient to kill.
No, its actually going through a target. Look again, at approx 21-22 secs, its going through a solid piece of... sheet metal at least thats what it looks like? I'm not really sure what gas would be expelled otherwise...
Those are two seperate videos and in both of them the exit area of the rail gun is being destroyed. Thats the problem with the weapon right now. It breaks the front of itself every time it fires.
youbedead wrote:
It is quite possible to fire past the horizon line and maintain a ballistic trajectory, depending on how far away the horizon is. at level ground thats is approximately 50 miles away.
Yes, I know. My point was that any ballistic that involves cresting the horizon also involves entering free fall.
To me it looks like there is a target stand placed in front of the barrel.
I do know that the way the shells are designed, they are encased inside of a ferromagnetic sleeve that breaks apart as it exits the barrel (but its supposed to be a clean split, not supposed to be a ton of shrapnel), maybe that is what we're seeing.
youbedead wrote:
It is quite possible to fire past the horizon line and maintain a ballistic trajectory, depending on how far away the horizon is. at level ground thats is approximately 50 miles away.
Yes, I know. My point was that any ballistic that involves cresting the horizon also involves entering free fall.
Your image actually confirms my point.
Mach 5 is well above terminal velocity of something subject only to free fall. There seems to have been a misunderstanding all I am saying is that it will not be subject to only the force of gravity, and I assumed you were saying that it would only strike at the terminal velocity of gravitational free fall (well below mach 5), if I was mistaken I am sorry for the misunderstanding.
Too bad that 1.9 tons of TNT is directed in roughly a straight line. Just saying. There will be more than a straight line, but that much TNT would guarantee the ship to go down, not a single railgun shot.
The Bringer wrote:Too bad that 1.9 tons of TNT is directed in roughly a straight line. Just saying. There will be more than a straight line, but that much TNT would guarantee the ship to go down, not a single railgun shot.
That not how physics work, lets say this thing hits the ground. All of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive. Lets say it hits a ship, it will vaporize large amounts of metal as it passes through a ship, creating a massive hole under the water line, or if they can hit the armory the ship goes up in a bang.
youbedead wrote:
Mach 5 is well above terminal velocity of something subject only to free fall.
Depends on mass, density, and resistance due to physical shape.
You can most certainly develop a projectile that has a critical velocity of nearly mach 5 under nothing but gravitational attraction.
youbedead wrote:
There seems to have been a misunderstanding all I am saying is that it will not be subject to only the force of gravity, and I assumed you were saying that it would only strike at the terminal velocity of gravitational free fall (well below mach 5), if I was mistaken I am sorry for the misunderstanding.
Yeah, I'm not making an argument from exclusion, I'm just saying that gravity is the prevailing force here.
Yeah, the pressure wave could have serious killing power. It really depends on how robust the equalization systemis are on target.
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youbedead wrote:
That not how physics work, lets say this thing hits the ground. All of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive. Lets say it hits a ship, it will vaporize large amounts of metal as it passes through a ship, creating a massive hole under the water line, or if they can hit the armory the ship goes up in a bang.
The projectile might actually burst above ground, depending on design, which would massively increase lethality.
youbedead wrote:
Mach 5 is well above terminal velocity of something subject only to free fall.
Depends on mass, density, and resistance due to physical shape.
You can most certainly develop a projectile that has a critical velocity of nearly mach 5 under nothing but gravitational attraction.
youbedead wrote:
There seems to have been a misunderstanding all I am saying is that it will not be subject to only the force of gravity, and I assumed you were saying that it would only strike at the terminal velocity of gravitational free fall (well below mach 5), if I was mistaken I am sorry for the misunderstanding.
Yeah, I'm not making an argument from exclusion, I'm just saying that gravity is the prevailing force here.
Yeah, the pressure wave could have serious killing power. It really depends on how robust the equalization systemis are on target.
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youbedead wrote:
That not how physics work, lets say this thing hits the ground. All of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive. Lets say it hits a ship, it will vaporize large amounts of metal as it passes through a ship, creating a massive hole under the water line, or if they can hit the armory the ship goes up in a bang.
The projectile might actually burst above ground, depending on design, which would massively increase lethality.
