Navy's Mach 7 gun can kill from 100 miles away

[bemildred]

The world can never have enough guns--at least not if they embody exciting new ways to destroy people and things that look wonderful in movies. So here is a weapon that seems to be the sheer personification of gun fun.

It is being tested by the U.S. Navy, and it seems to have some pulsating technical features. It doesn't rely on an explosive charge to propel a bullet toward a bad guy. Instead, Fox News informs me, it expels bullets along parallel rails. The bullets, thanks to the cheery push of an electromagnetic current, spring out at speeds of up to Mach 7.

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I know that some will be cheered by the prospect that, one day, they could be sitting on a beach far north of San Francisco and be able to shoot down someone or something in Silicon Valley. So they will feel a frisson on learning that today, the Navy successfully managed to effect a 33-megajoule firing, which would seem to be a megajewel in the Navy's crown.

Those concerned about defense spending should be delighted that this railgun ought to be far cheaper than a conventional weapon. It also means that a ship wouldn't itself have to carry explosives, which potentially means that it would no longer be considered a potential keg of powder.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20025376-71.html

[TygrBright]

1. A functional railgun? That'll cause some major fapping in the geek shootemup games world. n/t

[bemildred]

2. Well, I dunno.

I don't know anybody 100 miles away I want to shoot, and I have a notion that the supply of electricity for this thing in the field is going to be a problem. OTOH, as a space launch vehicle this could have possibilities.

But we already knew that war is obsolete, or at least ineffective as an instrument of foreign policy, unless your goal is decline.

[madrchsod]

3. the navy has developed several war game scenarios involving the rail gun.

the one i read was the effective use on chinese coastal shipping and port facilities.