How long until Railguns become a reality on US warships?

>>33352529
Never

>>33352529
Define reality. One could be placed on a ship (not a destroyer or suchlike) this very year.

>>33352529
It depends on what Mattis wants.

One might go on DDG-1002, but after it is completed.

>>33352529
I'm saying 10 years to get working ones on board ships

20years to become viable

>>33352529
>unguided naval support fire

Dead as carrier pigeons. A single guided missile is more effective than 50 rounds that fall in the general vicinity of the target.

>>33355767
Guided missiles cost 1000x as much. They also don't travel at mach 7+.

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>>33352529
Is the tech at all similar to EMALS aside from both being electromagnetic?

If we found ourselves suddenly in a shooting war with a near peer enemy, they could be fielded in a matter of months.

>>33355767
They will shoot guided shells.

>>33356023
Other than it being pulsed power, not really.

>>33356044
I highly doubt that.

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>ships
>not tanks
I hope I will live long enough to witness it

>>33358236
>Railgun Guidance and Control Demonstration: Q3 2015
>Railgun Track Maneuvering Projectile: Q1 2016
>Railgun Command Projectile Maneuvers: Q2 2016
>FY 2016 Plans: Test maneuvering projectile capabilities in hardware-in-the-loop at Johns Hopkins University Applied Research Lab (JHU/APL) and gun live-fire demonstrations at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR).
http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2017/budget_justification/pdfs/03_RDT_and_E/PB17_OSD_0400D_Master_J-Book_Final.pdf

>>33358537
I'm shocked they have anything that can stand up to the acceleration.

>>33355767
Artillery officer here. You're a moron. War isn't just about taking out one guy in a room. Often you need to take out area targets. This is where artillery are useful. Guns are accurate but still "area" weapons, even though our ballistic computers can have them landing with pretty extreme accuracy. The fire support teams can order different distributions of fire (i.e. the "shape" of the impact area that the shells land in) for different effect.

Guided precision munitions have their place, but their utility is actually quite limited. They're only good for highly surgical strikes on individual/lone targets.

>>33358625
Oh and also guided shells are a thing. Look up excalibur

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>>33352529
Soon.

>>33358646
>not posting the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7YvV8y32f0

probably a few years unless they will be put onto the new burkes

Maybe with the next cruiser design?

>>33358625
Thats the thing about precise weapons, you need precise targets
Though self-guiding weaponry is the next step

>>33358571
Amazing stuff and they've had high-g tech around for quite some time now.
From the NRAC Electromagnetic (EM) Gun Technology Assessment February 2004
>GPS/INS guidance units have been successfully tested to 28 kgee. There were no signs of failure at this level; there simply was no identified need to go higher.
>The projectile envisioned for the electromagnetic gun is derived from the HVP development in the Barrage Round Program. That program has already shock tested some guidance, navigation, and control elements to 35 kgee’s in addition to actual flight tests at 25kgee’s.
Dahlgren even had a 60mm RF guided smart projectile program in the early 90s.

>>33358682
>posting the arronlee 720p video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwm_82S_7iM

>>33358850
Nice unlisted video. How's uptown?

>>33358840
I knew there were guided projectiles capable of being fired from conventional guns, but I thought that was about the limit and wasn't useful on a railgun since the impulse is so high.

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like a year ago

>>33358929
They invented absurdly high G electronics for ballistic missile defense. The Cold War made for some insane R&D because the tech was seen as absolutely necessary.

>>33358918
You can find the video in their railgun playlist.

>>33358935
Wikipedia is the pinnacle of factual information.

>>33358850
why don't they make the magnet barrel into a coil to make the projectile spin
it doesn't seems accurate like that

>>33361162
i meant a screw

>>33358646
Wonder what their electric bill is...

>>33355767
I was also sceptical until I found out that this thing can crack bunkers like nothing else while being out of range for enemy defenses.
Still, extreme waste of money that whole project.

>>33358537
I Just watched someone get BTFO'd

>>33358646
>one POC
Amazing.

>>33355767
>thinking that precision fire couldn't possible with a railgun.
What are computers?

>>33358682
is that a stock music library knockoff of pirates of the caribean title track? because it's perfect

>>33361377
Yes, it's hinting at a Caribbean railgun.

>>33358935
http://navaltoday.com/2016/12/22/usns-trenton-begins-first-operational-deployment/

>>33361162
It would interfere with the magnetic forces propelling the armature

>>33361170
wait do you mean twist the rails like a double helix? That would cause excess friction

>>33358259
you'd also have to live long enough to witness micro fusion reactors or some kind of super battery

>>33352529
Railguns: a solution in search of a problem.

