Re: Railgun Research: Barrrel Design or Power Supply

From: nospam (nospam_at_nospam.net)
Date: 02/28/05 

To: sci-military-moderated@moderators.isc.org
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:44:32 -0800

Andrew Swallow wrote:
> mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
> [snip]
>
>>> Where laser weapons are seeing serious development, like TRW's
>>> tactical missile defense thingy, it's a chemically powered system,
>>> hydrogen and fluorine or whatever they're using these days, not
>>> electrically powered. But then also TRW's thing is speed and
>>> precision to shoot down an incoming missile, not increased firepower.
>>
>>
>>
>> Indeed. And that's what I refer to as "niche application".
>
>
> "speed and precision to shoot down an incoming..."
> Hmm. How about shooting down incoming shells and bullets?

An acquaintance of mine was working in Naval ordinance on
the problem of shooting down supersonic cruise missiles with
anti-missile missiles. Curiously, one of the problems was a
shortage of targets of the right size and speed to practice
on, so they set up a 5" naval gun to provide targets, and
practiced shooting down incoming 5" shells. It wasn't
perfect, but it was a lot cheaper than acquiring a lot of
high-speed missiles to shoot down.

>
> Bullets and shells are a lot smaller than tanks so they would need less
> energy to destroy or divert. Less energy makes the weapon easier to
> build and lighter to move.
>
> Tanks are slow because of their heavy armour and tracks. An area
> defence laser or rail gun may be able to protect a moving convoy. Oil
> tankers and trucks rarely carry heavy armour. This applies to sea, air
> and land convoys.
>
> Andrew Swallow

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