Re: Orbital Cannon

Just before the Iraqi war in 1990,  a fairly famous Canadian weapons
maker 
who had worked for the Iraqis got himself offed, probably by the Mossad.

One of his things was orbital launch using super guns.

Also, I don't know how scientifically feasible this is, but the book 
Firestar by Michael Flynn, one of the companies in it uses a big tube 
filled with rocket fuel and then sticks a shell, with a satellite in it
and 
lights the match.

Corey

At 09:12 AM 5/28/01 +0100, you wrote:
>The idea of multiple chamber guns was that they could
>keep adding velocity without the need for one huge,
>very strong and very heavy chamber and allowed a more
>gentle acceleration. Early models were dismal failures
>- it was found the 'fire' from the early charges would
>wash around the shot and prematurely detonate the
>later charges so they retarded the shot and the gun
>had a lower muzzle velocity than a conventional
>cannon.
>
>The large German model, the V-3, built in France to
>bombard London was bombed by the RAF because it looked
>a bit suspicious (they were hunting V-1 launch sites).
>It was then, rather suspiciously buried after the war.
>
>Different uses need different burning rates. Pistols
>and shotguns use faster burning propellent than rifles
>and as the calibre goes up the desired burning rate
>goes down. For the big naval guns you ended up with
>powders like SBC - Slow burning cocoa. Shape can be as
>important as chemistry, some of the big granular
>powders are beautiful shapes and one of the ACW
>experts - Dahlgren I think, experiemnted with single
>grain charges but they were to fragile for use.
>
>Liquid propellent might be interesting, though I
>cannot imagine how you could add it into a chamber
>during firing.
>
>One idea that scared people during the Cold War was
>cold launched ICBMs, if fired from a gun they would
>lack the characteristic launch flare that allowed them
>to be detected 'easily.'
>
>The problem with high velocity guns has always been
>barrel wear. The Paris Gun (Kaiser Wilheim Geschutz?)
>had a numbered series of increasingly larger shells
>and one of the guns was destroyed when one shell was
>loaded out of sequence.
>
>British naval guns were usually larger than German
>guns, firing a lower velocity shell with greater mass.
>This increased barrel life. German ships of the Risk
>Fleet on the other hand just had to dash out into the
>North Sea and hammer the Grand Fleet so they could use
>smaller guns of higher velocity, barrel life was
>shorter but they were home quickly (I know, a gross
>simplification).
>
>
>Michael
>
>
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