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>>33358646
t-that's a b-big gun

>>33362491
4u

>>33355099
>It depends on what Mattis wants.

No! Sec Def has no control over DoD spending.

Speaking of railguns on US Naval vessels: Fuck the Zumwalt and every ship in its class. Bath Iron Works is retarded for taking that shit on.

>>33363749
Chaos controls all.

>>33361208
Nah

>>33361222

>Czech'd

It's Eli Vance.

>>33363749
Secdef and the branch secretaries submit budgets to congress. They shape what the funding will be though McCain and friends have the final say.

>>33358850
>posting a 1080i video

Nice interlacing dumbass...

>>33362355
120% this

>>33362355
You could say that about everything in the military. Fuck wars and shit. Spend it all on welfare.

>>33366944
>>33362355
Railguns provide substantially higher velocities than missile or powder-fired guns, which means quicker time to impact. They're also more resistant to countermeasures. Fuck off with this "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality, everything can be improved.

>>33366993
Why not spend it all on feeding raccoons
We could probably support a population of billions of raccoons

How great would that be
Train them to be kamikaze bombers, that'll be more useful than feeding shitskin underclasses or old people

>>33367156
It would definitely be more cost effective than missiles.

>>33366180
>not posting 4k
The USN is really falling behind.

>>33367199
literally everything is more cost effective than missiles

>>33355767
You do realize the current proposed system has a multi-stage projectile with a guided explosive fragmentation system, right?
Like shooting a slug that then airbursts buckshot at your target, but much faster and larger.

Also do you think artillery bombardments just don't exist?

>>33362218
Not really. Microprinted batteries can increase the density of reactive material in a conventional electrochemical battery by huge margins and have been around since the 90s, they're just cost-prohibitive and we don't yet have a mobile energy generation system to compliment them.
If the Army revived that miniature nuclear plant idea from the '50s and stuck them on FOBs we'd be in good shape, now that computers can handle most of the dangerous complex shit and our reactor designs are much safer.

>>33362355
>I literally don't know what Wild Weasel is or how cost prohibitive SAM missiles are
Somebody post that article where a U.S. ally spent $3M to shoot a quadcopter down with a fucking Patriot missile.

>>33367199
What about railguns that shoot missles?

>>33367146
Not to mention that dumb railgun rounds wouldn't trigger RADAR and could become the next step in first-strike systems, conventional ballistic or nuclear.

Imagine being the dumbfuck who said the first arquebus was a "solution in search of a problem"

>>33370125
>If the Army revived that miniature nuclear plant idea from the '50s and stuck them on FOBs we'd be in good shape

Terrible idea desu

>>33370167
>dumb railgun rounds wouldn't trigger RADAR
Why not, its just a metal slug.

>>33370181
Not really, even the design they had in the 50s for testing was pretty safe, it was a combination of dumb maintenance orders (draining the coolant water to a point that allowed vaporization to cause an explosion AND using fewer than the intended number of control rods/higher density of radioactive material) and operator error (pulling the main control rod literally 20 inches further out of battery than intended) that caused it to go critical and got the program shut down.
The design was actually so safe that the failsafe water venting was within microseconds of stabilizing the reactor, and the operator error so extreme that it's long been theorized it had to be intentional sabotage.
Plus, even after catastrophic reactor failure, the structure inherently sealed the majority of the radioactive materials and was even internally clean except for the reactor room itself. All in an air-droppable package, in the fucking '50s.

Basically, if we can have people safely operate nuclear subs, we can have them work generators - ESPECIALLY with modern designs and computer-assisted controls.

>>33370207
Same reasons bullets don't, it's too fast and too small. If you had a really sensitive setup it probably could, but it'd be real cost-prohibitive.

>>33370243
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
Further reading, try to ignore the painful feeling in your asshole when you read about how the chucklefuck who pulled the rod out died.

Railguns that shoot missles?

>>33370125
Where did this notion that energy generation is the problem with railguns and not storage?

There's zero problems with energy generation using even 1970s generators.

>>33370306
Did you read the part about microprinted batteries?
The first thing I typed?
Come on bud, this is some kindergarten shit. The point about reactors is just addressing the logistical challenge of maintaining the power for railguns. You don't want to be flying those batteries back and forth to juice them up.

>>33370331
How does a tiny battery with a tiny max charge and tiny upper limit on discharge help anything?

