Impressive!
polycounter lvl 18
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/2008...4dD5Hg.OvYDW7oF
vid: http://www.livescience.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=080201-railgun
I really kicks ass to see iconic sci-fi stuff getting closer and closer to reality.
vid: http://www.livescience.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=080201-railgun
I really kicks ass to see iconic sci-fi stuff getting closer and closer to reality.
Replies
Why is there so much fire in the slow mo video!?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=N1LOmm85cZ0
Hand versions are pretty much out of question because of the energy requierments.
Why is there so much fire in the slow mo video!?
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If I had to guess I'd say it's friction causing the insulation and some of the rail to shoot out with the projectile.
Explains all of the fire coming out of the barrel.
more railgun news
:P
Humanity is getting really good at wiping itself out.
:P
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pfaw!
we haven't even done it once yet
pfaw!
we haven't even done it once yet
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We made that virus thats 99.9% lethal to the human population, and its quite possibly easily transmissable. So I think we've got that angle covered if we ever wanted to...
So THAT'S what a real railgun sounds like - pretty much like a regular cannon but with a slight whine behind it...
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With a conventional gun/cannon, most the noise you hear is from the projectile breaking the sound barrier, so a railgun that fires a supersonic projectile should sound pretty similar.
We made that virus thats 99.9% lethal to the human population, and its quite possibly easily transmissable. So I think we've got that angle covered if we ever wanted to...
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Granted, but I'll stand by my opinion until we've wiped out humanity at least once.
Humanity is getting really good at wiping itself out.
:P
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Practice makes perfect :P
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pfaw!
we haven't even done it once yet
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We made that virus thats 99.9% lethal to the human population, and its quite possibly easily transmissable. So I think we've got that angle covered if we ever wanted to...
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I Am Legend was a documentary?!
I Am Legend was a documentary?!
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And it was filmed in real-time!
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I Am Legend was a documentary?!
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And it was filmed in real-time!
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if that's a shake quote, mop wins this thread
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pfaw!
we haven't even done it once yet
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We made that virus thats 99.9% lethal to the human population, and its quite possibly easily transmissable. So I think we've got that angle covered if we ever wanted to...
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I Am Legend was a documentary?!
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Seriously. The only reasons I haven't posted any art on here in a while is because I'm too damned busy fighting monster zombie vampires and hunting for food on the plains of Manhattan, all the while experimenting for a cure...
...send food.
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pfaw!
we haven't even done it once yet
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We made that virus thats 99.9% lethal to the human population, and its quite possibly easily transmissable. So I think we've got that angle covered if we ever wanted to...
[/ QUOTE ]
I Am Legend was a documentary?!
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Seriously. The only reasons I haven't posted any art on here in a while is because I'm too damned busy fighting monster zombie vampires and hunting for food on the plains of Manhattan, all the while experimenting for a cure...
...send food.
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I will send you cake!
(that's a lie.)
It's about as effective as E-Peen - It only really matters as long as the guy you are standing up to doesn't knock on your door.
Railguns and whatnot seems pretty interesting, but high projectile lasers, long range sound "pain beams" and other forms of "sci-fi" stuff is more likely to be seen than this stuff as far as "on the field" goes.
P.S. - Did you see any equipment, personnel, or location that even remotely resembled the Navy? Looked like a bunch of rednecks shooting stacks of wood with a long rusty potato gun.
P.S. - Did you see any equipment, personnel, or location that even remotely resembled the Navy? Looked like a bunch of rednecks shooting stacks of wood with a long rusty potato gun.
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Well, I think weapons systems are usually developed by contractors, and not within the military apparatus itself. That would explain why you don't see guys dressed in pressed uniforms and spit-polished boots.
if that's a shake quote, mop wins this thread
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Well spotted, sir!
Edit: according to wikipedia, the weapon in question is expected to deliver more force than a bgm-109 tomahawk by firing a seven pound slug. Seems a lot more cost effective.
