I know it's about two weeks too late, but can we talk about

>>33842525
Your mom's dildo finally complete?

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>>33842531
Fed-Ex lost it somewhere over Afghanistan

What happened?

>>33842525
Yeah railguns are pretty neat, but the biggest drawback is that they need a power plant attached to them.

I would love to see a dozen of these retrofitted on a recommissioned Iowa-class battleship though.

>>33842612
But why? As far as I see it, air craft carriers still have more range and more ordonance.

Could someone elaborate?

>>33842612

That's the Zumwalt.

It's all electric drive system is why the Navy is keen on putting a rail gun on the one commission for 2018. From there it is continued to be used as test bed and influences the next generation of war ships. Figure out what works, what doesn't. Flip the script.

The Navy wants to mass produce them, and since they require a certain energy threshold to be met; which in turn implies all new technological designs (meaning no fucking Burkes), they start pushing new attack ships with them on board.

Zumwalt-type ships seem like the natural progression in naval combat, even if they use a completely different design. Basically some missiles, with lots of redundancies, and long-range guns to supplant the missiles. The feasibility of this coming to fruition is only increased once the Navy starts talking about how they can use the guns to intercept ICBM's and then the Army begins talking about using them for semi-fixed emplacements to do the same thing and begin deploying them to NATO countries along the border to Russia..

>>33842645
Well a 20kg chunk of solid metal traveling at mach 7 has some serious armor penetration capabilities, and with modern targeting it's less likely to cause collateral damage.

>BAE
Good to see Britons are still making ameritards technology

>>33842645

There are a lot of reasons why you would want to use a Rail Gun, especially ones that meet the ONR's benchmarks .

Phase II, which is what they've been working on since 2012 has been focused on meeting an initial range of 100 miles, Mach 6, and at least 10 rounds per minute.

Again, that's just the initial guns planned for 2019 production. Not the ones we start seeing in 2025 or 2030.

Rail Guns are kinetic kill weapons, and given their speed and size, they're nigh impossible to intercept. You try picking up a football sized object moving at 4,500 MPH for instance, and now try and stop it from hitting it's target - you can't and won't.

The ammo is also incredibly cheap, and further - inert. You can carry hundreds upon hundreds of rounds without issue. The early Phase I guns could fire at 33 megajoules, where 1 megajoule is equivalent to a 1-ton car hitting something while it travels 100 MPH. Now consider what this means in realistic terms with a much smaller, and more advanced object with the exact same amount of energy. It's absurd.

So really it comes down to that.

Missiles of course still have their uses, and always will. But if you can just shoot rail guns at the target and get the same effect, at a fraction of the price, and without any ability to be intercepted? Why the fuck not?

>>33842694

General Atomics also released a video today of their system, but you are right. It's very likely that the Navy will go with BAE's system over GA's because they haven't really advanced much beyond their preliminary Phase II outing with the Blitzer. In fact, I think it is the exact same system. I could see GA make a smaller system though, and BAE focusing on making larger ones.

>>33842687
Hmmm, ok. I get that a rail gun projectile is harder to counter and has a lot of energy to hit with. What about range?

>>33842745
Easily 100nm.

>>33842745
with modern computer systems to calculate trajectory, I wouldn't be surprised at ranges of 50 miles

>>33842745
See: >>33842729

100 nautical miles initial, with 300 at Mach 10 being the expected range and speed down the road from what I've read. Nowhere near the range of a Tomahawk, sure, but it will cost a 1/100th as much and go literally a 10 times faster. Besides, most targets would fall within this range. The port cities are always the most important.

300 miles versus 900 miles.
7,600 MPH versus 500 MPH.

>>33842612
>Yeah railguns are pretty neat, but the biggest drawback is that they need a power plant attached to them.
Actually gas turbines in ships offer much higher power density than nukes. A reactor produces far more energy over its lifetime but their power to weight ratios are actually very low. It's why you don't see many nuclear surface ships. If you have refueling logistics gas turbines will be lighter and more powerful. The exception is when your ship gets above a certain size fuel logistics become a serious issue and you have so much spare displacement nukes become attractive.

For perspective a F-35 engine produces energy in the megawatt range and the entire plane weighs less than 20 tons. Reactor weights are usually measured in thousands of tons.

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>>33842674
>use the guns to intercept ICBM's and then the Army begins talking about using them for semi-fixed emplacements to do the same thing
God, between this and directed energy weapons for air to air use, we're basically building every Ace Combat superweapon that isn't a flying aircraft carrier.

It makes me hard.

>>33842745
>Hmmm, ok. I get that a rail gun projectile is harder to counter and has a lot of energy to hit with. What about range?
400km on the proposed larger ones, they are guided, for soft targets they have frag rounds that detonate just before impact and release tungsten pallets. Only a tiny amount of explosive is needed as it just has to spread the pallets, they're already moving at mach 4.

You can also shoot them at aircraft and ballistic missiles.

>>33842753
>>33842783
Ok, so rail guns bring a mediumish range weapon to the table which is nearly impossible to intercept, and can genuiely obliterate anything it hits.
Thanks for the explanations.

>>33842823

The idea that with enough of these, you can essentially nullify MAD gives me a big, fat boner.

>>33842833

No problem. And as others have pointed out, they have amazing defensive properties. You essentially just point and shoot with them, because the distance between you and the target is so small, it will almost instantaneously hit whatever you want if you aren't shooting the projectile on a parabolic arc.

So if the missile is 100 miles away, and it is coming at you horizontally, or its angle of attack is extremely steep (like any ICBM) then you just look at it and BAM, it's there a few seconds later. It genuinely would probably take longer for the missile to come within range than it would for the weapon to destroy it. Same goes for any aircraft that gets close (for some reason).

If they shoot 16 missiles at you, each of which costs a fat million dollars (at least) and you destroy each of them with a device that costs tens of thousands of dollars. Guess who wins that exchange every time? Plus, the other guy will eventually run out of missiles, and then he's really fucked.

>>33842694
BAE that operates in the US is a completely separate subsidiary to the one based in Britain, they can't share tech nor anything of that sort. So its pretty much American.

>>33842525
Railguns do nothing that missiles can't.

(Except MAYBE they're cheaper, but it will take years before we see the payoff since so much has been spent on R&D.)

On the other hand, missiles do many things that railguns can't.

>>33842892
Railguns actually do provide something missiles don't- depth of magazine. For a given amount of space, you can carry many more rounds for your railgun than missiles. The rounds are also significantly cheaper. So really, you want both.

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i want to see rail gun CIWS for defenses

>>33842783
>The port cities are always the most important.
300 miles is prolly far enough to reah 80% of the world population

>>33842892
>Railguns do nothing that missiles can't.

you're argument is the exact same as any mounted gun/artillery vs missiles. guns and artillery will always have a use because missiles can't do everything perfectly and in a cost efficient manner.

>>33842913
What sort of <100 mile engagements does the USN find itself in that requires such a deep magazine of projectiles?

>>33842941
Korea immediately jumps to mind.

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>>33842936
Battleships are dead, aren't they? Pretty sure they are.

Guns like pic related are used for what these days, taking pot shots at pirates and smugglers? I honestly don't know what these guns are meant for, but they aren't very big and they don't put very many of them on ships, and I think that says something.

>>33842944
Well then somebody tell Trump the railgun isn't ready yet.

