Re: Railgun Research: Barrrel Design or Power Supply

From: Gregory L. Hansen (glhansen_at_steel.ucs.indiana.edu)
Date: 02/22/05 

To: sci-military-moderated@moderators.isc.org
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 14:36:54 +0000 (UTC)

In article <37uo06F5gclkrU1@individual.net>,
Dirk Bruere at Neopax <dirk@neopax.com> wrote:
>Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
>
>> In article <1108426538.282746.89420@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>> Picti <amcneish@swbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Dan,
>>> I don't know about that. Are not the APDS and APDSFS projectiles
>>>fired by battle tank main armaments examples of kinetic energy
>>>pentrators that use speed to lance through armor?
>>>
>>
>>
>> The 120 mm cartridge has a 4 kg penetrator fired at 1740 m/s while the
>> last I've read on rail guns has a 1.6 kg dart fired at around 2300 m/s.
>> The math:
>>
>> (4*1740^2)/(1.6*2300^2) = 1.4
>>
>> They actually compare better than I'd expected, although the railguns
>> still need some development before they can match the energy delivered by
>> the 120 mm gun, not to mention the service life.
>
>I suspect that it is a dead end as far as tank armament is concerned.
>The future (as always) is smart missiles, either HE or KE kills (eg LOSAT).

Smart missiles are considerably more expensive, and for what benefit? The
Abrams, and other comparable tanks, are shooting quickly and accurately at
long ranges, and a HEAT warhead just doesn't penetrate modern armor the
way a slug of tungsten or depleted uranium going 2 km/s does. If they
weren't hitting their targets, that would be something to think about.
But they're hitting their targets.

The KEW-A1 120mm shell is 43 pounds and around 30 inches long, the LOSAT
is 174 pounds and 113 inches long. It's four times bigger and four times
heavier. It's meant to provide an early anti-armor capability before the
MBTs are brought in.

One of the attractions of rail guns is that the projectiles are smaller
and they don't have the powder charge, which is hoped to simplify
logistics and improve autoloading systems. 

-- 
"Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member of
Congress... But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain

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