Re: HKP and the Kra'Vak

Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

>> We had a discussion about the Railgun earlier. Let's review:

>You review your beliefs, I review mine, OK?

>> The basic construction of the railgun (at its simplest this is a
>>scientific
>> device for acclelerating particles) consists of a LARGE capacitor,
>>two
>> stainless steel rails, and a small thin wire. The capacitor is
>>connected
>> with each lead connected to one rail, forming an electrical circut of
>> rail-capacitor-rail. The rails are mounted paralell to each other. To
>>fire
>> the basic railgun you drop the thin wire across the rails completing
>>the
>> circut.

>With you so far, except that the "small thin wire" is basically an DSAP
>rod penetrator.

No you aren't with me. The small thin wire is the Railgun equavilent of
gunpowder. the DSAP penetrator is placed in front of the point you drop
the
wire (the specifics of not dropping the rod on the rails I don't know
about), the wire vaporises to a plasma state, is propelled by magnetic
accelleration, which in turn pushes the penetrator rod down the barrell.

>> The voltage will be too high for the wire to withstand and it will
>> be instantly transformed into a metal plasma. The completion of the >
>>circut
>> will magnetize the rails, briefly and instantly, which will
>>accellerate the
>> plasma down the rails, the plasma being conductive itself will keep
>>the
>> circut completed until it has left the rails, thus keeping magnetic
>> containment on itself, untill it passes beyond the magnetic
>> containment
>> of the rails.

>C'mon. You turn a short, thin wire into plasma, launch it, and think
>that it'll be able to take out a tank some km away? It won't be too fun
>to stand close to the muzzle, though  - you might get some nasty burns
>if you do :-/ Probably worse for the gunner than for the target,
>unfortunately.

You don't use the plasma as the projectile, the plasma accellerates the
penetrator rod the same way as gunpowder does.

< something about speed errors >

You're right on that one, sorry

> No, they don't. Current military *railguns* - only experimental so far
> - - use the Lorenz force (the one caused by the electrical current
> flowing in the closed loop) to propel a fairly standard rod penetrator
> - - "fairly" standard, since the sabots have to be different from the
> ones you use in a normal DSAP tank round.

This sounds more like a Mass Driver than a Railgun.

>This is... wrong. Each action creates a reaction of equal size in the
>opposite direction; Newton's laws don't magically disappear just
>because you use magnetism instead of explosives as a propellant.

You've never left heavy electrical construction equipment ungrounded
have
you? I don't know how it works, I think it has something to do with the
action-reaction affecting the magnetic "event" rather than the weapon
directly, but asking a dedicated physisist (or Geo-Magnetist) about this
would be a better idea.

The railgun, originally, was a device for small particle accelleration
experiments, but like most scientific devices someone figured how it
could
be used for war.