>>33842944
To that you can add:
Any island of the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the Persian Gulf.

>>33842996
Why not keep battleships around then? Will we get new nuclear powered railgun battleships?

>>33842974

That's because the conventional gun has been replaced by those things directly in front of it - the missile cells. If it wasn't for advanced missile tech, we'd still be seeing destroyers and cruisers bristling with guns. Battleships are very probably not dead if the Phase III Rail Guns can meet the Navy's criteria.

Putting an array of them a large vessel would pose a tremendous threat to any ship, and most land targets. Especially since they would very likely carry missiles as well. This means that extremely vulnerable missile boats, and insanely expensive aircraft carriers are no longer the only game in town.

>>33843004

Because they haven't been deployed yet, and as another Anon pointed out a Nuclear Battleship is probably not the best option. A gas turbine system with an all electric drive can output some truly staggering amounts of power. Look at how much the Zumwalt can output for instance. Now make an even larger ship, with even larger engines.

>>33842941
I can imagine any number of situations where they'd be useful. For example, it provides you with plenty of standoff to attack targets on land. For example, the Tomahawk strikes in Syria could have been conducted by that range while staying comfortably far offshore. If there is any naval engagement anywhere in the world, land targets will be valid, and those will be shot. Let's imagine that there's a second Vietnam War, for example. This 100nmi ranged railgun could hit the entire country. Further, engagements might very well take place at sub 100 nmi ranges, because targeting is the greatest challenge. With EW and trying to keep EMCON, we can assume that each battlegroup might only be able to see what sensors within line of sight can see. So a helicopter from the SAG would provide targeting information, and needs to be within LOS or within a chain of helicopters within LOS of each other. With that in mind, you might see ships below that range. Never mind that engagements might just start at beneath those ranges.

So yes, there are a multitude of situations.

>>33843011
Technically any new ship would be a battlecruiser rather than a battleship, unless there are similar breakthroughs in armor technology.

>>33843004
Because the range on the battleships is insufficient and their self defense capabilities are lacking.

>Will we get new nuclear powered railgun battleships?
Why would we? If you can put one or two of these railguns on a normal destroyer, you don't need to have a dedicated ship for them. And if you are traveling in any sort of group, which you would be, you'd have the same amount of firepower and would be losing less of it if a ship got hit.

>>33843076

You are absolutely right, and I actually prefer that classification. I just mentioned battleships since it seemed pedantic to try and correct him.

>>33842941
>What sort of <100 mile engagements does the USN find itself in that requires such a deep magazine of projectiles?
The biggest thing is the railgun can replace multiple weapons, at the moment a ship carries, anti-air missiles, naval gun, anti ship missiles, CIWS + cruise missiles.

A railgun can theoretically replace everything besides the tomahawks. Where it gets more interesting is multiple use. Harpoons can't be fired at planes, standard missiles are mostly for planes with some use against surface ships, CIWS is only for defense, naval gun range is too short for most things.

A frag railgun round is going to be much smaller than missiles but on top of that the same ammo can have multiple uses. If a ships SAMs represent 20% of ammunition and the ship fires off all it's SAMs against planes it looses air defense abilities until resupplied. If a railgun ship fires 20% of it's guided frag ammo, it still has 80% remaining for all tasks.

Even if you limit it to 100nm the scale of destruction is beyond current ships. A single SSGN can only hold around 120 tomahawks. A dedicated railgun ship would probably hold thousands of rounds. A railgun ship could easily fire 120 rounds per hour and keep going for 12 hours, a single railgun ship could probably suppress NKs entire DMZ artillery system while docked in Seoul.

>>33843004
>Why not keep battleships around then? Will we get new nuclear powered railgun battleships?
Basically to get the best out of railguns the ship has to be built around them, the ship needs high temperature superconductors connecting all the energy systems, otherwise you're going to have copper cables 2 meters in diameter that dump megawatts of heat into the ship. It's why fitting existing ships with them isn't really possible.

The technology is already ready. The zumwalt was supposed to have it but they scrapped it at the last minute and used old electrical systems because the navy was bitching about technology they hadn't tested yet. Really stupid and shortsighted.

>>33843149
>replace
Supplement. Only thing it really replaces is the normal deck gun.

>>33842645

Because an aircraft carrier is rendered non-functional in bad weather or sufficient ground-based AA, which also blocks missiles. You need traditional long-range artillery to level said AA so the planes can do their job, hence the need for a railgun ship.

>>33843076
If you're gonna make a bigass ship with nuclear reactors to power all the railguns and the laser CIWS, why stop there instead of giving it sufficient armor to stop at least the most common threats?

If the enemy starts trying to overwhelm your railgun canister and laser turret defenses with volume of fire, be it conventional cannon rounds or cheap(ish) kinetic kill missiles, then having some armor means forces the minimum size and power of those weapons upwards, which will then neuter the threat if the enemy can't afford volume AND power.

It doesn't have to be as armored as the old ships; the definition of the BB classification will simply shift along with the times instead. "Fast Battleship" at the least. Battlecruisers as a naval term can then be repurposed for ships that doesn't carry that min-threshold-breaking level of armor.

>>33843192
>Supplement. Only thing it really replaces is the normal deck gun.
They work the exact same way as missiles. The only difference is missiles burn their rockets for 30 seconds or so to accelerate while the railgun round does it with electromagnets in a shorter period. The end result is a steerable projectile that is carried to it's target via kinetic energy.

Most high speed missiles coast without their engine much of the flight if fired at longer ranges.

>>33842525
I'm out of the loop, drop me a link.

>>33843319
>If you're gonna make a bigass ship with nuclear reactors to power all the railguns and the laser CIWS, why stop there instead of giving it sufficient armor to stop at least the most common threats?
It gets even crazier if you build it out of modern armor. Using the latest steel and ceramics you get about 8x more protection per KG than the cast steel on the Iowa. I once tried to work out how much protection an iowa built with modern materials would have, the entire thing ended up with between 1000mm to 4000mm RHA equivalent before taking into account angle.

Of course the main problem is trying to convince someone to give you the 10 billion dollars or so to build an insane nuclear railgun battleship.

>>33843376
>Of course the main problem is trying to convince someone
When America's biggest rivals (China, Russia) finally and very positively display their ability to develop and produce laser weapons, then that will be enough. If they can prove that they have the capability to shoot down slow-moving guided munitions willy nilly and even whole aircraft that stray too close, then that will be the end of the current era. The funding will come naturally.

>>33843376
>Of course the main problem is trying to convince someone to give you the 10 billion dollars or so to build an insane nuclear railgun battleship.
I would make it rain if I had $10*10^9

>>33842783
300 miles at 7,600 MPH is roughly 126.666 miles per second. It would hit its target in 2.3 seconds or so after firing.

>>33843394
>Russia
>even slightly relevant in current year

>>33842612
>Recommission Iowa-class with railguns
>Decommission it years later when new mcguffin comes around
>Recommission it again when it can be mounted with something cool again
>Re- and Decommissionings continue for centuries
>2400, Earth is at war against an alien menace
>Iowa is Recommissioned again, mounted with plasma cannons, energy shields and FTL drives as well as STL drives
>Space Battleship Iowa saves Earth

>>33843319

So, DU/RHA composite? I'm not sure if anything like that has been attempted before, not on a naval scale.

>>33843447
im so hard rn

Someone physics me here.

