Fel's railgun comes to life

[michaelsuave]

I remember posting and writing to links some time ago about the Navy inventing a real railgun. Well they built it! Here is the video of the test fire. Wa ha ha ha ha Its wicked!

http://www.livescience.com/php/video/pl ... 01-railgun

[Hearly]

Thats pretty big thou, I always kinda imagined it like the one in Eraser..

[afrigeek]

Not really. The navy has these big ships for them to mount stuff on and thus rarely think of downsizing their guns.. on the other hand the army will have to downsize it to something soldiers can carry on long treks

[michaelsuave]

Not really. The navy has these big ships for them to mount stuff on and thus rarely think of downsizing their guns.. on the other hand the army will have to downsize it to something soldiers can carry on long treks

Yeah, its going to be a challenge to miniturize, did you see the size of those shock absorbers to catch the backlash? Firing a round that fast would either tear a gun out of the soldiers hands or tear off his arms... But if they could figure out the dampeners, then they could decrease the overall weight that soldiers carry because they wouldn't have to lug around the full bullet including casing and poweder, just the bullet/projectile.

~Michael

[Wingsolution]

The other big problem, and the one that keeps the military from using handheld railguns is power, battery tech and capaciters with enough juice to fire more than once are too heavy, or at least heavyer/bulkyer than the equivelent force the same weight/bulk of gunpowder could provide.

A minor note, but my grandfather, who's become a bit of a conspiracy nut, thinks that the government and/or corporations are holding back battery technology...