Posts by Dorobuta 18 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jul 2011
I would think that using the iPad as a secondary display opens up the use of a stylus (apple pencil) as a pointing device for the Mac. This may not be initially available, but I could see this as a natural growth of this capability. I also see it as something useful.
But that's me, as always, your mileage may vary.
cost of projectiles
high rate of fire
when I can shoot hundreds of rail gun projectiles for less than the cost of a single missile.
guided munitions from rail guns are within the realm of possibility. but a frangible projectile that became hundreds of hypersonic pellets after being fired would do massive damage on an air craft - sort of a super phallanx. or CiWS
Sectional density and Ballistic coefficients come in to play. The sectional density of the projectile will be extremely high. There probably isn't enough density in the missile to vaporize the projectile. A missile has a very low sectional density and is not designed to hit the target head on. That is very difficult to do.
The missile works by getting close enough to detonate and send a clod of shrapnel into the target. When dealing with other missiles or aircraft, this is more then enough to cause them to stop working. With a projectile like this, the best you'll do is alter its course.
Just like laser designators for other guided munitions, the beam is invisible to the naked eye. You'd have to know you're being lased, know the color of the laser, and know where the shot was coming from.
The seeker on the bullet is going to have a limited field of vision.The bullet would not be able to see a target 180 from the point of aim. The amount of correction available is dependent on the speed of the projectile and the distance to the target. Gross corrections will drastically slow the bullet down, as it is not traveling under power. I suspect that there is a narrow field of vision, 24 - 30 degrees at most, that it has.
It will have nowhere the same kinetic energy that a conventional .50 caliber has using a 600 - 750 gr bullet at around 3,000 fps vs this much lighter, slower round.
Good anti-personnel round. Probably very useful against someone who is going to shoot at you with an RPG.
of course, we could be in the middle of a huge annihilation event, that to an observer outside of out universe would maybe be a few nano-seconds in duration. While to us, inside the event, it is taking so long we aren't aware of it. (Along the lines of what happens when you cross the event horizon of a black hole.)
the theorists could be correct and not have any means to see the proof.
Bummer.
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