Re: [GZG] Railguns

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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThe article I
saw had:
23 pound bullet
Mach 8
5500 ft/s (I question this, but it may be based on projectile weight)
(allegedly the final system should be over 5800 m/s, but not sure what
projectile weight)
33 MJ
1.5 million Amperes
energy dump took 10 ms
adjustable power levels
shipboard defensive deployment est. 2020 to 2025
multiple 2" thick coaxial cables fed by stacks of refrigerator sized
capacitors
gun is the size of a school bus
5 minute charge time (target is 10 shots/min)
Expected impact will be equivalent to Tomhawk allegedly, but much
cheaper

Plans to fire at 64 MJ where 200 miles = 6 minutes travel time
(Wikipedia
claims 370 km or 200 nm)

Now, assuming they get this right:
1) New fire support ship as the Navy & Marines were denied that
capability
when they retired the BBs
2) Outranges some missiles, might move us back more towards the dueling
of
ships of the line with guns
3) Big power requirements, even for big ships, and power supplies won't
like
hits
4) Smaller versions might be interesting in armoured vehicles, as PDS
mounts, or as smaller ship main guns
5) Recharge time might not matter if you can outrange enemy (by an order
(or
more) of magnitude potentially) and hit accurately at OTH distances with
a
round that will do some serious damage
6) Trajectory may look flat, but shoot up and it will arc (add GPS
guidance
and you can drive it to target a bit)
7) Defenses seem to be: Ridiculous armour, amazing PD charges/systems,
or
perhaps 'being crazy fast and all ninja!'

So, we've got something that (allegedly) will hit like a Tomahawk, can
be
delivered out to 200 nm, 10/second, for a lot less than $1M per pop
(ammo
cost, not counting R&D, deployment, or other costs amortized over
lifespan
of weapon system).

That sounds quite potent. I'm not sure what the flight time for large
scale
anti ship missiles is from launch to a target ship 200 nm away...
whether it
is more or less than 6 minutes, I'm not sure. But this seems pretty
quick to
me.

Tom B