>>33370243
>Durka VBIEDs the reactor, contaminates the whole area

Its like giving them a free dirty bomb

>>33370362
Are you retarded?
You can pack astronomical numbers of microbatteries into the same space as a traditional electrochemical battery, giving you vastly more area in which the electrochemical reaction takes place.
This is how Tesla car batteries work, they have several bundles of microprinted batteries linked up throughout the internals of the car and the big central battery that you actually plug up to (may also be a bundle of microbatteries, not sure) which is what lets them have the range they do.
On a military application things like aesthetics matter a lot less and you can chunk big fucking heaps of these bundled battery systems onto whatever needs them, they are more efficient and store more charge for the same amount of space taken up as traditional batteries.
Again, they are cost-prohibitive (or were in the 90s and early 2000s, not sure if they've been improved since then) but logistically a huge step forward for battery-powered electronics.

>>33370400
>durka VBIEDs the hangar, steals all our drones
It's like giving them a free killstreak

Is thread the dead?

>>33370435
Hitting the reactor is much worse.

>>33355767
50 rounds is more fun.

>>33370420
How do you over come the issue of a very low output before the tiny battery suffers heating damage?

Source for the claim that Tesla car batteries are microprinted batteries.

How do you connect batteries the size of a grain of sand?

What is the actual performance of a 10kg lead acid battery VS 10kg of microprinted batteries?

>>33370485
And equally less likely to happen. Do you think Achmed just drives his superduty into heavily fortified military outposts on a weekly basis?
Don't be fucking stupid man. You'd set these things behind huge amounts of defenses and slabs of armor. Aerial attacks would be the only really dangerous situation, and with all the crazy AA bullshit we've got going on I wouldn't count on there being a successful strike anytime soon - certainly not when we're fighting in Durkistan.

Besides, the 50's design was inherently self-sealing, we could certainly develop something with a similar failsafe system in the unlikely event one was struck and did destroy the reactor.

I think you're also overestimating the scale of radiation we'd be dealing with.

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>>33358259
I can hear the TR whining about it from here.

>>33370522
Nuclear security would be a fucking nightmare in a warzone, not to mention transporting the thing there. Sounds like a huge investment for negligible gain.

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>>33355767
>he thinks guided missiles are more accurate than rail guns

>>33370544
Fuel shipments are the majority of logistic shipping.

Being able to cut the electrical demand would drop the logistics by 1/3.

>>33370520
Microprinted battery cells work on the same principle as commodity cells used for laptops and other electronics, just smaller and more densely packed.
If some of the cells die you just replace that sheet, or if there's extensive damage, the whole bundle.

Do some of your own research man, at this point you just sound uneducated.
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2013/06/printing-tiny-batteries
Harvard article on use of conventional 3D printers to print lithium-ion microbatteries for use in microelectronics

>>33370543
and I'll keep whining until we get a minigun tank.

>>33370564
Its a huge value target, eventually someone will blow one up.

>>33370585
>Its a huge value target, eventually someone will blow one up.
When was the last time a US FOB was overrun and abandoned?

Because short of losing control of the base you are not going to get a reactor damaged.

>>33370566
No source for supporting the claim Tesla is using micro printed batteries.
No report on how you wire up micro printed batteries to a macro scale.
No stats on the energy storage of a 10kg unit.

In other words snake oil.

>>33370165

That air drop raccoons...

>>33370544
>nuclear security would be a nightmare
By what logic? You wouldn't be setting these down in the middle of a battlefield, you just ship them in (or airdrop them in areas with no aerial landing zone, though with VTOL that's less of an issue) and have your grunts do the bulk of the building while the specialists hook up the complicated bits

>>33370289

Fuck that. The poor bastard standing on TOP of the reactor when it went critical is the real loser in this equation. I'm pretty sure that's who you were referring to.

>>33352529

When we get enough glue?

>>33358935
That didn't happen

>>33370623

You don't need to overrun it. Just keep lobbing mortars or SCUDs at it until you get a lucky hit.

>>33370852
Because we don't have defenses for those

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>>33358646
What is this guy's plan

>>33370861
so make every base a nuclear fortress then?

>>33370852
>You don't need to overrun it. Just keep lobbing mortars or SCUDs at it until you get a lucky hit.

Because we would just put the reactor and generator sitting around without any blast protection or overhead cover, because this is a strawman argument.