If you fired one of those railguns at a tank would it blast right through it, shredding the innards but leaving the majority intact, or would it go kablooey. Same if you fired it front on at a cruiser. Whats going to survive?

>>33843324
However, missiles are better at many things than the railgun, particularly in end effects. The railgun's biggest advantage is depth of magazine.

>>33843493
I'm not an armor scientist so I deal in concepts here. Whatever they use will work so as long as it provides the appropriate minimum level of protection so you don't have a sunk """battleship""" due to some piddly autocannon making a lucky shot or a single missile getting through the active defenses and hitting a reactor. Most contemporary surface vessels have paper thin or practically nonexistent armor.

That guy above me mentioned that modern steel and ceramics would do the job, mentioning that we could give a ship the same protection as an Iowa at 1/8th of the weight. Hell even if we go with cheaper older materials it's not like weight is a concern at all in the blue ocean.

>>33843534
Also remember, cheaper per shot.
Budget armies of the world are gonna start using these.

>>33843540
I'm well aware.
I doubt it. Budget armies don't have the money for them or the supporting infrastructure.

Probably a retarded question. What about terrain. Is it possible to guide them?

>>33843562
What about terrain?
You just shoot over it.

>>33843412
>7600/3600 is 126.666
What the fuck am I reading.

>>33843562
Yes, they're guided. They shoot in arcs.

>>33842880
Thats compltely wrong.

BAE, the MoD, DoD, DARPA and DSTL have been working on this railgun at Kirkcudbright in Scotland since the 90's.

The railgun is a joint project.

>>33843596
Autism anon, you are reading autism.

>>33842880
>So its pretty much American.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12517010-300-scotland-to-host-rail-gun-test-bed/

27 January 1990

THE US Department of Defense is to cover half the costs of constructing
a new firing range in Scotland for testing electromagnetic guns, often called
‘rail guns’. The facility, which will be the longest firing range for EM
guns in the Western world, is being funded jointly by the British Ministry
of Defence’s Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment (RARDE)[now dstl]
at Fort Halstead in Kent and DARPA, the US’s military research and development
agency.

>>33843517

It would go right through it, but everything the penetrator touches will literally explode due to the force being acted on it. Watch videos of the test versions impacting with many layers of steel for instance. The steel that the penetrator touches more or less evaporates into fire and molten steel due to the transfer of energy between the two objects. It keeps doing this until it can't move any further, and finishes transferring the remaining energy into that object/surface. This makes yet another big explosion.

So for instance, if it hit a tank, it would make a big ass explosion from hitting the tank, a big ass explosion from hitting stuff inside the tank, and then a big ass explosion from exiting the tank. GA put out a video yesterday of them hitting an MRAP miles from where the location is shot, and it decimates the fucking thing.

>>33843447
This guy has the right idea. At that point they might as well do the same for the U.S.S. Constitution. Outfit the bastard with enormous solar sails, replace the gun carriages with railguns, swivel gun lasers. Keep the wood.

>>33843653

That is old as hell, the guns have been tested at the ONR facility in America since at least the mid-2000's. With GA's gun being built in America, and all of the projectiles being built in America (this is very important). The capacitors and other systems are as well. The barrel of BAE's gun might be British though, but I can't confirm either way

>>33843668

I want to also point out this highlights one of the "problems" with Rail Guns, unless you make the penetrator carry some sort of chemical explosive. They simply move too fast, and are made too dense. They act similarly to how a sabot round fired from a tank does. Amazing at just going through everything, but not especially good at, say, destroying a building. You put holes in it, sure, but you don't decimate it.

It would be good for area denial though, because all of the energy from the projectile would transfer directly into the ground.

Anyway, this doesn't detract from its ability to destroy soft targets (vehicles, tanks, airplanes, helicopters, rockets, AA, crucial infrastructure). But it won't be flattening a building any time soon. Unless of course you somehow made HE versions of the projectile, but I am not certain of the feasibility of that.

>>33843185
uh no you can just use higher voltages for transmission.

>>33842687
>Well a 20kg chunk of solid metal traveling at mach 7 has some serious armor penetration capabilities

armor of what

>>33843677
It's not meant to be a recent article. it's meant to highlight that since the start of the program it has been a joint effort.

The idea that the weapon is a US secret that can't be shared with the UK is laughable.

>>33842729
>where 1 megajoule is equivalent to a 1-ton car hitting something while it travels 100 MPH
Or, in other terms, equivalent to a burger-patty-sized lump of high explosive.

>>33842745
>has a lot of energy to hit with
No, not really. A Tomahawk warhead or Iowa 16" shell has orders of magnitude more energy.

>>33842913
>For a given amount of space, you can carry many more rounds for your railgun than missiles.
What if we just built smaller missiles instead?

>>33843011
>Battleships are very probably not dead if the Phase III Rail Guns can meet the Navy's criteria.
Oh, please. These railguns aren't even remotely comparable to BB guns.

>>33843201
>Because an aircraft carrier is rendered non-functional in bad weather or sufficient ground-based AA, which also blocks missiles.
Not really. AA can elevate attrition rates, but AA has never been effective enough to outright block an attack. It just doesn't happen.

>>33843324
Nevermind that a 2-stage rocket can yield railgun-tier velocities without breaking a sweat. There's more than one way to skin a hypervelocity cat.

>>33843004
>>33843037
>>33843319
>>33843376
>Muh nukes
Please see [>>33842790]. Nuclear reactors are a shit-tier choice for powering high-power, low-duty-cycle applications such as railguns and lasers. A gas turbine APU is far more practical for this.

Also, before someone says I am full of shit and talks about Rods from God.

Rods from God style weapons require tungsten rods that literally weigh a metric ton, and even then their explosive power isn't exactly impressive when you consider how much it would cost to get the fucking system in place. This is because it relies entirely on kinetic energy.

With a rail gun, you are firing a significantly smaller projectile. Like, much, much smaller. Every projectile I've seen I believe weighs around 40lbs. Not a lot, sure, but it is still going at Mach 6.

>>33843185
>otherwise you're going to have copper cables 2 meters in diameter


imagine a world where we have AC and DC.

>>33843720
"There's more than one way to skin a hypervelocity cat." If I were a physics man I would put that on my tombstone.

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>>33842892
You can shoot a missile out of the air, but nothing short of an actual, literal mountain will stop a tungsten bolt traveling at 2400 m/s. THAT is the advantage railguns have over missiles.

>>33843726
actually under ICAS general rules and ABS specific rules the largest conductor on a ship is 150mm sqrd.

>>33843720

A Phase 1 Rail Gun was rated for 33 Megajoules. I simply gave an example of what 1 Megajoule was equivalent to.

>Oh, please. These railguns aren't even remotely comparable to BB guns.

Whoooaaaa. Anon, are you meaning to tell me that test platforms aren't comparable to the pinnacle of hundreds of years of research into chemical propellant weapons? No way. That's crazy, you're crazy.

>Muh nukes

Reread >>33843037 you drooling mong. I even said it didn't make sense. And fucking >>33843376 didn't even mention Nuclear Reactors. He was talking about armor rating.

As for your others "points", ready?

>No, not really. A Tomahawk warhead or Iowa 16" shell has orders of magnitude more energy.

Once again, still experimental weapons platforms. Further, there's a clear and distinct difference between what these three different weapons do with the energy they can deliver on target. Also, speed, range, cost, etc.

