Okay, so I don't know...

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-11-25 08:16am

All right, I don't know these things...

What exactly is a railgun?

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-11-25 08:24am

Technically, it is an acceleration ladder (magnetic or electrostatic) that accelerates a projectile to extreme velocities, somewhere in the region of significant fractions of the speed of light. Such projectiles carry a hell of a lot a kinetic energy and are thus incrediably deadly weapons against soft targets. Using a dense slug will result in horrendous penetrations (if a GPMG can got hrough a brick wall, think of what a 30mm shell at fractional-c speeds can do).

DocHorror · Post by **DocHorror** » 2002-11-25 08:25am

wot ee said, guv!

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-11-25 08:28am

Railguns require a lot of energy to power the electromagnets (or charge accumulators, I don't know) And while there are working accelerators ont he market, they are too big and bulky for military use. A possible application is in long-range transport like say from the Moon to Earth. You just launch the thing into an orbit and bring it down from there.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2002-11-25 11:50am

Isn't there a seaship with a working railgun?

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-11-25 11:52am

Slartibartfast wrote:Isn't there a seaship with a working railgun?

Probably. But when I meant military use, I meant as in hand held or vehicle mounted. If you can only mount the gun on a battleship you might as well use a large-charge cannon.