>>33370900
>every base
No you mong, even one of these reactors would be enough to supply a huge area, set them far enough back to minimize their exposure to heavy damage and use mobile batteries on land and air vehicles to truck around power as needed, to juice up big heavy shit

>>33370900
>so make every base a nuclear fortress then?

Every FOB should be a fortress to start with.
Do a triple wide layer of Hesco run steel beams on the stacked second layer top off with a third layer.

If you are well above the water table dig down and then roof it off with steel plates.

It's not like we don't already keep stuff like explosives on FOBs all over.

>>33358850
The Pirates of the Caribbean music was a nice touch.

>>33361170
>>33361162

There is a concept for that but it's pretty fucky

>>33370331
>we don't yet have a mobile energy generation system to compliment them.

My point still stands. Power generation is not an issue.

>>33370485
It's really not that easy to hit a reactor, VBIED wouldn't even stand a chance against standard security protocols in a nuclear facility. Even mortars don't really pose much of a threat to the reactor itself. Fuck the building that houses the reactor itself is desingned to take a direct hit from a 747 and still function.

>>33371586
This would be a mobile reactor stuffed into a shipping container and then shipped to where power is needed.

It's not an impossible task to protect the reactor, but it's not going to be the pressure containment vessel used in light water reactor designs.

>>33371604
If it's deployed on base than the same problems apply, there's a reason that VBIED rarely get past the gate.

>>33371604
Oh also that's not how reactors work, there's a reason they are not moved around. They are rather difficult to shut down.

>>33370704
Armed with railguns...

>>33371679
>Oh also that's not how reactors work, there's a reason they are not moved around. They are rather difficult to shut down.

Better call the navy and tell them to stop moving their reactors around.

>>33371813
>shipping container reactor
>sub/carrier reactor
>same thing

let me know when you can ship over 2000 tons of dangerous materials, and all the water to cool it in a fucking shipping container

>>33371868
>let me know when you can ship over 2000 tons of dangerous materials, and all the water to cool it in a fucking shipping container
Again every reactor is exactly the same and they only come in GW range size.

>>33371782
Flying in gavins...

>>33372797
Shot from battleships...

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>>33355890
>Guided missiles cost 1000x as much
Oh really?

>>33371868
Probably a little bigger than a shipping container but not by much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubis-class_submarine

>>33374575
Textbook slash and whine

>>33362491
Now why would they shoot the gun before tossing aboard a ship?

>>33370543
>he says behind his I win button

>>33358571
Potting compound does wonders.
Not sure how they're gonna make this shit withstand the electromagnetic hell they'll be going through though.

>>33377420
Lead works wonders too.

>>33370551
railgun bolted to concrete vs being mounted on a ship are different situations

I know we got fancy stabilization and computers but its still a huge challenge to make it work

>>33377777
I know nothing about PGMs: the post.

>>33370400
>VBIEDS the reactor
>reactor doesn't explode because that's not how nuclear power works

>>33371205
That's what the air-droppable Reactor idea is for dude
Try to put 2 and 2 together man

>>33381407
Might as well drop nukes

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>>33358259
>>33370543

Space Libertarians 4 lyf.

Terran shitters and Covenant Wannabes can go and stay go

>>33352529
As transformers revealed, they're already on ships.

>>33352529
Never

>>33378441
No shit, the IED is what spreads the reactor contents, that's what a dirty bomb is

>>33365059
Eli should of just built a big rail gun and shot at the citadel with it then.

>>33370276
the rounds they're firing are bigger than some of the projectiles that radars mounted on israeli APCs can detect

but they are probably fast enough that it'd be hard to do anything about them, and you wouldn't have much warning time

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>>33367146
>Railguns provide substantially higher velocities than missile
Yeahno.
>>33370167
>>33370276
You're actually retarded.
>>33370331
And so are you. Railguns demand extreme levels of pulsed power that you'll only get from a capacitor bank or compulsator. No electrochemical battery is up to the task. And from a practical standpoint, a gas turbine generator is way more practical for CHARGING that compulsator or capacitor bank than nuclear reactor is, because gas turbines actually offer higher peak output for the weight and running a railgun is a very intermittent task anyways, unlike ship propulsion.
>>33370551
Than unguided railguns? Certainly. Than guided railguns? There's no reason why one would be any more accurate than the other.

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>>33377777

>>33374575
wait, are you really comparing a cruise missile to a guided artillery shell and trying to pass it off as a valid comparison to a $50 piece of metal? is this just pedantry?