>What if we just built smaller missiles instead?

EWAR. Missiles will always been expensive. Missiles explode. Missiles can be tricked. Smaller = slower, less range, less energy on target. Also doesn't indicate cheaper. You are thinking of rockets.

>Not really. AA can elevate attrition rates, but AA has never been effective enough to outright block an attack. It just doesn't happen.

If attrition rates, projected of course, are high enough, they can decide a battle before it even happens.

>Nevermind that a 2-stage rocket can yield railgun-tier velocities without breaking a sweat.

Multiple weapons platforms exist to kill these already. They are large, fragile, expensive. Oh, and they also make everyone think you just launched a fucking nuke. They have no real mass conventional use. You are basically advocating that we turn all Minuteman III's into Tomahawks. No one will accept that, not us, not the military, not our allies, not our enemies.

>>33843758
What if they refit a Paris-gun to become a rail-gun?

>>33843720
>What if we just built smaller missiles instead?
They won't have the proper range or payload.

>>33842790
>The exception is when your ship gets above a certain size fuel logistics become a serious issue
This more than anything else. Remember that the LM2500 gas turbine is derived from the CF6 engine and the LM1500 is a J79, but fuel is the kicker- an aircraft only carries enough fuel for a few hours, not days. When you want persistent presence, the near unlimited endurance of a nuclear plant makes it far lighter and more practical than lugging around thousands of tons of fuel.

>>33843786
That or you would have to strip the guidance system, which would just make it into a rocket.

>>33843706
>uh no you can just use higher voltages for transmission.
Too hard to handle switching you end up needing 100,000 volts or more, converting it back and forth between AC-DC and different voltages results in the ship being filled with transformers, rectifiers and other crap.

You can build superconducting motors and generators as well, the size reduction will easily outweigh the cryogenic cooling systems.

>>33843447
I would watch this anime

>>33843803
if you can safely drive a 25 meg azipod at 12.6kv you are not going to have a problem with running a railgun.

>>33843798
The guidance system is (relatively) small, and you're going to keep it in anyways, lest it be entirely useless.

>>33842941
Opposed landings. Since the battleships were (rightly) retired, the ability to provide effective fire support inland to suppress and destroy an enemy has been missing. 5"/51 guns lack range, power, and capacity. A railgun can provide that, while at the same time being far more versatile than a 16" gun and not requiring a fuckhueg monstrosity to carry it.

>>33842612
>I would love to see a dozen of these retrofitted on a recommissioned Iowa-class battleship though.
Fuck of, BB-fag

>>33843376
>Using the latest steel and ceramics you get about 8x more protection per KG than the cast steel on the Iowa.
No. The Iowa (and all its contemporaries) used face hardened rolled armor. The x8 comparisons on marketing brocures are in comparison to mild steel, and at best IRL you could get around x2 for a relatively affordable steel.

>>33843775
>B-but it's still experimental!
The target for the operational gun (which is what I assume "phase III" is supposed to refer to is still just 64 MJ. It's not going to be anywhere near battleship-tier. Sorry to burst your bubble.
>Further, there's a clear and distinct difference between what these three different weapons do with the energy they can deliver on target.
Clearly... and yet people still somehow seem to think that this piddly little railgun is comparable to both. It's silly.
>EWAR. . . Missiles can be tricked.
But a guided railgun projectile can't? C'mon, now.
>Missiles will always been expensive.
Guidance is expensive (some kinds more than others). The same shit will affect your guided railgun projectiles. So will the Navy's fundamental disregard for cost management and bloat mitigation (see ERGM, for example).
>Smaller = slower
Not necessarily. CKEM was pretty fucking small and still achieved hypersonic velocities.
>You are thinking of rockets.
Rockets are just propulsion... a fairly cheap form of propulsion at that.

You could literally build a missile with the exact same capabilities as the railgun simply by mating CKEM-esque rocket boosters to the railgun projectile. Railguns aren't really breaking any new ground here.
>If attrition rates, projected of course, are high enough, they can decide a battle before it even happens.
Maybe with manned aircraft... not so much with cruise missiles. AA isn't really a deterrent when all the missiles are going to be destroyed upon reaching the target anyways.
>They are large, fragile, expensive.
They don't HAVE to be, if the warhead you want to launch is a measly 20 fucking kilograms.
>Oh, and they also make everyone think you just launched a fucking nuke.
See above.
>They have no real mass conventional use.
If they don't then a railgun doesn't either.
>You are basically advocating that we turn all Minuteman III's into Tomahawks.
Not even close, I'm merely saying railguns are a redundant technology.

>>33843908
>But a guided railgun projectile can't? C'mon, now.
The most common ones would be inert pieces of metal that fly fast enough to compensate for the distance traveled instead of using a guidance system. So no, you cannot trick a typical railgun. If you hear the electric boom you gonna get hit, son.

>>33842790

As an engineer, I approve of this anon's post.

>>33842612

100 MW power consumption or whatever the railgun uses isn't a big deal for medium sized ships. Gas turbines easily output 20 MW and are relatively small.

With gas-electric, you can choose to run minimal propulsion and divert most of the power to the guns at the moment of firing.

>>33843786
A Tomahawk has about 5 times the range and 20 times the payload by weight (or nearly 100 times by energy/yield, if you prefer) as the railgun projectile offers. While you may not be able to reach quite the magazine depth a railgun could, there's still room for lots of miniaturization and magazine expansion using missiles if smaller, more numerous munitions is what you're after.
>The most common ones would be inert pieces of metal that fly fast enough to compensate for the distance traveled instead of using a guidance system.
But that's wrong. You're not going to hit shit past the horizon without guidance, especially considering the rather small area-of-effect the railguns will damage on impact. There may be some niche applications for unguided railgun projectiles, such as point-defense CIWS or short-range shore bombardment in asymmetric theaters, but for the most part it's quite clear that the railgun will mostly rely on guided projectiles.

>>33843760
It literally doesn't matter since you can get a bunch of HVAC conductors to provide the necessary power for low voltage super high current DC. It's gonna need a sizeable system, but not that sizeable.

>>33843803
>the size reduction will easily outweigh the cryogenic cooling systems.
That depends on the specifics. You're gonna need to do the math to determine where the break-even point is for cryogenics over regular old transformers.

>>33843970
A Tomahawk missile is many times larger than an HVP, which was my point in the first bloody point. Sure, you can make a smaller missile, but you will sacrifice range, payload, or some combination of the two. You will achieve nowhere near the same depth of payload as you would with a railgun. For example a single Strike Length VLS cell (such as that which would carry a Tomahawk) would fit at LEAST 36 HVPs. And that's with me rounding down and making somewhat pessimistic outlooks on the exact dimensions. Even the much shorter ranged ESSM can only fit 4 per cell. Yeah, the depth of magazine still favors the railgun substantially.

>>33843970
You have to take into account the large ammunition advantage a railgun will have. RoF is supposed to be quite high, 60RPM or more. You would likely see them being fired in bursts of 10 or more. Missiles waste to much energy carrying their propulsion system and fuel during the flight.

Air breathing cruise missiles will remain relevant due to their long range but smaller rocket missiles going to be limited by physics.

