Re: railguns

bbrush wrote:

> Well in my defense, having only just joined the list I was unaware
that 
> railguns had been radically, unofficially revamped so I used the
stats out > of MT.  

Not sure what you're referring to here, but the MT railgun has a max
range of 30 mu :-/ As I said, it doesn't matter much for the general
discussion.

> I don't really see that targeting considerations are germain to the 
> discussion of slug mass and velocities, which is why I didn't address

> them.  

Believe me, unless your projectiles are guided their velocity has
*everything* to do with targetting considerations. If a weapon can't
hit its targets, it doesn't matter how much damage it would have
inflicted if it had hit...

My table is 120 x 80 mu; that's equivalent to 10' x 6'8" if you measure
in inches. In Cinematic, maximum practical velocities (without using a
floating board) are roughly 6*Thrust; in Vector, 4*Thrust. I like
Thrust-8 ships :-/

Best wishes,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry

Which
> is where I got my max engagement range.  As far as the energy yield
goes, I was
> going by what was presented here, so if it was wrong then naturally
all of the
> comparisons are going to be wrong.
> 
> I don't really see that targeting considerations are germain to the
discussion
> of slug mass and velocities, which is why I didn't address them.  A
mass moving
> through space is fairly predictable which is what the targeting
computers are
> for.
> 
> There are several factors which are overlooked in the discussion of
railguns,
> all of which would really render them inadequate in a long range
weapon
> capacity.  Factors like power consumption, projectile material, 
target
> composition, recoil (a really big problem), and a host of other
things.  Since
> Jon gave the KV railguns, that's what we use.
> 
> I must say I find it interesting just how big a range of velocities
you see
> people talk about on this list.  Oerjan says his capitals move at V,
of 18 and
> his escorts of 36.  I would think this would take a VERY large table,
otherwise
> everything would just go screaming off the other side of the table
and that
> would be the end of the game.  Most games I've watched on standard
4x6 or 4x8
> tables have velocities of around 8-18, depending heavily on the
nationality and
> maneuverability of the ship.
> 
> JMO,
> Bill
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> on 09/16/99 01:04:36 PM
> 
> Please respond to gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>								
>								
>								
>  To:	    gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU				
>								
>  cc:	    (bcc: Bill Brush/InfSys/Revenue)			
>								
>								
>								
>  Subject: Re: railguns					
>								
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mostly good thinking, but an important figure in the input data was
off
> by four orders of magnitude and no consideration was given to the hit
> probabilities, so here goes:
> 
> bbrush wrote:
> 
> > Max engagement range is 36".  Equals 36 million meters.
> 
> Max railgun range is 30", but it doesn't matter much for the
> calculations.
> 
> > Turn length is 7.5 minutes which gives you a turn of 450 seconds.
> > A kton of TNT is equal to 6.31*10^8 joules
> 
> Sorry, no. Not unless modern explosives are more than ten thousand
> times stronger than TNT is, and I'm pretty certain they aren't...
> otherwise we would've stopped using TNT in non-nuke warheads decades
> ago. See my other post for this.
> 
> 
>