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according to wikipedia, the weapon in question is expected to deliver more force than a bgm-109 tomahawk by firing a seven pound slug. Seems a lot more cost effective.
[/ QUOTE ] They still have more questions to figure out.
- How many dumb slugs do you have to fire before you can hit the target? In the example shown it was a pretty straight forward targeting system, point, pray and fire, wash rinse repeat until you hit it. How effective is that method at keeping civilian causalities down?
- How many trillions is it going to take to come up with an advanced spotting system that replaces the guided system they have now? Sure the slugs might be cheap but how much more are we going to dump into R&D now that we have a working barrel? Is that still more cost effective then firing guided projectiles?
- How much energy does it take to fire it?
- I guess rail guns can only be placed on nuclear powered ships?
- What is the rate of fire, and how long can that be sustained.
- What does it take to maintain it all?
Is that force being measured to a single point, or are they taking into account the different types of payloads and the guided nature of tomahawks? Remember that tomahawks can do more then just make something go boom.
Is that force constant or does it degrade over the maximum range? With a guided projectile you might have a shorter range but you can make sure that its payload delivers the same force within that range.
Thats great and all, but how well does it deliver explosive rounds to the target? Firing solid projectiles is neat at pretty close ranges, but you have to be really accurate and hope it has enough energy left to actually do damage. When your projectile has a blast radius you don't have to worry about being as accurate or maintaining speed.
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The kinetic energy produced by the projectile moving at Mach5 is equivalent to a conventional explosive weapon. That's the point - not storing bombs on ships, putting the same artillery power out at longer ranges, keeping ships safer.
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This is still not really that impressive when you really think about it. Atomic weaponry is still the most available and devastating stuff out there, (aside from obvious chemical/biological disasters) and it is also perfected. It is, unfortunately, a mythical power that will only be used by the mad and insane. No country with any sort of ethical premise will ever fire a Nuclear weapon.
It's about as effective as E-Peen - It only really matters as long as the guy you are standing up to doesn't knock on your door.
Railguns and whatnot seems pretty interesting, but high projectile lasers, long range sound "pain beams" and other forms of "sci-fi" stuff is more likely to be seen than this stuff as far as "on the field" goes.
P.S. - Did you see any equipment, personnel, or location that even remotely resembled the Navy? Looked like a bunch of rednecks shooting stacks of wood with a long rusty potato gun.
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This is about building better ship-based artillery, which puts heavy hitting weaponry in places where air support can't reach. This isn't about obliterating countries or being safer for anyone other than the people carrying the ammunition or firing the gun. And "pain beams" are a terrible idea for fighting wars (and a great idea for crowd control/suppression) because they don't remove the enemy's ability or capacity to fight, merely their desire to fight for as long as they're hit with the beam (which is why it's great for non-military action).
I see this tech as a nice cheap compliment to the existing tech and way of sparing the high tech when it isn't needed but is it really going to replace it? That is if it actually does cost less when you factor in everything besides the cost of the slug.
I like where they are going with this, but they still have a lot of hoops to jump through.
-It takes a ton of energy to fire it, that's why we don't have them issued already. The system isn't finished, it's just being tested.
-Of course it won't replace missles for firing over mountains. You also can't fire torpedos at land targets, but they aren't obsolete. We have specialized weapons for different situations. However, if you could choose between firing a (easy to counter, expensive) missle or a railgun at another ship or a coastal target, the railgun is easily more effective.
I wouldn't mind havin one of those for deer huntin...
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/012007/01172007/251373
holy crap that is much more impressive then the yahoo link of "look what these rednecks are doing BOOM! slow-MO!".
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Are they rednecks because they're not test firing giant cannons in populated urban areas and are instead surrounded by trees?
How else do you demonstrate what the gun does in video other than video taping it?