Good we came to agreement then sorry about the misunderstanding, though i would doubt they would design a shell that could do that purely because you risk it fragmenting during flight. I was also mistaken it was actually 11.19 tons of tnt at mach 5.Thats a big boom.http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+1701.45^2+*45+359.237++joules+to+megatones
youbedead wrote:
It is quite possible to fire past the horizon line and maintain a ballistic trajectory, depending on how far away the horizon is. at level ground thats is approximately 50 miles away.
Yes, I know. My point was that any ballistic that involves cresting the horizon also involves entering free fall.
Your image actually confirms my point.
Mach 5 is well above terminal velocity of something subject only to free fall. There seems to have been a misunderstanding all I am saying is that it will not be subject to only the force of gravity, and I assumed you were saying that it would only strike at the terminal velocity of gravitational free fall (well below mach 5), if I was mistaken I am sorry for the misunderstanding.
Escape velocity is 11.2 km/s. Mach 25 = 7.5km/s... Thats right, mach TWENTY-FIVE still is not escape velocity. Also, mach is a subjective measure of velocity. You could theoretically be travelling through a fluid at mach 10 and only be moving about 10 miles per hour. M=V/a, where V is the velocity, and a is the speed of sound through that medium. So, saying Mach 5 = escape velocity doesn't really mean very much.
youbedead wrote:
It is quite possible to fire past the horizon line and maintain a ballistic trajectory, depending on how far away the horizon is. at level ground thats is approximately 50 miles away.
Yes, I know. My point was that any ballistic that involves cresting the horizon also involves entering free fall.
Your image actually confirms my point.
Mach 5 is well above terminal velocity of something subject only to free fall. There seems to have been a misunderstanding all I am saying is that it will not be subject to only the force of gravity, and I assumed you were saying that it would only strike at the terminal velocity of gravitational free fall (well below mach 5), if I was mistaken I am sorry for the misunderstanding.
Escape velocity is 11.2 km/s. Mach 25 = 7.5km/s... Thats right, mach TWENTY-FIVE still is not escape velocity. Also, mach is a subjective measure of velocity. You could theoretically be travelling through a fluid at mach 10 and only be moving about 10 miles per hour. M=V/a, where V is the velocity, and a is the speed of sound through that medium. So, saying Mach 5 = escape velocity doesn't really mean very much.
We never said it could escape atmosphere, terminal velocity is the maximum speed something can reach in free fall
The Bringer wrote:Too bad that 1.9 tons of TNT is directed in roughly a straight line. Just saying. There will be more than a straight line, but that much TNT would guarantee the ship to go down, not a single railgun shot.
That not how physics work, lets say this thing hits the ground. All of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive. Lets say it hits a ship, it will vaporize large amounts of metal as it passes through a ship, creating a massive hole under the water line, or if they can hit the armory the ship goes up in a bang.
It would probably sink a ship... but it really depends where it inflicts the damage and how big a hole it creates.
On land, it hits whatever, but when it hits the dirt, it won't explode like 1.9 tons of TNT. It will create a minor "explosion" but it won't be anything like an explosive.
I just did a small scale test, very small scale.
I shot a rubber band at a pile of flour. The flour moved a little, but didn't do anything significant. Now, if the energy in the stretch rubber band were used to fling the flour, you would have had a larger amount go into the air.
The ground will just absorb most of the energy. The shot will probably leave a nice crater, create a nice little "explosion," but 1.9 tons of TNT will be way more effective.
youbedead wrote:It is quite possible to fire past the horizon line and maintain a ballistic trajectory, depending on how far away the horizon is. at level ground thats is approximately 50 miles away.
Cheers for that image. Do you, or anyone else, have any information on the possible angle the round could strike the target at?
Hello,
Well of course I have to give a funny answer to this, it is a green weapon, no fall out, all the bodies pre-barried (well whats left), and no jet fuel used.
ShumaGorath wrote:How much would it decelerate over 200 miles horizontal distance?
Looking at the diagram, I'm guessing it will hit at Mach... 5?
Sebster, I'm guessing it will hit at a 40-50 degree angle with the vertical. It could be slightly sharper than that. I know it is leaving the barrel at around 40 degrees, so by the end it will most likely hit at about 50.
The Bringer wrote:Too bad that 1.9 tons of TNT is directed in roughly a straight line. Just saying. There will be more than a straight line, but that much TNT would guarantee the ship to go down, not a single railgun shot.