>>33843676
treasure planet

>>33843804
space battleship yamato

>>33842833
100 nanometers is still less than a millimeter

>>33843758
Grossly incorrect

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>>33842790
>For perspective a F-35 engine produces energy in the megawatt range
For perspective, pic related can output 1.1 megawatts. A megawatt is way less than you'd think. Or rather, the energy required to make things go fast is a lot more than powering toasters or TVs.

>>33844062
Nautical miles, idiot.

>>33844016
Civilian ships are getting about 25% better performance out of lower voltage DC buses than older AC drivers. I think it's inevitable that it becomes common. US navy has fallen behind on this and PM electric motors though.

>>33844081
Meme unit.

>>33844082
I'm curious as to how this works

>>33844098
Basically just a 3 phase brushless motor with variable frequency drive. On the generator side the motor can spin at any speed, the solid state speed controller will always output the desired bus voltage, when you aren't using maximum energy the motor can run at lower RPM. For the electric motors each motor has its own variable frequency drive and solid state inverter converts it into 3 AC currents by switching 6 transistors thousands of times per second. By varying the duration of the pulses the induction in the motor windings transforms the voltage allowing you to adjust speed using electronics. Because both the generators and motors can operate at variable RPMs many gearboxes, variable props etc. can be eliminated.

>>33844208
okay you need to finish school before talking. Nice start but you have not quite got your head around it yet.
PWM's have been a thing since the 70's and have some utility but are generally driven off an AC bus as it is far cheaper to build an alternator with voltage control. furthermore you do not use PWM's to control voltage in SSD's you use it to control frequency.

>>33844035
>A Tomahawk missile is many times larger than an HVP
And MANY times more powerful, too.
>Sure, you can make a smaller missile, but you will sacrifice range, payload, or some combination of the two.
HVP already sacrifices both. I'm trying to illustrate what an HVP-equivalent missile would look like. A lot smaller than a Tomahawk, that's for certain.
>Even the much shorter ranged ESSM can only fit 4 per cell.
Even ESSM is considerably more powerful than HVP; an HVP-equivalent missile would be smaller yet. Range has more to do with application and trajectory than anything else. And ESSM is much shorter than Tomahawk; a quad-pack leaves nearly half of a strike-length VLS unused.

You also don't seem at all concerned with the bulk of the generator fuel you'll need to power the railgun... after accounting for both railgun and turbine/generator inefficiencies compounded, you're looking at a nontrivial amount of fuel compared to the bulk of the projectile itself (much as with a missile).

>>33844048
>Missiles waste to much energy carrying their propulsion system and fuel during the flight.
And a railgun + power supply DOESN'T waste energy, converting it from chemical to electrical and then to mechanical?

I think you'd be surprised how close it really is energy-wise when all things are considered.

Unless you mean drag-wise; in which case I must point you to CKEM. For one thing, the propulsion section needn't be carried at all once peak velocity is reached - it can be discarded as soon as propellant is consumed (as CKEM did), allowing just the payload/projectile itself to continue onwards with minimal drag.

But missiles also offer another option which is unavailable to railguns; they can delay acceleration and maintain a moderate flight velocity to mitigate drag, and then accelerate once closer to the target (as CKEM did) or higher in the atmosphere (as an HVP-equivalent missile could). This is actually MORE efficient than what a railgun offers.

So I'm guessing it would take massive leaps in nano and micro battery technology before we can even consider a man portable rail gun?

>>33844274
>2017 not using FOC to control your PMAC motor.
kek

>>33844312
a diesel or turbine energy provides energy vastly more efficient than solid rocket fuel

Not having to deal with the rocket equation also helps.

Obviously for long range stuff, where terminal maneuverability matters, railguns are probably not the best

>>33843711
ISIS kill-mechs

>>33844312
>And a railgun + power supply DOESN'T waste energy, converting it from chemical to electrical and then to mechanical?
They both waste large amounts of energy. The issue is on a missile the payload is only a small percentage of the projectile mass, on a railgun all the equipment and fuel needed to accelerate the payload are on a ship. A missile with a 10kg payload might need 90kg of rocket motor and fuel to reach the target. When launched most of the energy is spent accelerating the 90kg that isn't even the payload. In comparison the railgun only needs to accelerate the 10kg, guidance and control systems have negligible mass.

If they can get railguns working well rocket powered missiles won't offer much competition, only air breathing jet engine cruise missiles can offer an advantage.

>>33843376
>Convincing someone to spend on 1.5 trillion dollar program

I'd like to introduce you to my friend US Congress, he is looking to spend money.

>>33844593
on things that get him elected by funneling that money to his home district.

shipbuilding is only popular in a couple districts, which is why our navy is cold war leftovers from 1970, run on electronics literally less powerful than your cell phone.

>>33843711
hardened structures, tanks/missile launchers(railguns can respond fast enough and precisely enough to target large vehicles if they sit still for ten minutes) warships, fortifications.

Its also not so much a matter of penetration as it is just destruction by massive KE delivery, the ability to slice through just about any armor is more or less a side effect. It mostly just about impacting with so much energy that the impact trauma is crippling to both materiel and personnel.

>>33844208
But spinning motors is not the problem here, energy transmission is. Railguns need very high current, but due to P=R*I^2, this results in a ton of losses to heat. So the solution both for DC and AC is to raise the voltage by orders of magnitude, keeping the current low, and dropping the voltage again for use in whatever device you need. The problem with DC is that voltage conversion is a bitch, and only starts paying off at very long ranges where capacitive and skin depth losses for AC overtake the additional cost of DC invertors/rectifiers.

A ship generally uses a single powerplant with lots of various loads connected to it, all fairly close. You're not gonna run HVDC on it. The only alternative is what had been suggested before, superconductors aka low voltage high current transmission. And the debate is about whether it's easier to stick cryogenic superconductor lines or step-up step-down stations inside a railgun-armed ship.

>>33844208
Listen to >>33844274 you're missing the point.

Railgun application: massive amounts of current, requires big big heavy conductors and a ton of heat rejection.
Power transmission from generator to railgun: somehow needs to fit inside the ship.

>>33844719
I did not miss the point. It is not going to be practical from a damage control perspective to run through multiple compartments on a ship with large amounts of cryogenic coolant at least without it taking up just as much space as running 12.6kv and stepping down on the other end.
www.eagle.org look up the rules for cryogenics for low pressure LNG tankers and just figure what that would entail.

>>33844793
You can't just run things through compartments. The entire ship is going to have to be designed from the beginning for energy weapons. They're already doing it with commercial ships, building huge DC busbars into them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETPUCDkj3pI

I think the newest french submarines have adopted lower voltage PMAC motors as well. The USN has just fallen behind in general when it comes to electric propulsion.

>>33844719
If the railgun is mounted on a ship, you got tons of free coolant everywhere. Need to design the hull to take advantage of that. The real problem is when it is mounted on a ground based platform.

>>33842797
>implying theres no flying aircraft carriers.

We wont see it in action, unless they manage to fix the power demand problem.

>>33842941
Because the US military HATES flexible options of engagement. Literally retarded.

>>33844077
>You're wrong, really... I-I just can't say how right now.

>>33843365
We got railguns now.

>>33844963
watched, not applicable to the application. Gas turbines do not have the power band of a high speed diesel engine. Great for a mudboat I guess but not applicable to the power plants used on larger vessels. BTW flux vector control of conventional AC motors makes them more efficient than DC motors.
Also I am not sure if you understand what defines a compartment on a ship.
www.eagle.org it is the ABS website.

