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Railgun to be placed on navy ships? hmmm metal boats and magnets.... — Parallax Forums

Railgun to be placed on navy ships? hmmm metal boats and magnets....

Jorge PJorge P Posts: 385
edited 2011-11-30 20:50 in General Discussion
Just read this article http://www.dailytech.com/Navy+Railgun+Fired+for+1000th+Time/article23163.htm

Wouldn't it be an extremely bad idea to put a gigantic electro magnet on a metal boat? I could just see how a nearby boat or sub would all of a sudden get attracted to the ship with this onboard. Neat technology but bad placement idea. Wouldn't it be better to drop a large electro magnet in front of enemy troops and turn it on to disarm them?

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2011-11-29 08:26
    That's not how a railgun works. Remember that it's very wasteful of energy to have a magnetic field spread over a large area (unless that's what you want to do in the first place). Sure, you can detect a magnetic field outside a large motor, but it's much weaker than inside the motor where you want it ... and it falls off with a square law factor as you get further away.

    See this Wikipedia article for a description
  • bsnutbsnut Posts: 521
    edited 2011-11-29 08:28
    The railgun would work with no problems that you are talking about and here's the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun talking about it and why it will work on navy ships.

    BTW, thanks for post this and I knew they were working on this a while ago.
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2011-11-29 08:44
    Hmmm... I wonder how effective a rail gun is against a Zodiac filled with C4 compared to the current Phalanx CIWS linked to surface radar fire control. Or how flexible it is as force projection compared to a few Sea Predator UAVs loaded up with Hellfire missiles.....or how it does protecting a task force against a enemy submarine loaded up with some Tomahawk clones. May be it's to support the SSN snuggled up against your enemy's coast?

    It does sound effective when we go toe to toe with the other guy's battleships and dreadnoughts in fleet engagements.
  • Jorge PJorge P Posts: 385
    edited 2011-11-29 09:20
    I would rather not see these used as weapons, currently they are not classified as one, once they are the scientific community will not be able to use them without licensing.

    If you want to see a video of a small one checkout "Mass Launcher" and click the link for the demo videos.
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2011-11-29 09:25
    Kinetic projectiles are often used in SciFi books to do things like destroy planets and spaceships. I wonder who is watching who: is the navy researching railguns due to somebody reading SciFi, or does is the SciFi based on the navy research?
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2011-11-29 09:42
    Would this affect the deGaussing of the hull? (thus attracting detonation of magnetic mines and so on.)

    I guess not. But that is just a guess.
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2011-11-29 09:56
    Railgun technology has long been funded by the US for use as a weapon; thirty years ago my wife worked for a company that had a contract with the government to develop the magnets used on these. Weaponizing the technology has long been in the works.

    As Mike points out the electromagnetism is not spread out. It goes from coil to coil, VERY rapidly. I wouldn't wear a mechanical watch around the thing, but otherwise there's no immense burst of magnetism felt throughout the ship when this thing fires.

    In WWII British and US ships were at first outfitted with giant electromagnets connected to coils around the hull to counter the then-new German magnetic mine. In the end, they discovered each ship didn't need its own electromagnet. The same effect was obtained by "wiping" the outside of the hull by coils of a huge electromagnet at the dock. The decreased magnetism worked for 3-6 months.

    Should the railgun affect the existing degaussing of a ship it would be basic enough to undo it again.

    -- Gordon
  • bill190bill190 Posts: 769
    edited 2011-11-29 16:26
    Sounds like a good idea to me for those on Navy ships. If they could reduce the amount of explosives on these ships, it would make it safer*. There have been accidents in the past.

    *So long as they correctly connect the positive and negative wires and don't switch them so it fires backwards! :smile:

    Then so far as things related to this requiring licensing in the future, many things, in order to function as a military weapon, can only do so with their secret technology! And that technology has been developed with zillions of dollars of research and years of testing. So I wouldn't worry about that...
  • frank freedmanfrank freedman Posts: 1,983
    edited 2011-11-30 17:34
    Jorge P wrote: »
    I would rather not see these used as weapons, currently they are not classified as one, once they are the scientific community will not be able to use them without licensing.

    If you want to see a video of a small one checkout "Mass Launcher" and click the link for the demo videos.

    They may then outlaw your speaker system and certain types of mechanical actuators namely the ones known as linear motor as that is the exact same principle on which the rail gun is built. This stuff has been in development a very long time. Look at some of the stuff from the 80s by wynn schwartau "information and electronic warefare articles and books in particular.
  • Bill ChennaultBill Chennault Posts: 1,198
    edited 2011-11-30 19:02
    mindrobots and All--

    I think the advantage of the rail gun is the velocity of the projectile. It would be tough to out maneuver a projectile smoking along at 5,000mph.

    --Bill
  • AImanAIman Posts: 531
    edited 2011-11-30 20:50
    Rail guns are outdated.
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