Normally, new weaponry tends to make defense more expensive. But the Navy likes to say its new railgun delivers the punch of a missile at bullet prices.

A demonstration of the futuristic and comparatively inexpensive weapon yesterday at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren had Navy brass smiling.

The weapon, which was successfully tested in October at the King George County base, fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible speeds, using electricity rather than gun powder.

The technology could increase the striking range of U.S. Navy ships more than tenfold by the year 2020.

" It' s pretty amazing capability, and it went off without a hitch," said Capt. Joseph McGettigan, commander of NSWC Dahlgren Division.

" The biggest thing is it' s real--not just something on the drawing board," he said.

The railgun works by sending electric current along parallel rails, creating an electromagnetic force so powerful it can fire a projectile at tremendous speed.

Because the gun uses electricity and not gunpowder to fire projectiles, it' s safer, eliminating the possibility of explosions on ships and vehicles equipped with it.

Instead, a powerful pulse generator is used.

The prototype fired at Dahlgren is only an 8-megajoule electromagnetic device, but the one to be used on Navy ships will generate a massive 64 megajoules. Current Navy guns generate about 9 megajoules of muzzle energy.

The railgun' s 200 to 250 nautical-mile range will allow Navy ships to strike deep in enemy territory while staying out of reach of hostile forces.

Rear Adm. William E. " Bill" Landay, chief of Naval Research, said Navy railgun progress from the drawing board to reality has been rapid.

" A year ago, this was [just] a good idea we all wanted to pursue," he said.

Elizabeth D' Andrea of the Office of Naval Research said a 32-megajoule lab gun will be delivered to Dahlgren in June.

Charles Garnett, project director, called the projectile fired by the railgun " a supersonic bullet," and the weapon itself is " a very simple device."

He compared the process to charging up a battery on the flash of a digital camera, then pushing the button and " dumping that charge," producing a magnetic field that drives the metal-cased ordnance instead of gun powder.

The projectile fired yesterday weighed only 3.2 kilograms and had no warhead. Future railgun ordnance won' t be large and heavy, either, but will deliver the punch of a Tomahawk cruise missile because of the immense speed of the projectile at impact.

Garnett compared that force to hitting a target with a Ford Taurus at 380 mph. " It will take out a building," he said. Warheads aren' t needed because of the massive force of impact.

The range for 5-inch guns now on Navy ships is less than 15 nautical miles, Garnett said.

He said the railgun will extend that range to more than 200 nautical miles and strike a target that far away in six minutes. A Tomahawk missile covers that same distance in eight minutes.

The Navy isn' t estimating a price tag at this point, with actual use still about 13 years away. But it does know it will be a comparatively cheap weapon to use.

" A Tomahawk is about a million dollars a shot," McGettigan said. " One of these things is pretty inexpensive compared to that."

He said estimates today are that railgun projectiles will cost less than $1,000 each, " but it' s going to depend on the electronics."

Projectiles will probably eventually have fins for GPS control and navigation.

To achieve that kind of control and minimize collateral damage, railgun ordnance will require electronic innards that can survive tremendous stress coming out of the muzzle.

" When this thing leaves, it' s [under] hundreds of thousands of g ' s, and the electronics of today won' t survive that," he said. " We need to develop something that will survive that many g ' s."

At the peak of its ballistic trajectory, the projectile will reach an altitude of 500,000 feet, or about 95 miles, actually exiting the Earth' s atmosphere.

The railgun will save precious minutes in providing support for U.S. Army and Marine Corps forces on the ground under fire from the enemy.

" The big difference is that with a Tomahawk, planning a mission takes a certain period of time," McGettigan said. " With this, you get GPS coordinates, put that into the system and the response to target is much quicker from call to fire to actual impact."

General Atomics, a San Diego defense contractor, was awarded a $10 million contract for the project last spring.

The concept was born in the 1970s then promoted when President Ronald Reagan proposed the anti-missile " Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative. The SDI railgun was originally intended to use super high-velocity projectiles to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

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Oh my!

I' ve read about ideas of those kind of weapons before. Sounds much better than regular ones.
But as cool and effective that weapon is, it is built to kill people.
I' m having a hard time sharing the military' s enthusiasm about something that kills people even easier and cheaper than now.

If you think that is cool, check this out.

http://www.gausspistol.com/

That' s funny. Someone can make a pistol version in their basement, but it takes the government 20 years to make one on a war-ship!

Screw that! I want one like my governor had in the Eraser!

That pistol is a coil gun not a rail gun. A lot different and if you watch the vids he shoots it at a can in a cardboard box inside a house. It isn' t powerful at all and it uses about 20 batteries to shoot a tiny piece of metal.

But think about what the military could do with rare earth magnets and/or better batteries. Goodbye M4. So long SCAR whatevers. Auf Wiedersehen bullets in general.

I know it' s not rail gun but it' s still cool. The guy made it his fucking garage. Imagine what the military can do with the same idea in Rifle form.

I' m sure there has been a lot of research on such things but it just requires too much power. Which is why they use rails now, I' m sure they are working on smaller versions of their rail guns so they can make rifles and pistols.

Rail guns and that coil pistol both use magnetic force to accelerate a metal projectiles to destructive speeds. One uses rails, the other, coils. Same difference.

I can just see it now:

Government: " We use two rails, one over and one under the projectile. This is the best way to accelerate the projectile."

10 years later: " Wow! We found that if we use four rails, top, bottom, and side to side, then the acceleration process is more efficient!"

20 years later: " Hey! If we use coils as opposed to rails to accelerate the projectile, we can increase efficiency even more! Glad we thought of this! What?... What do you mean someone thought of this 20 years ago in their basement?"

meh, you guys are just being to hard on the government.
I' m not an expert but I do understand a lot about physics and this is what I think.

You need a rail on each side to keep the projectile in the middle giving it even force. You could add more rails on other sides but it would probably be harder to keep them synchronized and less efficient than just increasing power to two rails.

The coil gun is extremely inefficient compared to the rails. And if you wanted to increase power or use a projectile that is even slightly different than the one it is set up for there is a high probability it will fail, possibly shooting backward.

They made this gun. Now expect Stupid Mofo' s to use it and play Quake 5: Railgun' s Revenge

www.quake5revenge.com

ORIGINAL: the_shadowwolf

They made this gun. Now expect Stupid Mofo' s to use it and play Quake 5: Railgun' s Revenge

www.quake5revenge.com

See now i get why they were originally planned for the Star Wars program but battleships?! Wars aren' t fought at sea anymore and the whole idea of a battleship is to engage other ships and marine vessels or land targets using Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles.

The difference between a missile and the projectiles fired by these railguns is that missiles have explosive warheads and so cause far more damage. Railguns will obviously come in handy for certain things but i think they need to be used for other things primarily, like knocking out enemy satellites instead of using missles as i' m guessing a raingun projectile can' t actually be shot down due to the velocity.

I guess protable railguns will first appear in the form of anti-tank/anti-aircraft weapons of some sort...

quote:

ORIGINAL: the_shadowwolf

They made this gun. Now expect Stupid Mofo' s to use it and play Quake 5: Railgun' s Revenge

www.quake5revenge.com

It was a joke