jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

It looks like the navy's rail gun is being run out of town on a rail. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that is doesn't use expensive ammunition -not much continuing profit for arms suppliers.

https://gizmodo.com/the-navys-horrifyingly-powerful-electromagnetic-railgun-1820991365

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Just a guess here, but could be due the power requirements, and apparent size requirements, lots of traditional shells might fit within the same space and weight requirements possibly... OR someone gets kickbacks from explosive manufacturers!

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

Gee, and only $500,000,000 "sunk" in it...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Could be.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

"It's only money."

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

This program has been going on a LONG time. We worked with the Navy on this in the mid-late 80s when I was it Tektronix.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

If ONR likes it it will proceed. Power requirements for the gun can be produced on any ship of size i.e. destroyer and above

thomseninc

I spent over 30 years doing engineering development of various DOD weapon systems, and I have been following (but not involved in) the development of this system for some time. It has always been just a matter of time before this was abandoned because there are numerous problems that have no solution. The primary one is that the massive acceleration of the projectile (can be over 70,000 g's) would destroy any electronics or guidance systems built into the projectile. Without guidance, the only thing you will hit at 100 miles is the ground. The aero-thermal loading on the projectile will be huge, so keeping the projectile from melting in flight will be difficult. There are many more. This system makes for a great PR video, but note that it is only firing at a berm 100 yards or so away. This should have died years ago. The hardest thing for many people in the DOD acquisition system is to say NO.

ecblackiii Loc: Maryland

It has nothing to do with the profit of ammunition suppliers--who would have no say in whether the military chooses to buy the weapon. Ammunition will always be supplied by the lowest cost supplier, which could be one of the U.S. government-owned ammunition plants. The revenue and profit for the weapon's maker will come via the weapon manufacturing and then the lifetime of weapon maintenance, repair, and overhaul following initial purchase. The electromagnetic rail gun originally gained impetus as one of Reagan's "StarWars" projects and has been under continual research and development by the various elements of the Department of Defense for about 30 years. The science of electromagnetic propulsion is well known. But there are major problems with such a gun's durability due to the rail erosion of plasma energy generated by firing and the enormous amounts of electricity that have to first be generated and stored in capacitors before each firing.

Quinn 4

Fire that thing once and you would have a lot of incoming missiles coming at you in the time it taking you to read this.