A First Look at America’s Supergun

[SteveB]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-first-look-at-americas-supergun-1464359194?mod=trending_now_1


A First Look at America’s Supergun

DAHLGREN, Va.—A warning siren bellowed through the concrete bunker of a top-secret Naval facility where U.S. military engineers prepared to demonstrate a weapon for which there is little defense.

Officials huddled at a video screen for a first look at a deadly new supergun that can fire a 25-pound projectile through seven steel plates and leave a 5-inch hole.

The weapon is called a railgun and requires neither gunpowder nor explosive. It is powered by electromagnetic rails that accelerate a hardened projectile to staggering velocity—a battlefield meteorite with the power to one day transform military strategy, say supporters, and keep the U.S. ahead of advancing Russian and Chinese weaponry.

[Gray222]

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-OF265_backgr_1_20160526180642.jpg

[Luke]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-is-why-the-navy-cant-have-nice-railguns

[1slow]

As of 20 years ago, I thought that using a railgun the velocity achieved was in the 11,000 - 14,000 fps range.

[dkv]

Return of nuke-powered surface combatants?

[Drang]

As of 20 years ago, I thought that using a railgun the velocity achieved was in the 11,000 - 14,000 fps range.

6600 fps is fast, but not as fast as we were promised... (And where's my jet pack, you bastards?!)

Wondering if they slowed it down because

Former President Ronald Reagan ’s Strategic Defense Initiative ... at one time envisioned using the railgun to shoot down nuclear missiles. Those plans were stalled by 1980s technology. One problem was that the gun barrel and electromagnetic rails had to be replaced after a single shot.
Also, I don't see this "level{ing} terrorist camps".

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The article refers to our current 6 inch guns. There are no six guns anymore, those cruisers are gone. The destroyers carry 5 inch guns.

Next, while impressive, there is a reason why the Zumwalt class was cut from 30 to 3. The idea of ships off shore bombarding a technologically advanced enemy is quite problematic. The range of antiship missiles used to be limited such that the advanced guns, the 8 inch ones on the Zumwalts or even the rail guns would give some standoff range. But now the missile have ranges that far exceed the guns. Esp. if the ship has to get closer to shore to bombard inland aways.

The US is trying to catch up on missile range by altering the software and hardware tracking on the current cruise missiles and the standard series. Otherwise our ships are undergunned or missiled. New missiles are in the pipeline. It was realized that the LCS was so underarmed as to be useless in a real war.

So if you are bombarding some dipsticks in the third war - maybe. Getting off shore of the Chinese, Russians and others - bad news. In the Falklands, the British were lucky that the Argentinians were premature. If they had their full complement of Etendards and Exocets, it might have gone differently.

The current horror is that bad planning in plane acquisition and failures of projects has drastically reduced the fighting radius of the supercarriers as to make them at serious risk against the Chinese or the Russians.

Maybe this thing could shoot down a missile but it seems a camel buster. This isn't the day when a BB with tons of air cover could bombard a beach landing site. Surface ships alone don't do well against significant air attacks and modern missiles will kill them. The Zumwalts are crappy AA ships according to reports.