>>33352529
Let's be honest here WHAT exactly is a railgun gonna do on a warship? The era of broadsides is long gone, and what good is a railgun that fires in a straight line?
28 kms or 17.5 miles longer and the earth's roundness will make all your shots fly up into the air.
Unless warships start taking off from water and become flying warships, the railgun on a warship is close to being useless. Naval guns today can do pretty much anything that is required of them, and you always have missiles.

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>>33370543
>>33382948
So many good times liberating the shit out of space scum.

Isnt the question: What is this needed for?

What kind of unit has the amount of armor where a railgun is needed?

And where would it be in sight of the railgun?
You can't really lob a round in from an angle, reaching over mountains.

And how would railgun vehicle not be easily found by radar?

>>33389425
>What is gravity
If your railgun shoots very fast, that just means that you can hit things from farther away
All shot/thrown objects follow a parabolic arc. The faster the initial velocity the longer the arc is horizontally.
If the target is closer than the horizon just point right at it and if the target is beyond the horizon then arc the shot according to your ballistics

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>>33358646
>its time

>>33388778
>a huge ballistic missile is a fair comparison to a 23lbs projectile

Obviously, a missile can go as fast as you design I to. That doesn't make it an efficient method of doing so. Even then, the current rail gun shoots projectiles faster and the project goal well exceeds that even at mach 9. Quit being so bull headed, you're life isn't over simply because technology has allowed a more efficient delivery system for certain circumstances than a missile.

>>33389470
Cross map 360 noscope kills

>>33352529
However long it takes for materials technology to come up with rails that don't disintegrate on firing.

>>33389470
Bunker busting, anti-materiel, basically everything a missile can do but without the issue of counter-defense systems

>>33374575

>posts a guided missile that happens to be shot from a (conventional) gun

>>33392680
This guy gets it

>>33370543
You can keep your shitty, slow, unibarrel tank. I'll keep the dual barreled sportscar that is the prowler.

>>33392845

The offset main guns look and are retarded. High speed and lock down are a schizophrenic combination of faction traits.

>the NC Button makes you invincible
>the TR Button makes you immobile

Such a good tank

>>33389425
Holy shit have you never been through a 9th grade physics course

>>33392724
Current rails last to about 1k firings

>>33389425
People like this actually exist. They aren't in high school or retarded either. They are average people. They are your bosses. They are your politicians.

They are destroying the world with ignorance.

>>33358571
Solid state is solid.

>>33393533
Orly? That's not exactly a small development, if true.

>>33389425
oh jesus...

>>33370289
>One of the shield plugs on top of the reactor vessel impaled the third man through his groin and exited his shoulder, pinning him to the ceiling.

>>33396179
According to the new info they published when they announced moving to phase 2

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/02/14/navy-may-install-railgun-for-zumwalt-class-destroyer.html

>2018

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>>33389470

its super fast, so no intercept, also no explosive ammo so you wont be sitting on a literal powder keg

>>33395386
>Solid state is solid.
Not at sufficient acceleration it isn't.

The difference between solid and fluid is basically the force it's subjected to.

>>33358625
And we are talking about something that is, once it is installed, will be really really cheap compared to a missile. Talk is might have a ABM function as well. Protos look like they are going to be able to crack bunkers like a GBU-28. Might be a real game changer.

>>33396737
>According to the new info they published when they announced moving to phase 2

I'm not having any luck finding said information. I know the goal was to increase rail life in phase 2, but I don't remember seeing anything about achieving thousand-round lifespans.

>>33397118
Last thing I read was that achieved 400 shots and that they had a tech "pathway" to achieving 1000 shots.

>>33397118
I'll admit I don't really remember where I found it first, but I did read it somewhere

>>33389425
>what good is a railgun that fires in a straight line?

>he doesn't want a railgun that can fire directly through the earth to its target

>>33370915
>>33370861

Just like our current FOBs that get hit with mortars, right?

And of course enemy rockets or mortars or VBIEDs or even drone bombing techniques will never ever improve either, right?

>>33374097

Crewed by raccoons.

>>33352529
Railguns are only going to be useful in space or direct contact not beyond the horizon.

>>33398264
>Railguns are only going to be useful in space or direct contact not beyond the horizon.
I suspect you're wrong since a nominal horizon at sea is approximately 3 miles away. The railgun is the only way you can have a relevant firing solution by the time the round reaches the target without using a guided missile.

>>33398199
>Crewed by raccoons.
Racoon shall not shot racoon. Even out of a railgun, inside a missile.

>>33398290
Excellent