A rail gun, for those of you who might wonder, is a gun that doesn't use chemical energy (gunpowder) to propel the projectile. Generally, a rail gun uses electromagnets down the length of the barrel to accelerate the projectile.
This video shows the latest test of General Atomic's rail gun, firing a saboted projectile. I noted when I watched the film that the narrator says that the sabot is traveling at 1600 meters per second, which roughly is equivalent to 4800 fps. I'm sure that the actual speed is classified, and I know that the speed of our tank ammo was classified for a long time. As a rookie lieutenant at Fort Knox in the '70s I had to learn that the APDS round from our 105mm tank gun traveled "in excess of 4850 feet per second", so this rail gun is approximating our tank ammo from the '70s. I was surprised to see that the newest, latest, greatest sabot round looks a lot like the sabot round that we shot way back then.
It's an interesting video. Check it out.
I can see that this thing would have some uses, but so far they're not doing anything that a good tank commander can't accomplish with '80s technology.
3 comments:
Well they are not doing much with the speed of the projectile .. yet....
But the advantages over explosively driven projectiles are huge
ESP in a naval application.
More ammo less space.
No explosives on board to worry about when taking damage.
Ammo is safer to handle since it's non explosive.
so on and so on ..
A tank could benefit from these too .. but the ship has more available electric power generation .
I thought the big draw of rail guns was hyper-speed of the projectile, 1600 mps doesn't seem all that fast for the machinery, development time and expense involved.
Now, if it was 16,000 meters per second, I'd really be impressed.
Waiting for my surplus M1 Gaussrifle to be available.
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