>>33842974
Those cute little five inch guns are the equivalent of a cop strapping a snubnose 38 to his ankle. He doesn't honestly expect to use it, but he's seen too much shit to go anywhere without it.

>>33844793
Why even suggest DC then? If you're gonna convert voltages, AC is more mass and space efficient.
>>33844974
Cryogenics take a bit more than just an ambient temperature coolant.

>>33845409
I did not. I said from my knowledge in the industry that the only practical method with a system like this would be a high voltage(more than 10kv) bus and transform on the other end.

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>>33842525
Still not a man portable one

>>33845214
>BTW flux vector control of conventional AC motors makes them more efficient than DC motors.
That's not true ACIM have the lowest efficiency of brushless options and inferior power to weight and volumes. Synchronus reluctance offer some good solutions as well.

>>33843447
UCHUU SENKAN IOWAAAA

Guided railgun projectiles will be expensive as hell for what they offer, a guidance package that withstands the acceleration on launch doesn't come cheap, and they bleed their ability to kill constantly as opposed to missiles

Railgun projectiles will also suffer terribly if they are not deployed within line of sight, as maneuvering in hypervelocity is obviously an energy bleed, and naturally they can't offer flexible options that missiles do such as top attack

>>33845565
please remove the gibberish.

>>33842531
>>33842547

she must have a big pussy

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>>33846522

>>33842797
>we're basically building every Ace Combat superweapon that isn't a flying aircraft carrier.
A-anon, about that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUdVxJH6yI

>>33847002
That's actually kind of terrifying.

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>>33846522
Big as a house

>>33847002
Jesus fucking christ, how horrifying

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>>33847002

>One thousand REEEEEEEing drones flying above your head, armed with a grenade-sized charge. Ready to swoop down and end you at any moment.

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>>33844543
>a diesel or turbine energy provides energy vastly more efficient than solid rocket fuel
That kind of depends on speed. A rocket's cycle efficiency can be as high as 70% (about twice as efficient as a diesel or turboshaft will manage) when velocity is equal to exhaust velocity. Of course, since a rocket spends a good amount of time going slower (and sometimes faster) than this optimum, the average overall propulsive efficiency is generally much lower... but it's still entirely possible for a hypersonic rocket to have comparable or better average efficiency than a gas turbine.

But it doesn't end there - the railgun itself has IT'S OWN substantial losses, which are compounded on top of the losses of the generator. Between a ~30% efficient railgun and a ~40% efficient generator, you're looking at an overall efficiency of just 10-15%.

>>33844578
>on a railgun all the equipment and fuel needed to accelerate the payload are on a ship
I fail to see how this is helpful. Your issue is magazine depth, right? What does it matter where all this bulky shit ends up in the end when what we're really concerned with is how much space it takes up on the ship to begin with?
>When launched most of the energy is spent accelerating the 90kg that isn't even the payload.
This energy isn't actually LOST, though. It is effectively stored in the form of kinetic energy of the propellant, which can be recovered to some extent when that propellant is later burned and ejected (perfectly so at V = Ve). If you fail to acknowledge this effect and compare only propellant chemical energy to propulsive work, a hypersonic rocket would seemingly exceed 100% efficiency at the end of it's burn when velocity exceeds exhaust velocity (Oberth effect in action) - so clearly this is a very significant effect.
Rockets are admittedly quite inefficient at low speed, but pointing to the large propellant fraction as "wasted" energy isn't really valid.

>>33844312
>And MANY times more powerful, too.
Holy fuck, dude, THIS WAS MY POINT. WE HAD THIS DISCUSSION. HVP has much more depth. The missile has greater end effects for a single unit. That's the tradeoff.
>an HVP-equivalent missile would be smaller yet.
You can't make one. ESSM is about the smallest you can get while remaining useful for AAW. Contrast that with an HVP, which could carry 8 rounds per ESSM missile.

>You also don't seem at all concerned with the bulk of the generator fuel you'll need to power the railgun... after accounting for both railgun and turbine/generator inefficiencies compounded, you're looking at a nontrivial amount of fuel compared to the bulk of the projectile itself (much as with a missile).
I'm not in the slightest. Power generation comes from the main generator, not a new separate generator. Power is stored in capacitors.

>>33848738
>You can't make one.
Yes, you can. If you're willing to accept the same compromises that HVP itself introduces, then you absolutely can.
>ESSM is about the smallest you can get while remaining useful for AAW
So SeaRAM doesn't exist now? Iron Dome?

Not like HVP would be even remotely comparable to ESSM at AAW anyways...

>>33849916
>Yes, you can.
No, you really can't. You cannot make a missile that small fly anywhere near far enough to be remotely comparable, especially if you want any real effect on target.

>So SeaRAM doesn't exist now?
It's not useful at AAW. It's useful as a point defense weapon, but that does not a useful AAW weapon make. That would tend to be why people have a bone to pick with the LCS at the moment.

>Not like HVP would be even remotely comparable to ESSM at AAW anyways...
I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you. They've got guidance systems and they fly significantly faster. It's also likely that the anti-aircraft version will end up being essentially a flechette canister. I think they'd be quite more effective than you'd think. However, for the sake of argument let's assume that one round isn't equivalent to an ESSM. What about two, three, four rounds? Even assuming that the HVP only has a Pk of 30 or 40%, if you fire several rounds, you achieve the same effect as a (presumably) pk or 9X% of an ESSM, and you'll be using less of your defensive armament.

So yes, they're synergistic. No, missiles cannot approach the value of HVP. No, a single HVP likely will not be as good at a task as a single dedicated missile.

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>>33842941
>Blockading the Straits of Malacca against millions of butthurt chinks.
>Korean shore bombardment.
>Plopping a railgun cruiser in the Bosporus and trolling the eternal fuck out of the Russians who can't strike it without hitting civilian targets in a NATO country.

>>33843447
YES

>>33843149
Speaking of resupply, it would be possible to use supply ships to transfer a Big Box of Railgun Projectiles while at sea in a way that VLS cells can't match.
>fire all your tomahawks
>oh well back to port :DDDD
>fire 80% of your railgun shells
>supply ship comes by and tops you up
>keep firing

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new class of CGN with tons of VLS and a railgun instead of a 6 inch gun when?

>>33850189

I love you Anon.

You are one of the most sensible human beings I've ever seen on /k/.

>>33850737

IMO, the Zumwalt has the perfect armament.

Change up the design if you want, you won't hear a complaint from me about ditching the whole stealth thing. Especially since the Navy admits that this only makes it looks like a much smaller boat on radar.

Three guns. Less VLS than a Burke, redundant protection. More point defense.

IMO, it can't get much better than that unless you are somehow able to add even more guns, but I am not sure how realistic that is. A three-gun style turret though would give me an erection, but probably isn't feasible because of needing to replacing the barrels.

>>33851155
>Especially since the Navy admits that this only makes it looks like a much smaller boat on radar.
This is actually kind of important. If it looks like a small fishing boat, are you necessarily going to shoot at it without having confirmation?

>>33851381

I understand that, really, and I even understand that the Zumwalt is meant to be used for clandestine operations (putting SF on shores for instance), but you can't really do this for most vessels you plan on having in the Navy.