That not how physics work, lets say this thing hits the ground. All of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive. Lets say it hits a ship, it will vaporize large amounts of metal as it passes through a ship, creating a massive hole under the water line, or if they can hit the armory the ship goes up in a bang.
It would probably sink a ship... but it really depends where it inflicts the damage and how big a hole it creates.
On land, it hits whatever, but when it hits the dirt, it won't explode like 1.9 tons of TNT. It will create a minor "explosion" but it won't be anything like an explosive.
I just did a small scale test, very small scale.
I shot a rubber band at a pile of flour. The flour moved a little, but didn't do anything significant. Now, if the energy in the stretch rubber band were used to fling the flour, you would have had a larger amount go into the air.
The ground will just absorb most of the energy. The shot will probably leave a nice crater, create a nice little "explosion," but 1.9 tons of TNT will be way more effective.
okay you want to do this then a rubber band that weighs one gram flung at 10 mph is equivalent to 4 milligrams of tnt. I bet you the rubber band did more then 4 milligrams of tnt. also i was mistaken it was 11.19 tons of tnt meaning even if it only has one tenth of the power converted to a balst it would still be over 1 ton of tnt
The Bringer wrote:Too bad that 1.9 tons of TNT is directed in roughly a straight line. Just saying. There will be more than a straight line, but that much TNT would guarantee the ship to go down, not a single railgun shot.
That not how physics work, lets say this thing hits the ground. All of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive. Lets say it hits a ship, it will vaporize large amounts of metal as it passes through a ship, creating a massive hole under the water line, or if they can hit the armory the ship goes up in a bang.
It would probably sink a ship... but it really depends where it inflicts the damage and how big a hole it creates.
On land, it hits whatever, but when it hits the dirt, it won't explode like 1.9 tons of TNT. It will create a minor "explosion" but it won't be anything like an explosive.
I just did a small scale test, very small scale.
I shot a rubber band at a pile of flour. The flour moved a little, but didn't do anything significant. Now, if the energy in the stretch rubber band were used to fling the flour, you would have had a larger amount go into the air.
The ground will just absorb most of the energy. The shot will probably leave a nice crater, create a nice little "explosion," but 1.9 tons of TNT will be way more effective.
okay you want to do this then a rubber band that weighs one gram flung at 10 mph is equivalent to 4 milligrams of tnt. I bet you the rubber band did more then 4 milligrams of tnt. also i was mistaken it was 11.19 tons of tnt meaning even if it only has one tenth of the power converted to a balst it would still be over 1 ton of tnt
Blast deflection significantly reduces the amount of damage non penetrating explosives deal to hard targets. A kinetic penetrator will do significantly more harm to a solid mass then a lump of tnt placed against it. What you're hitting them with is fairly irrelevant, what matters is where and how kinetic energy is applied to the subject.
The Bringer wrote:Too bad that 1.9 tons of TNT is directed in roughly a straight line. Just saying. There will be more than a straight line, but that much TNT would guarantee the ship to go down, not a single railgun shot.
That not how physics work, lets say this thing hits the ground. All of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive. Lets say it hits a ship, it will vaporize large amounts of metal as it passes through a ship, creating a massive hole under the water line, or if they can hit the armory the ship goes up in a bang.
It would probably sink a ship... but it really depends where it inflicts the damage and how big a hole it creates.
On land, it hits whatever, but when it hits the dirt, it won't explode like 1.9 tons of TNT. It will create a minor "explosion" but it won't be anything like an explosive.
I just did a small scale test, very small scale.
I shot a rubber band at a pile of flour. The flour moved a little, but didn't do anything significant. Now, if the energy in the stretch rubber band were used to fling the flour, you would have had a larger amount go into the air.
The ground will just absorb most of the energy. The shot will probably leave a nice crater, create a nice little "explosion," but 1.9 tons of TNT will be way more effective.
okay you want to do this then a rubber band that weighs one gram flung at 10 mph is equivalent to 4 milligrams of tnt. I bet you the rubber band did more then 4 milligrams of tnt. also i was mistaken it was 11.19 tons of tnt meaning even if it only has one tenth of the power converted to a balst it would still be over 1 ton of tnt
Blast deflection significantly reduces the amount of damage non penetrating explosives deal to hard targets. A kinetic penetrator will do significantly more harm to a solid mass then a lump of tnt placed against it. What you're hitting them with is fairly irrelevant, what matters is where and how kinetic energy is applied to the subject.
