> Thomas Anderson wrote:
> if you haven't looked at the glubco link someone posted (i forget just
The Magnetron is very dangerous! You can get X-rays under some
circumstances. Hi Tension Electricity + Black Body Cavity Radiators are
a nasty combo. Microwave exposure can (obviously) cause significant damage,
but it's the side effects I'm more concerned about. Not just EM, but electrons
zapping about at significant speeds causing radiation burns. Bad News. Do Not
Try This At Home.
Coilgun, Railgun, Mass Driver AHHHHHH. When will the weapon naming madness
stop!
A real science <eewww> perspective on this thing. The proposed "Coilgun" has a
real life name, actually two of them: The Mass Driver, and the Gauss Gun
(Rifle, Cannon whatever) from the word Gauss for the measurement for
magnetism, named after the man who figured out how to measure magnetism.
The designation Railgun is rarely used correctly. There is such a thing as a
Railgun, but it is not a slugthrower, it is actually more of a scientific
curiousity than an effective weapon. The Railgun consists of a large capacitor
attached to two conductive rails, mounted paralell to each other. The
amunition for this weapon is a collection of wire clippings, just long enough
to touch both rails. The Railgun fires by having the capacitor fully charged
when a wire is dropped onto the rails. In an instant the wire is superheated
to a conductive plasma, and the magnetic fields generated by the rails, now
both highly charged, propell the plasma forward from the weapon (If the wire
is dropped too far forward the plasma will be propelled backwards). The plasma
is contained within the magnetic fields created by the rails up untill the
point where the rails, and thus the magnetic field, end. After that the plasma
rapidly dispurses. The reason Railguns aren't in common use is twofold, One
charging the capacitor takes a long time or a major power source. Two the
weapon is intensely inefficient. a one foot weapon has the range of six
inches, and punches very tiny holes through paper. Any effective research on
the subject is probably classified, but I wouldn't doubt that someone is
trying to make it effective. For our purpouses we can assume that someone will
make it effective, and then we have a valid name for a weapon system.
So with this Not-Pseudo-Scientific-Bullshit there are two weapon systems
that I can think of that are similar if not actually like real Railguns. The
FT Pulse Torpedo and DS2's Direct Fire Fusion Gun. Both of these weapons share
the chararisticly short range, as well as the same type of destructive
energies (plasma not slug) as an actuall Railgun. The Kra'Vak "Railgun" is
actually a Gauss Cannon, Although the Kra'Vak would call it a Gau'Ss, Cannon,
or whatever the name of the scientist behind it.
The confusion is understandable as the term Railgun was first used in
fiction in the "Pulp" Sci-Fi novels and perpetuated through the 50's and
60's Sci-Fi movies which used any PSB they could get to explain
anything. Another point is the fact that both weapons are magnetic
accelerators. Just
the Gauss weapons are typicaly nickel/iron slugthrowers, and Railguns
are plasma weapons.
In this day and age most (not all) Sci-Fi shows and movies have been
trying to give plausable PSB. In order to further this worthy effort I give
this information to you.
"Uhh.... Professor, wouldn't it work better if you plug it in?"
In message <000401be6f09$e85f48a0$bb4eaecf@u4g8g4> "Daulton James
> Whitehead III" writes:
> The designation Railgun is rarely used correctly. There is such a
Long time ago from some 'net source that I've long forgotten I heard that a
railgun (as described above) could be used to propel a projectile, the plasma
pushing at the back of said projectile. What was proposed was that the
projetile be about a gram of plastic, which could be handily accelerated to
about, say, one hundred kilometers per second. The resulting kinetic energy of
the teeny pellet would be five megajoules, enough to toast a tank. The pellet,
on striking a surface would instantly disintegrate into a plasma and continue
burning its merry way through whatever was in front of it.
I somehow doubt this would work in an atmosphere, though.
Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but... well. Daulton, it seems to me that
you really don't have a clue of what you're talking about here:
> The reason Railguns aren't in common use is twofold, One charging
Yep. According to a symposium paper published a year ago (not classified; I
can give you ISBN number and page if you like), Edward M. Schmidt (researcher
at the US Army Research Lab in Maryland, Aberdeen
> something - forgot its name :-( ) writes:
"On balance, present technology railguns are more than twice the weight of
comparable powder guns."