Imagine they decided to somehow replace the Burkes with these things, the entire stealth aspect would be nullified the instant you placed several of them close together - or worse, near a carrier. So it doesn't really make practical sense to invest a considerable amount of money into a design property that has a periphery use.

If we were to make a bunch of new Destroyers, and Cruisers to replace the ships we have now, I would stay well away from the stealth idea in order to maximize the number of vessels I can build with the budget allocated to me.

>>33851453
>and I even understand that the Zumwalt is meant to be used for clandestine operations
Then you don't understand anything, because that's not one of its jobs.

> but you can't really do this for most vessels you plan on having in the Navy.
Not exactly. The only thing which really couldn't be is the carrier. However, having these ships work in SAGs or alone is perfectly viable and even extremely welcomed. It's not exactly unheard of to have several small ships relatively close to each other, and believe me, the Navy knows how to manipulate things so they look like something else. They did it all through the Cold War.

I would also like to mention the synergistic effects of EW and stealth. The stealthier you are, the more EW is going to protect you from being identified. It's quite reasonable to suspect that you might not be able to determine where the target ship is at all. To say this has extreme effects on ship survivability are putting it mildly.

>>33843539
Except weight transfers into more water you need to displace, and water is fucking hard to displace. That means your ship gets massively slower and more inefficient. Not to mention that if the enemy also has railguns they will punch through your armor like it's not there. Better to avoid the expense and focus on maneuverability to make yourself harder to hit. With very little or no armor the round will punch a hole, which sucks, but with the armor to dump energy into it will propel molten shrapnel through the ship at ridiculous speed, leading to much more damage overall, including fires and massive non-localized flooding.

In essence, when it comes to railguns, the armor really just causes more damage and makes you flood faster when you do get get hit, while a focus on lighter ships with a lot of power might allow enough maneuverability to prevent hits.

>>33843787
>nuclear reactor for propulsion, sensors, and day-to-day ops
>charged capacitors for motoring high power gas turbines up in twenty seconds when you need the power, both for more engine power/super-flank speed, and for zipping railgun rounds out
Any problems I'm missing besides turbine start time?

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>>33850189
>Implying a GPS-guided chunk of tungsten designed primarily to hit surface targets is more effective at AAW than a dual-mode point-defense missile specifically designed for killing airborne targets
You railgunfags are on crack, I swear.

The "anti-air" capability of HVP itself is not expected to be anything more than point defense against missiles, helicopters and drones. The same sort of shit you'd use a conventional AA gun against. They've never suggested it's capable of anything more than that.

>non-aviation surfaces forces desperately trying to make themselves relevant again

>>33852361

railgunfags and BBfags are eternally on crack

I assume when people(people who actually know that they are talking about) say railguns can be used for AA they mean in the same way a ww2 DP 5" can be used for AA(i.e baka bombs better watch out but shooting an SS-N-19 isn't likely)

>>33845409
>Cryogenics take a bit more than just an ambient temperature coolant.

The helium is kept cool by the liquid oxygen, which is kept cool by water chillers.

Works for MRI machines, works for superconducting electrical grid interconnects. DTE Energy in michigan does this already for a pilot project into superconducting transmission.

Cold ass sea water is perfect for maintaining cryogenic temperature with minimal He loss.

The only problem I see is that the strategic reserve of liquid helium is a vulnerable, volitile and sometimes depleted resource

>>33843624
>>33843653
>>33843718
>all these brits getting toasty

It's a solely USN effort now, and it's all American made. The joint ventures ended when the US Army ended their program. Just because your government's pet contractor bought out American companies doesn't make American intellectual property English. The overarching corporation only gets the profits.

>>33852593
HVP are guided. This isn't WW2.

>>33852593
>railgunfags and BBfags are eternally on crack
>I assume when people(people who actually know that they are talking about) say railguns can be used for AA they mean in the same way a ww2 DP 5" can be used for AA(i.e baka bombs better watch out but shooting an SS-N-19 isn't likely)
General atomics says otherwise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev0G49jXJX0

>>33852361
If you're only counting current HVP, yes, it's only GPS guided. However, I'd like you to note that in the most recent congressional brief, the written notes quite clearly have a canister type round described. I'd also like to mention that guided rounds are already a thing, and that it would make sense to put them on any potential anti-aircraft rounds developed for the railgun, or even HVP-style rounds out of conventional powderguns. Not to mention that the Army plans on using HVP styled rounds out of 155mm howitzers to shoot down cruise missiles in the future.

>>33852361
>>33853927
And by guided rounds, I mean both laser and radar guided.

So let me ask you: Am I on crack or am I merely reporting what I've seen?

>>33847002
I think we found the next equivalent of the Jericho trumpet.. this is deeply unsettling

>>33853938
Missilefags are the true crack fiends. They're no longer a cureall due to cost.

>>33854007
I wouldn't say that. Missiles are still the best weapon we've got at the moment, and likely will be very good at what they do for a long time. They do have their weaknesses, cost and depth of magazine foremost among them. Both lasers and railguns/HVP will eventually fill those two lacking areas. So really, they're perfectly synergistic. I don't see why people think you have to like one or the other.

>>33854177

And this is really all I am asking for as well - synergy.

We didn't just stop using bombs because, whoa, missiles. Same thing here. Shit has all different roles, and unlike a lot of other tech - railguns aren't a meme. And this really needs to be pointed out. They are completely feasible, and we are "this" close to having them put on ships. The technology is already there, it just needs to be packaged into a streamlined system. The whole speculation on materials always being a blocker for them completely went out the window when we realized you could just make the rails cheap as fuck and replace them through an automated system on the fly. It's one of the few times I've seen the military become lucid and realize they could spend less money to solve their problem to get better tech.

>>33851812
>Not to mention that if the enemy also has railguns
That's the point. If they DON'T have railguns and the infrastructure for them (almost every other country doesn't), then they will need to use more conventional weapons which are much easier to shoot down. The armor threshold is so that you aren't vulnerable to the smallest hits and you indirectly strain the enemy's resources even more trying to keep up, especially if your publicized armor rating is actually an inflated but still convincing bluff. Even if they lose a war you don't want any final potential suicide attack to work.

>>33853749
Yes.... GPS-guided. Which would be great for AA, if aircraft were stationary targets... but they're not.

>>33853927
>the written notes quite clearly have a canister type round described.
Canister rounds are like birdshot. *Unguided* birdshot (unless you wanna tell me each little pellet submunition has its own seeker, kek). You're talking about using a glorified electric shotgun for AA.

Which is fine for CIWS/point-defense, don't get me wrong. Great, even. But it's not a missile-tier area defense weapon by any measure.

>I'd also like to mention that [laser and radar] guided rounds are already a thing, and that it would make sense to put them on any potential anti-aircraft rounds developed for the railgun
For one thing, radar seekers are expensive and usually involve moving parts (unless you go with an EVEN MORE expensive phased array). Considering these projectiles experience tens of thousands of Gs and require potted electronics just to survive the enormous shock involved, I frankly don't see radar guidance happening on any gun-launched projectile.

Laser or maybe even IR guidance is a somewhat different story. While there are still challenges involved with keeping the optics shock-resistant without compromising sensitivity, these EO sensors at least have the benefit of often being mostly or entirely solid-state, and laser guidance has already been operationally proven to boot (i.e. Copperhead).

But in any case it's blatantly obvious you're speculating your ass off to try and justify your position that railguns offer the potential to be a comprehensive missile-tier AAW rather than the very limited system they are actually poised to be.

