After 15 years and $500m, the US Navy decides it doesn't need shipboard railguns after all After more than 15 years of R&D, and half a billion dollars of funding, the United States Navy has decided to give up on the prospect of mounting enormous railguns on its ships. For the moment, at least. The project was intended to produce a mighty weapon which could fire projectiles at Mach 7 at targets over 100 miles (161km …
Fear not, Boris has promised lasers for the Royal Navy - they just need some Sharks...
Lasers sound like they would be devastating, but in reality they would make a very poor weapon except in a few situations. To cause significant damage to a vehicle, a laser with any practical power output would have to remain focussed on a single spot for at least a few seconds, and it would be trivial to develop a cheap effective shield (armour) for buildings (though a laser capable of doing much damage to a building would need a truck-sized generator at least to power it). White or silver paint would probably do the trick. Similarly laser-proof clothing would protect the infantry.
White or silver paint would probably do the trick. Similarly laser-proof clothing would protect the infantry.
So regular soldiers troops warfighters will dress like extras from a bad 1960's Sci-Fi movie, and assault troops will look like the flower of French medieval heavy cavalry in their highly polished metal plate?
Yup. It's fun watching laser cutting machines at work on hefty metal plate. Of course they have the advantage of controlled & short focus between emitter and target. Challenge with lasers as a DEW is to keep focus on a target long enough for the beam to do damage. Especially when the target is moving, and you're in an environment where waves, spray, humidity etc would be affecting dispersion. Thus far, they seem better against small vessels, ie terrorists in RIBs than more heavily armoured warships. Fun to think up potential counters though, like smoke, water misters or hull cladding/coatings that could absorb or disperse beam energy.
The temperature at the place a laser beam strikes depends on the material it strikes. The beam itself is electromagnetic radiation and thus does not contain any molecules and so cannot have any temperature.
If the beam hits a mirrored surface for example, there will be hardly any temperature increase at all. Of course, if the temperature increase is sufficient to cause burning, the material will usually become darker, thus absorbing more energy and getting hotter.
The idea is IMHO great
The ability to put bang on target for minimal bang per shit is always an aim of the armed forces,
A ship , that can pop in, put say 30 rounds of 500 Kg bang each in a few minutes on target, is very useful,
The ability to not have the tonnes of "cordite" on board the ship to propel those 500Kg shells is a great saving,
the amount of work that goes into making a ship "safe" with all that bang on board is great.
The problem of ever increasing spec on this project ,
putting all the intelligence in the ever increasing costly shells was "mad" , but probably doen to us eon other projects.
then as the cost of the shells increased, the number to be purchased was decreased, meaning the NRE on each went up,
putting the cost per shell up, meaning less were to be purchased, etc etc.
Remember the "Long Lance" torpedoes? The US Navy took years to realize the opposition had a weapon 3 times better (range) than theirs. The US Navy took years to realize most of their own torpedoes were duds.
What, we're supposed to hope incompetence is a universal phenomenon?
A rail gun round isn't going to be steerable. Changing the direction of a round going that fast would be incredibly hard. To even try means building a system into the projectile that can take the acceleration and the EM field, and still survive. The best they can hope for is the ability to nudge the round a bit just before it hits a target if it has slowed down enough.
One of the premises of magneforming is that the material is smacked into the form so fast that it can't deflect. An example that is used to explain the process is taking a long metal bar, putting the end against a concrete wall and trying to push it through. The bar will bend. Launch that same bar at a high velocity and you have a "long bar penetrator" that will pound its way to the other side with very little bending. A rail gun round will direct its energy in the direction of travel and won't be able to spread out and dissipate that energy over a very wide area before it's passed through something. With firearms it's often called knock down power. Small high velocity rounds will often pass right through the target where a bigger round going slower (same total kinetic energy) will knock the target down and do far more damage. How often is it more optimum to put a bunch of holes into the side of something over stoving the whole thing in?
I live in a place with no military that wants indepence: most people here don't grok that you get indepence from a war. Every 4th of July the US celebrates that it still has independence (from its allies) because an army is defending the border with an arsenal of fabulously expensive tech.
You can lose a war before it starts with no military e.g. Crimea.
I am a pacifist: I like the bouncers' smile to welcome you and remind you who owns the place.
"For those who continue to yearn for huge seaborne electromagnetically propelled projectiles – and let's face it, who doesn't?" Erm, quite a lot of people. Not everyone is into silly, expensive toys whose only purpose is destruction.
"China has already conducted sea trials with a shipboard railgun". But has it? Since when has Chinese media told the truth? According to the USA.UK et al it is all Commie propaganda and misinformation. Amazing how people (including the Pentagon) cherry pick to suite their preconceptions. Isn't there a medical term for that?
