Re: IAVRs

--- Richard and Emily Bell <rlbell@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

> 5g projectile
> 1m barrel length
> 600m/s muzzle velocity (~mach2)
> 180000m/s^2 average acceleration (V^2=2ad)
> 3.3 milliseconds to reach muzzle velocity
> 900j of muzzle energy

That's a bit long of a barrel length.  But I guess
those are workable numbers.
 
> The discharge rate looks impressive, but it is only
> a problem if the > weapon is firing at 300
rds/second (when it becomes> the average power).

Which ain't gonna happen even with a Gauss SAW.

> Only the muzzle energy is important.	The weapon's
> battery pack must > deliver the muzzle energy to
firing circuits before > the weapon will fire
> a second time (we can assume that the firing
> circuits can hold one > charge).  What is an
acceptable delay?  At a tenth > of a second, the
> battery pack must have a peak power of 9000 watts. 

OK. . . 

> Unfortunately, we > have assumed that everything
between the battery > pack and the muzzle is
> 100% efficient.  This is seldom true.  So expecting
> the infantryman to > hump a butch enough battery for
a few hundred shots > is a bit much.  The
> batteries will be expensive (due to discharge
> requirements), so > infantryman may have to lug it
back to be recharged.

I dunno.  In Trav, the batteries were built into the
magazines.  Generally, you don't just chuck
magazines--you haul 'em back for reload.  Presumably
you could design it with pop-out batteries so that
when you speed-load 50 new darts in you also swap out
batteries.  I guess it depends on how much battery
technology advances.  If batteries get an order of
magnitude more efficient it's more plausible than if
they merely get 50% more efficient.
 
> projectiles and energy (prevents nasty surprises),
> so explosives will be
> set off in infantry weapons for some time.

Sounds interesting--so how much heat are we talking
about here--more, less, or the same as a modern
machine gun?

John

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