Maybe I have a different reaction to it because I was pretty current on rail guns prior to the article and the video, but I don't understand the vitriol. It's a giant goddamn gun that fires bullets without anything explosive, and the bullets fire so fast THEY IGNITE THE AIR AROUND THEM. LIKE RE-ENTRY FOR SPACECRAFT. That is totally badass.
Despite this gun looking similar to other guns, it isn't using anything approaching conventional propulsion methods. And just seeing it being test-fired in what amounts to a defense contractor's backyard makes it much more real (and therefore cool) to me than reading about stuff without actually seeing it.
Do it!
video of mini rail gun in action
Railgun in a nutshell.
Two metallic rails with a voltage going across them. Non-conducting slug. Very strong magnet with the magnetic field pointing up (or down). So looking down at the parallel rails, the magnetic field would either be pointing towards or away from you. Fuse behind slug (this is the source of the fire).
When the fuse is lit (Boom! Fire!) it becomes an ionized (conducts electricity) gas. This gas essentially connects the two rails allowing current to flow. Moving electrons in a magnetic field will have a force on them that is perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the direction of the current flow. So if the current is going to the left, magnetic field is going up, then there will be a force on the gas going out. The gas then pushes the slug, which I'm guessing is why the bottom if the slug looked rounded. The stronger the magnet and the more current flow you can get the more force it pushes out with.
This is exactly how an electric motor works. Lots of wires have a current on them in a magnetic field, force on the wires causes the motor to turn.
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holy crap that is much more impressive then the yahoo link of "look what these rednecks are doing BOOM! slow-MO!".
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Are they rednecks because they're not test firing giant cannons in populated urban areas and are instead surrounded by trees?
[/ QUOTE ]You might be a redneck when your work and casual wardrobe are the same as your hunting. I'm sure thats just a personal hang up, but I would choose to wear something other then my deer gutting cloths when filming what could amount to be a revolutionary moment in modern warfare. Honestly, if it works, and hes the right man for the job who cares, it just sparks odd thoughts of backyard homebrew wrestling and banjo music when I see people wearing cammo coats and Bud Light hats, especially when they are loading big guns... Who knows maybe it was important that he blend into the trees...
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How else do you demonstrate what the gun does in video other than video taping it?
[/ QUOTE ]Yahoo could have provided a lot more info about the whole thing. Really if no one said it was a rail gun it would be easy to mistake it as a regular explosives driven gun in anyones backyard.
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Maybe I have a different reaction to it because I was pretty current on rail guns prior to the article and the video, but I don't understand the vitriol. It's a giant goddamn gun that fires bullets without anything explosive, and the bullets fire so fast THEY IGNITE THE AIR AROUND THEM. LIKE RE-ENTRY FOR SPACECRAFT. That is totally badass.
[/ QUOTE ]I was totally out of the loop and didn't have any time to do extra searches, its nice that Polycount members where able to fill in the gaps, thanks again guys. I have no animosity toward the rail gun, I'm all for it and excited to see it progressing this far. I just didn't see how it could out right replace guided projectiles, and they didn't address any of the other issues that would keep it out of use. Thankfully people more in the know where able to answer those questions, it would have been nice to have gotten that info from the article, but I totally understand that in modern media well thought out and researched articles are few and far between.
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And just seeing it being test-fired in what amounts to a defense contractor's backyard makes it much more real (and therefore cool) to me than reading about stuff without actually seeing it.
[/ QUOTE ]I guess I would like both, to see and read, but this news article was pretty much just a link to a video.
Gonna be a quick post cause dinner's cookin.
Railgun in a nutshell.
Two metallic rails with a voltage going across them. Non-conducting slug. Very strong magnet with the magnetic field pointing up (or down). So looking down at the parallel rails, the magnetic field would either be pointing towards or away from you. Fuse behind slug (this is the source of the fire).