I've often wondered where the limit lies with these things. Ultimately you get to the point where the projectile you're firing is travelling so fast (by definition at sea level) that aerodynamic heating is going to destroy it - it's effectively at re-entry speeds in the densest atmosphere - you shoot a kilo of tungsten at them, and 2 miles away there's a large cloud of tungsten dioxide vapour!
Railguns may make sense in space, but in an atmosphere they might make about as much sense as a subaquatic sidewinder missile.
I believe the original target for the trial was a 200 mile range @ Mach 5.
The X-15 flew at Mach 6.72, manned, and NASAs X-43 at Mach 9.6 (unmanned), so it's not like we've not had things at these speeds before.
Also Mach 5 is 3,806 mph, so 200 mile range is a flight time of a little over 3 seconds. Although presumably if the launch was Mach 5, it's going to drop some of that speed in transit.
Then it stops being a railgun and starts being a piecemaker?
Or is that only when (vaguely) under the command of Sgt Detritus?
A 100-mile range ASuW weapon that compromises the ship carrying it and only gives a few shots is useless. The 30+ year old Shipwreck ASM or it's more capable successor (Brahmos etc) have longer reach.
Fancy railgun that takes about 6 hours of time inside the enemies kill zone to get into range? Useless.
Unless you're in the business of printing money
The lack of a viable replacement for Harpoon and Tomahawk ASM is a gaping gap in NATO planning, unless they have something they are not letting on about. Given that there are shortages of basic equipment, I'm not betting on it.
The UK there is a requirement (I-SSGW ) that has been release by the MOD and the following are likely to bid:
Lockheed Martin (LRASM)
MBDA (Exocet MM40 Block IIIc)
Raytheon/Kongsberg (NSM)
Saab (RBS-15 Mk3)
IAI (SEA SERPENT)
The Harpoon Block-1C full retirement has been pushed back to sometime in 2023.
My guess is that Sea Serpent will be the winner. However, LRASM could be chosen for political reasons.
You are messing Shipwreck with Sunburn. Brahmos is a development. of the p270 Moskit ( Sunburn). The P700 Granit ( Shipwreck) ia unique beast on it's own.
Yes, I agree rail gun is pointless for antiship role when you have in hand mature cruise missile tech. It will be handy in defensive purpose , shooting down fast moving airborne incoming threats
The Moskit (Sunburn) has a lot of similarities to Harpoon. Brahmos is something of a derivative of it but it's capabilities are at least ballpark with Shipwreck. 180nm range quoted on export versions, and better again for 'native' versions.
But yes, the main point I was trying to make was a 100nm range railgun, at 36 knots your opponent gets a lot of shots off before you even get into range (intelligence willing).
NATO ASuW capability is totally tied to aircraft or submarines. Harpoon's lack of range means a surface v surface engagement is generally a very bad idea. Retaining older models to 2023 rather than going with nothing is probably a good thing, albeit the shelf life of the solid fuels etc will I'm sure be a factor in how long they can be retained.
Besides the options suggested above, a storm shadow derivative might be a good option. Something with higher terminal stage performance would make it a lot tougher to avoid.
Perhaps rather than comparing Russian capability, we should also be looking at Chinese capability, for an engagement there seems a whole lot more plausible.
If they had managed to make a railgun work well, then, as was pointed out many years ago here:
https://www.theregister.com/2010/12/13/32mj_railgun_test_onr/
it would have ushered in a new era of dreadnought-style battleships ruling the oceans. Admirals would have been very happy about this, and the prestige of the Navy vs. the Army or Air Force (their most deadly foes) would have increased dramatically. So throwing $500M of taxpayers' money at the idea was well worth it, from their point of view.
..... do you think UKGBNI would have been invited to pay for some pieces ..... as is the common usual practice between special relationship allies?
However, some such friends leave a lot, and oft too often too much to be desired to be considered healthy in support of being wealthy with the following being a prime example of the nature of such successes ........ https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/7/7/gao-report-f35-program-is-unaffordable-for-pentagon
Proceed with due care and rapt attention out there for there be gremlins and daemons/goblins and almighty remote access trojans on the loose and at their creative work. peaceful rest and immaculate play practically everywhere and virtually anywhere too.
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"'Onest guv, we can't get this thing to work so we're just gonna give up the development and consign this Stealth Fighter idea to the scrapheap, along with the Mach 3 spyplane and the one flies so high you need a spaceship to catch it..." *
Oh no, wait a minute - those were Air Force projects, not Navy. Maybe the project was handed to the wrong branch of the military?
Anon cos I don't need the hassle from a bunch of newly out-of-work swabbies .
*There may be others. But unlike the Navy, we don't (always) brag about our new toys.
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