The Bringer wrote:I'm not disagreeing with that, that is perfectly sound, I'm disagreeing with
youbedead wrote:
TAll of that kinetic energy is directed into the ground creating blast similar to an explosive.
Where the bloody hell is the energy directed then, do you believe that a meteor doesn't create an explosion because its not explosive. This thing has 11 tons of tnt behind that, just think about that even if 1% is directed outward thats 220 pounds of tnt, the actuall energy realesed outwrad though is closer to 50% which is 5.6 tons of tnt directed outward. You can't put that much force behind something like that with out doing some serious damage
youbedead wrote:
It is quite possible to fire past the horizon line and maintain a ballistic trajectory, depending on how far away the horizon is. at level ground thats is approximately 50 miles away.
Yes, I know. My point was that any ballistic that involves cresting the horizon also involves entering free fall.
Your image actually confirms my point.
Mach 5 is well above terminal velocity of something subject only to free fall. There seems to have been a misunderstanding all I am saying is that it will not be subject to only the force of gravity, and I assumed you were saying that it would only strike at the terminal velocity of gravitational free fall (well below mach 5), if I was mistaken I am sorry for the misunderstanding.
Escape velocity is 11.2 km/s. Mach 25 = 7.5km/s... Thats right, mach TWENTY-FIVE still is not escape velocity. Also, mach is a subjective measure of velocity. You could theoretically be travelling through a fluid at mach 10 and only be moving about 10 miles per hour. M=V/a, where V is the velocity, and a is the speed of sound through that medium. So, saying Mach 5 = escape velocity doesn't really mean very much.
We never said it could escape atmosphere, terminal velocity is the maximum speed something can reach in free fall
Yeah, sorry my bad, I was tired and misread your post.
youbedead wrote:Good lord, will all of you go back to highschool physics please. It maintains a ballistic trajectory, therefore it comes down at almost the speed it was fired at, it how mortars and howitzers work
bs. Anything that's had it's upward motion arrested by gravity - like a mortar shell past the peak of it's arc - will be accelerated downwards by gravity alone, eventually reaching terminal velocity. It maintains it's horizontal velocity just fine, however. Gotta think about vectors.
Only if it it loses all energy on the way up and doesn't maintain a ballistic trajectory.
This is not a ballistic trajectory. notice that this is not a perfect parabolic curve
the missle lose the majority of energy at the apogee then falls to earth.
whereas the rail gun would use the trajectory of a projectile, which is a perfect parabolic curve
If the shell were to reach a speed of zero then fall it would only reach terminal velocity, but it still has forward motion form the firiing
OMG have I finally found a reason to know the area under the curve?
@ everyone who thinks all that energy will just create one huge explosion. That energy does go somewhere. I'm no professor, but I have taken both a highschool and college level physics course. When something with that much inertia hits something, the earth will absorb it. It doesn't disapeer, it pushes the earth one gazillionth of a millimeter, and in the process will create a rather little nice cloud.
Not to be completely contradictory, but there will be no grand explosion. None. The earth will take most of it, and there will be a minor explosion on impact with the ground. Though I don't know how minor.
The biggest "explosion" will be when it hits the target. It will most likely have a little cone effect, and it will send shrapnel everywhere and do more than just a clean hole of damage.
The Bringer wrote:@ everyone who thinks all that energy creates an explosion. That energy does go somewhere. I'm not professor, but I have taken both a highschool and college level physics course. When something with that much inertia hits something, the earth will absorb it. It doesn't disapeer, it pushes the earth one gazillionth of a millimeter, and in the process will create a rather little nice cloud.
Not to be completely contradictory, but there will be no grand explosion. None. The earth will take most of it, and there will be a minor explosion on impact with the ground. Though I don't know how minor.
The biggest "explosion" will be when it hits the target. It will most likely have a little cone effect, and it will send shrapnel everywhere and do more than just a clean hole of damage.
I'd imagine it would look like this:
................................................--------------------------------------------------------------
............................................................................................\ /
This is some boat or whatever:...........................................\ /
.............................................................................................\ /
.................................................----------------------------------\/----------------------------
I would correct you but, honestly, its too much effort for this format.
Suffice it to say, you're entirely wrong. That is not how objects beahve at extreme velocity.
