Weapons I've proposed

[Condottiere]

As I understand it, railguns and mass drivers are controlled acceleration along the length of the barrel.

 

[Spinward Flow]

As I understand it, railguns and mass drivers are controlled acceleration along the length of the barrel.

Right. That's the action force propelling the projectile down the barrel.
The "other half" of that equation is the reaction force trying to push the barrel apart perpendicular to the direction of the projectile travel.

So what you want to wind up with is ... well ... this ...





... and not this ...

 

[whulorigan]

....
So what you want to wind up with is ... well ... this ...





... and not this ...

Now is that using the right-hand rule or left-hand rule . . . ?

 

[Vargr Breath]

I always liked the Disk firing pistol in the movie "I come in Peace". It's somewhat like the Eldar Shuriken weapons in Warhammer 40K.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[whartung]

I always liked the Disk firing pistol in the movie "I come in Peace".

You mean these things, only with, you know, power?


The old TRON video game had a pretty cool disk gun segment.

 

[Deldarius]

You mean these things, only with, you know, power?
View attachment 2258

The old TRON video game had a pretty cool disk gun segment.

Standard equipment for Darrian space ninjas.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Much of the sparks was simply from the projectile running along the rails. A problem with modern railguns is "barrel" wear. As I understand it, they wear quite quickly. The snap was likely from from the fast discharge of current (like a static electricity spark) and, perhaps, the sonic crack of the round punching through the sound barrier.

Well yeah, it's less refined technology which is kind of what I'm going for.

 

[Spinward Flow]

You mean these things, only with, you know, power?

 

[Deldarius]

Here is a low tech rail gun for you.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Here is a low tech rail gun for you.

I do believe archaic weapons were already defined and stats given in both JTAS and MT. So ... ah, yeah

On the upside I've not seen any stats given for a ballista in Striker. Then again I never bought Striker.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Quick update (I've been on an amsonia kick for the last 6+ months), the predominant design for the Gauss Rifle is the "coil gun". A coil of conductive metal is coiled around the barrel of the weapon, and the pulse travels over the coil pulling along the projectile.

My EMG concept uses the old "rail" design where a series of magnets line the barrel, and an electrical pulse activates the dipole effect where the dipoles in question create the magnetic field in stages upon each magnet, and pulls the projectile along the length of the barrel. The result is that at the end of the pull the projectile is pulling along a portion of the field used to propel it, and hence sparks come flying out the end coupled with an electrical "snap" or "pop" as per your standard percussion weapon.

I'll try and write something up later on today.

 

[whartung]

The actual key point of the Gauss rifle is that the projectile is suspended in the magnetic field during travel, thus is does not contact the barrel. It's essentially frictionless.

 

[Spinward Flow]

There may be "near zero contact friction" with the barrel, but the forces (action/reaction) involved are still pretty darn powerful when you get up to hypervelocity guns.

 

[whartung]

But the Gauss Rifle isn't "Hyper Velocity".

3000 m/s is fast, indeed. Very fast, but I don't consider it hyper velocity. Also its only a 4 gram projectile.

The recoil of that rifle is about 3m/s. That's a heavier recoil than a typical .308. But it's not undo, and there may be other compensators in the rifle to tone it down.

 

[Blue Ghost]

In theory there's "no limit" to the speed you can accelerate with a Gauss setup, though I recall 0.10 C being the upper limit from a few books I read on the subject. That's pretty darn fast. It's part of the reason the US Navy was experimenting with the technology to replace their main guns. I think they reached a Mach 5 speed limit, at which point they abandoned the research.

A hand held rifle is more likely a different story.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I think they reached a Mach 5 speed limit, at which point they abandoned the research.

The main reason (to my understanding) is that hypersonic missile research has overshadowed the potential of railguns in naval applications.

• Hypersonic railguns have a maximum range of 50-100km.
• Hypersonic missiles have a maximum range of ~1700km.

When it comes to standoff gunnery range, that's a "no contest" difference ... especially in a world of anti-ship ballistic missiles that can be launched from land bases. Gun ranges are simply "too short" for land bombardment for naval ships, while missile ranges allow for the necessary standoff distance from shore to permit relative safety. It was the range differential that prompted funding for the USN railgun project to be terminated in FY2022.

So railguns might not have a future in naval surface gunnery ... but land based artillery (stationary and/or self propelled) is another matter, with airborne artillery platforms (think AC-130) being yet another application yet again. So railguns may get research funding again in the future, but it probably won't be for navy surface vessels (and I sincerely doubt anyone would ever put one on a boat submarine).

Still, the idea of a railgun boat submarine has a sort of "gunboat" appeal to it, don't you think?

 

[Blue Ghost]

I'll also add that the Electromagnetic Gun (EMG) concept is about firing munitions OTHER THAN 4mm needles suspended in a magnetic field. And using the basic principles for a more traditional approach in small arms design and engineering. And like I said technology demonstrators as far back as the 60s and before had sparks flying out at the end. There used to be some good vids on YouTube from MIT, CIT, UC Berkieley, Stanford and just really colleges and universities from all across the US showing the technology in principle. They were "rail" Gauss Gun designs, and the percussion effecft. They weren't "classic Traveller" Gauss Guns.

 

[Condottiere]

I don't know what went amiss during the Navy's trials of their spanking new kinetic weapon system, but I think a large part had to do with ammunition cost, which certainly would make missiles a lot more attractive in comparison. besides range.

I suspect a scaled down version will eventually enter service, more as an area defence weapon system, especially against hypersonic missiles, lasers might be for close in.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I suspect a scaled down version will eventually enter service, more as an area defence weapon system

Personally, I would expect the production experience to be applied towards a new Main Battle Tank cannon of some kind, trading magazine displacement for power plant plus batteries/capacitors displacement (smaller projectiles instead of huge shells with powder in them) yielding a new kind of tank turret and autoloader arrangement.