The powder guns he is referring to are the main guns of today's MBTs, ie 120mm
cannon and similar. He then goes on to note that advances in electrical
engineering is very likely to reduce or even close this gap.
> Two the
This statement is ridiculous. I can build a working railgun with these specs
from office materials, using paper clips for ammunition.
I can also build a toy cannon from a cardboard tube, load it with a
small gun powder charge and firing ping-pong balls with it. Such a
"weapon" would be even less dangerous than the toy railgun you describe
- but in spite of this, powder-powered guns have been used very
successfully to kill and destroy for the past five hundred years or so.
Most MBT main guns are bigger than my cardboard toy cannon, too :-/
> Any effective research on the subject is probably classified, but I
Yep. Two of the "someones" are the US and British armies.
In the same collection of symposium proceedings I mentioned above, DERA staff
(Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, IIRC the British Army research
organisation) claim that their test railgun consistently hit targets at a
range of 2 km with APFSDS projectiles. I didn't write down the Mass of the
projectiles, but they seem to be similar in size to those fired by today's
MBTs. Muzzle velocities were between 1300 and
2000 m/s, but it should be possible to reach much higher velocities
provided we manage to build projectiles that don't melt in flight. I've
seen theoretical figures of 6-8000 m/s in other papers.
I suspect such projectiles would do more than merely "punch very tiny
holes through paper" :-/ Small holes through MBT armour is more likely.
> The confusion is understandable as the term Railgun was first used in
This may be where the term originally comes from, but today's weapon research
community calls them "railguns" rather than "Gauss guns"
nonetheless. (Or "coilguns" - I have found one mention of coilguns in
one of the papers... but it only said that they are possible; after saying
this it ignored them. I suspect this is because they are less effective or
harder to build than railgun <shrug>)
> Another point is the fact that both weapons are magnetic
This is pure fantasy. Railguns - what you call "Gauss" guns - exist and
work, but the technology is not yet well enough developed to allow us to fit
them into combat vehicles... and the only plasma launched from them is the
metal plasma which ablates from the rod penetrators during
flight :-/
Regards,
As an aside go to this page to see working models of Railgun/ mass
driver type weapons being used by highschool students...
http://www.glubco.com/weaponry/railgun.htm
Los
> David Brewer wrote:
> In message <000401be6f09$e85f48a0$bb4eaecf@u4g8g4> "Daulton James
http://www.metaspace.com/ff/eto/
This site has good descriptions of the various technologies but is more
slanted towards designs for space payload slinging than weapons.
> On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> > Any effective research on the subject is probably classified, but I
i saw something on the telly a while ago (so it must be true) about some
over-advanced nation's military boffins developing railguns; i think it
was in the context of SDI. anyway, in their version, the round is kevlar, and
has an aluminium foil backing. the current through the round vapourises the
aluminium, and the resulting plasma provides the path needed for the current
to flow, setting up the Lorenz effect and slinging the round down the track.
if you haven't looked at the glubco link someone posted (i forget just who,
but huge kudos to them), have a butchers:
http://www.glubco.com/weaponry/
the railgun is cool. the oxygen cannon (or, as they call it, the death ray) is
cool. the magnetron is very cool. the railgun has pretty good explanations,
too.
Tom
> On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
whilst i share any intelligent person's extreme caution when confronted
with high-voltage electricity and resultant microwave beams, the danger
is part of the reason it's so cool...
> You can get X-rays under some
this is a very responsible attitude, and i heartily concur. the thing to do
is, of course, to get someone else to try this at home.
> The railgun OTOH looks relatively safe and easy to build.
right then, i'll just pop down the stores for some high-power
transistors. anything the KV can do, i can do better...
Tom
Actually before a rail gun becomes battle deployable we're really gonna need a
room temperature superconductor, and some amazing power source to load the
capacitors. Otherwise the low temperature requirements will be real fragile on
the battlefield, and the reload time will be too slow.