>>33853938
Nah, you're still on crack.

>>33854548
>The whole speculation on materials always being a blocker for them completely went out the window when we realized you could just make the rails cheap as fuck and replace them through an automated system on the fly.
I always thought that was the idea if the rails couldn't be made durable, waaaaaay back when railguns WERE just a meme with no current working results. Like a ship with a mini factory in its belly recycling spent rails and shuffling them back up to the deck where an automated system rebarrels the guns until they can't be repaired anymore, then they get replaced by a supply ship.

>>33854973
>Canister rounds are like birdshot.
And timed canister rounds are not like birdshot. They are effectively uni-directional AA missiles scattering their payload in a cone ahead instead of a radial blast.

Unguided still works when you move so fast the air burns all around. Intercepting missiles are a challenge but hitting big metal birds should not be too difficult if they get close enough.

>>33855009
>timed canister round
That's called a shrapnel round, ya dingus.

>>33854940
If they don't have rail guns the armor is even dumber. You can't reasonably armor against missiles anyway, so why bother with the armor in that case?

>>33854973
Are you assuming that the canister burst right out of the barrel for no reason? It can fly all the way to near the target before detonating. Not to mention a fairly high fire rate and velocity means it's not necessarily too difficult to get multiple rounds in the general area, and the fighter won't know when the firing is, just that they've been radar locked. They also won't know to take evasive maneuvers unless they see one burst or get hit, in which case they're at the least most likely mission killed.

>>33855086
>It can fly all the way to near the target before detonating.
Then it's not a fucking canister round, it's shrapnel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrapnel_shell#Development_of_shrapnel_shell

>>33842859
Heres the issue you just send out something what looks like a warhead and by the time we know tje doferemce between the warhead and the fake its too late to take out the warhead

>>33854973
You ever hear of beam riding guidance? even cheaper than
GPS.

>>33854973
>Canister rounds are like birdshot. *Unguided* birdshot (unless you wanna tell me each little pellet submunition has its own seeker, kek). You're talking about using a glorified electric shotgun for AA.
Is it really so hard for you to envision a canister being directed where it needs to go before opening to unveil a shitload of flechettes? Cause that's what it seems like. Fuck dude, this isn't even that high tech. There are conventional guns shooting technology like this.

One example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0oHvqIUEmY
While the rounds aren't guided, you can see the airbursting flechette part in action.

>For one thing, radar seekers are expensive and usually involve moving parts...
There's one thing you seem to have forgotten: SARH. Much cheaper and much more easily resistant to G forces. They're used in current radar guided projectiles. And yes, the rounds would be more expensive than unguided shells. Considering that the alternative is letting a ship get hit by a missile, I think you'd take the guided shell, yeah? Or at least, stock them for your main gun (which could be a railgun), because it does actually provide substantial contribution.

>to try and justify your position that railguns offer the potential to be a comprehensive missile-tier AAW rather than the very limited system they are actually poised to be.
No, I'm justifying my position that they provide far more credible AAW capabilities than you seem to believe. I am not advocating that they are comprehensive. In fact, you may have noticed that I've repeatedly mentioned such a thing as synergy between railguns and missiles, with lasers eventually entering the equation as well, although lasers with credible capability of taking down ASCMs are farther out than railguns by a decade or more.

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>>33855095
>>33855067
Oh thank god these semantics saved you from being incorrect!

>>33855073
That's why in the very beginning I specifically put "laser CIWS" into the ship requirements. Those three things come together into a game changing package that will require everyone to burn their combat manuals and write entirely new ones.

>>33854984

AFAIK the Navy is okay with the rails being destroyed because what we've come to find out is that you don't need strong rails to achieve the same results. Kind of like rifling vs smooth-bore. Why rifle if you get the same job done with smooth-bore? Essentially all you need are two pieces of metal that can conduct electricity, and just let the HVP shred it as it comes out. Replacement is really easy because you just pull it out and slide new ones in without any sort of expensive machining or complex processes. I remember back when I was really into the project that the Navy wanted the rails to last for at least 120 shots. Which we both know is literally nothing when they also want a minimum of 10 shots per minute concurrently. Obviously some level of durability is at play here (must meet a minimum), but they aren't trying to force some sort of currently unobtainable goal on the entire project that would otherwise kill it off.

If they can get that many shots out of a gun, and it only takes a few minutes to replace the rails (and this is assuming manual replacement, and not some sort of machine automated one). Then you are still doing a lot better than a pure missile boat like a Burke which needs to go back to a harbor in order to have the VSL's replaced. Really it isn't "that" much space being taken up. Just look at the rails on BAE's gun, they are a fraction of the size of the entire system. And they're inert, and they're just pieces of metal that can conduct electricity.

It kind of feels like they are just trying to beat the old M68 guns on the Abrams right now in terms of speed, energy, RoF, etc. and then try and figure out how to beat it in terms of durability.

But maybe I am wrong, I haven't been able to find any comment by the Navy anywhere about being able to fire the gun thousands or tens of thousands of times before the rail needs to be replaced.

>>33855106

You just shoot fletchettes. Or more than one round, which you're going to do anyway.

>>33854973
>gps guidance is only for static targets

Lol you are clueless

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>>33850737
Call up Huntington Ingalls.
288 MK 41 VLS
Railgun
4 35' S band radars

>>33842612
>this power generation meme

It's simple to generate the power needed for one, even a WWI cruiser could generate the power for continuous fire, it's all about the capacitance - that's what actually matters.

>>33842859
You realize icbms come in at like mach 20, right?

>>33843676
Now we're talking

>>33858125

The speed of the ICBM has very little do with how fast your interceptor needs to move. The backbone of AEGIS for instance is the RIM-161, and look at its specs. Do you see the initial similarities there? And railguns will only continue to be improved upon.

You are also missing the point - ballistic missiles (albeit insanely fast) have to travel a very specific way. Which is go up very quickly, and then curve to conserve fuel as the earth spins. They achieve such high speeds once they are in space, not before.

To get an idea for how a slower interceptor can stop a much faster ballistic missile, go grab a baseball or something of equal size.

Now throw it up into the air in a very steep parabolic arc, and catch it with your other hand at roughly the same level as where you started before tossing it up. That's how an ICBM travels, and always will travel because of their design. An interceptor meanwhile does the same thing (assuming it's a missile), except it's arc is much smaller and the point at which you catch it with your other hand is higher up. Much less distance is being traveled overall by the interceptor, and the two will always converge because of the ICBM's flight pattern. This is the whole reason why we went full MIRV.

You can't really stop an ICBM on its way up (unless you are literally right there), but the launch can be detected. If we stuck to a single re-entry vehicle, this means that our enemies would only have to stop one object following a predictable route - pretty easy. But with MIRV, you need to be able to stop ALL the objects, or else you're still getting hit with a nuke. However, our tech is now sufficiently advanced enough to track the entirety of the launch and re-entry, which is why AEGIS is a thing. With a railgun, you'd just need to track each warhead and then fire a HVP (probably flechette based) at each inbound vehicle while missiles help cover any blind spots. They work together.

And the end result is the same.

>>33842797
ids happening

>>33861682
Nah

>https://news.usni.org/2017/05/03/lawmakers-say-time-navy-field-new-unmanned-systems-energy-weapons

Railguns coming soon, boys.