When the fuse is lit (Boom! Fire!) it becomes an ionized (conducts electricity) gas. This gas essentially connects the two rails allowing current to flow. Moving electrons in a magnetic field will have a force on them that is perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the direction of the current flow. So if the current is going to the left, magnetic field is going up, then there will be a force on the gas going out. The gas then pushes the slug, which I'm guessing is why the bottom if the slug looked rounded. The stronger the magnet and the more current flow you can get the more force it pushes out with.
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That's not how it works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
You said it uses gas propulsion. That's wrong and defeats the entire purpose of using an electromagnetic system. A projectile weapon that uses gas expansion as propulsion is nothing special - that's what a modern gunpowder bullet does. A primer (your 'fuse') ignites the gunpowder, creating a rapid expansion of gases and pushing the bullet out of the barrel. Sticking a "very strong magnet" in there doesn't change anything about how gas expansion projectiles work.
A railgun involves no gas expansion at all. That wiki entry specifically says "the limits of gas expansion prohibit launching an unassisted projectile to velocities greater than about 1.5 km/s and ranges of more than 50 miles [80 km] from a practical conventional gun system." A railgun slug travels at more than twice that speed and several times as as far because it is propelled by Lorentz force down the length of the barrel, generated by the electromagnetic rails.
The jet of flame from the barrel in that demo video is a by-product of the railgun's tremendous heat. The slug travelling down the barrel generates so much heat energy that it ignites aluminum particles and residual gases in the barrel. The expansion of those gases again do not contribute to the slug's velocity.
The above is all what I've learned about railguns from the web in the last two days. If you've got a reference that says firing a railgun involves lighting a fuse and gas pushes the slug out of the barrel, I'd like to read it.
*fetches popcorn*
Railgun is a gun that makes awesome light trails that pukes a hole thru everything and makes people laugh and rejoyce !
Science!
All that's happening is that some conductive object exists allowing current to flow resulting in a force on that object. So we are thinking the same thing, just a different object.
No jackass is going to design a railgun that is electrified all the time. Loading that would be an extreme hazard, and running it would be an extreme waste of energy.
So the need for a fuse is non-existant.
EDIT: and upon re-reading, you're not proposing a gas expansion system, but a system where the gas acts as the primary projectile that the rails are working upon, pushing the actual round out of the barrel. This is needlessly complex and wastes energy that would be better put towards moving the actual projectile rather than a cloud of gas. Additionally, I've got the feeling that the cloud of gas would dissipate backwards despite the electric current, and you would lose a lot of energy per shot.
love when people try to sound smarter than they are !!
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I starting my post by saying I had been trying to avoid these threads, which I have been since I PM'd you a couple months ago. I really don't get what your problem is with me, but I'm not going anywhere so how about you just fucking learn to deal with it?
Verm, no argument at all. I agree with you that it doesn't use gas expansion to push the slug. The reason for the fuse in my example is that in a solid state it is not a conductor, so everything can be charged and ready to go. When the fuse is lit it becomes an ionized gas, this allows current between the two rails to flow. The current causes a force to be placed on the gas which pushes the gas along, thus pushing the slug. So the gas isn't expanding like in a gun, it's moving. As for the cause of the fire, that was just a guess (lot of current + gas = heat seemed reasonable).
All that's happening is that some conductive object exists allowing current to flow resulting in a force on that object. So we are thinking the same thing, just a different object.
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Okay, I see what you're saying. In the railgun descriptions I've read, the slug itself is conductive and completes the circuit (and I suppose that contact/friction with the rails is what causes the massive heat issue.) I was reading your post literally and thinking "Fuse? What fuse??"
And I'm glad dinner was good
If the rails aren't charged until you push a button then you have to charge the rails very quickly as the projectile would begin to move as soon as there was any potential going across the rails. Large metal rails would take a while to charge up and the current would ramp up, and you wouldn't get as much force out of it as you would if the rails were fully charged. Would be interesting to see a plot of the current and see how it behaves. But then like you said there's the safety issue, don't touch it. Might sting a little. Shouldn't waste much energy though, it's essentially a large capacitor at that point, storing energy.