@ everyone who thinks all that energy will just create one huge explosion. That energy does go somewhere. I'm no professor, but I have taken both a highschool and college level physics course. When something with that much inertia hits something, the earth will absorb it. It doesn't disapeer, it pushes the earth one gazillionth of a millimeter, and in the process will create a rather little nice cloud.
Not to be completely contradictory, but there will be no grand explosion. None. The earth will take most of it, and there will be a minor explosion on impact with the ground. Though I don't know how minor.
The biggest "explosion" will be when it hits the target. It will most likely have a little cone effect, and it will send shrapnel everywhere and do more than just a clean hole of damage.
I'm not really sure what it is you're trying to say, but this sounds completely wrong. Unless the object that the slug hits is the earth itself, the earth will absorb little, if any, energy. Even if it does hit the earth, the 'earth' as a whole receives very little of that energy. Most of it is transferred directly into the particles contacting the slug (I.E. - rocks, dirt, etc.), which are then sent flying every which way creating more than a 'rather little nice cloud'.
I'm not really sure what it is you're trying to say, but this sounds completely wrong. Unless the object that the slug hits is the earth itself, the earth will absorb little, if any, energy. Even if it does hit the earth, the 'earth' as a whole receives very little of that energy. Most of it is transferred directly into the particles contacting the slug (I.E. - rocks, dirt, etc.), which are then sent flying every which way creating more than a 'rather little nice cloud'.
The earth would absorb a significant portion of the impact, likely the majority of it. However that absorption still transfers into an incredible amount of kinetic and heat energy released which would result in a visible non chemical explosion (an explosion just being the general release of energy). I think the real question is, why are you shooting the ground? A rail gun is clearly not designed for inaccurate bombardment, that defeats the point of a kinetic round in general which is going to lose most of it's explosive force directly into the ground or directly into the sky.
I'm not really sure what it is you're trying to say, but this sounds completely wrong. Unless the object that the slug hits is the earth itself, the earth will absorb little, if any, energy. Even if it does hit the earth, the 'earth' as a whole receives very little of that energy. Most of it is transferred directly into the particles contacting the slug (I.E. - rocks, dirt, etc.), which are then sent flying every which way creating more than a 'rather little nice cloud'.
The earth would absorb a significant portion of the impact, likely the majority of it. However that absorption still transfers into an incredible amount of kinetic and heat energy released which would result in a visible non chemical explosion (an explosion just being the general release of energy). I think the real question is, why are you shooting the ground? A rail gun is clearly not designed for inaccurate bombardment, that defeats the point of a kinetic round in general which is going to lose most of it's explosive force directly into the ground or directly into the sky.
Again, saying the earth absorbs a significant portion of the impact is misleading. That implies that the entirety of this spinning ball of rock and water we call home will absorb what is, in comparison, a very small amount of energy. While that is what occurs (in the grand scheme of things), it doesn't begin to describe the observable and localized effects of this interaction.
Ok, so I suck at anything concerning math.... But I always figured that at a certain velocity things would just start ignoring obstacles other then a meter of steel and pass straight through (nonsense now that I think about it) But I always guessed the energy behind would just keep it going regardless.
I'm not really sure what it is you're trying to say, but this sounds completely wrong. Unless the object that the slug hits is the earth itself, the earth will absorb little, if any, energy. Even if it does hit the earth, the 'earth' as a whole receives very little of that energy. Most of it is transferred directly into the particles contacting the slug (I.E. - rocks, dirt, etc.), which are then sent flying every which way creating more than a 'rather little nice cloud'.
The earth would absorb a significant portion of the impact, likely the majority of it. However that absorption still transfers into an incredible amount of kinetic and heat energy released which would result in a visible non chemical explosion (an explosion just being the general release of energy). I think the real question is, why are you shooting the ground? A rail gun is clearly not designed for inaccurate bombardment, that defeats the point of a kinetic round in general which is going to lose most of it's explosive force directly into the ground or directly into the sky.
You are entirely correct the argument came about because someone stated that it would do nothing but punch a hole it whatever it hit, and would do nothing if it hit the ground.
I'm sure that railgun makes the wrong sound. Shouldn't it be more of a fffffzzzzhhhoooooooooommmm. Also shouldn't it be accompanied by a bright blue glow?!
jackanory wrote:I'm sure that railgun makes the wrong sound. Shouldn't it be more of a fffffzzzzhhhoooooooooommmm. Also shouldn't it be accompanied by a bright blue glow?!
