The kinetic energy of a projectile traveling at 5,000 mph is devastating. It’s not just gonna poke a small hole the size of whatever you threw at the ship. Small rocks hitting the earth or moon with no explosives make huge craters from just sheer speed
For funsies, I put in 1.56 MPS into a google search to see what it came to in MPH, came to 5,616 MPH. Then, went MPH to Mach. That sucker is being shot at approximately Mach 7 per google.
Speed + mass. Without mass they wouldn't leave craters. a 20 pound projectile would do some good damage at those speeds, though. I wonder how far those projectiles can go before they've vaporized from atmospheric friction.
Human reaction time to visual stimuli is typically around 200-250 milliseconds. In this time, an object moving at 1.6 miles per second would have already traveled: 1.6 miles in just 1 second. In 250 milliseconds (0.25 seconds), the object would travel around 0.4 miles (640 meters). This means that by the time your brain processes what it sees, the object would have already moved a significant distance, making it extremely hard to track.
Reason Railguns aren't used more often now isn't because of power so much as the wear and tear that firing causes on the barrel and components. The sheer amount of heat warps the components out of whack and needs repairs often. It's good tech, just needs more dev time to get it to a state where it's truly feasible. Imagine battleships with no explosive magazines because they don't have a need for it, just lasers and railguns. BTW 5760 mph is over Mach 7. It's BANANAS. There's no dodging it, no intercepting that mid air
... just use coilgun, cause, I'm pretty sure it's possible to make them modular, and as such, would be able to be repaired and refitted much more easily, plus, to help avoid the electromagnets, tearing themselves apart, you can make the coils bigger in radius, plus, given the modularity, you could make a coilgun with enough power, to reach ESCAPE VELOCITY, or even higher.
Regarding missile pricing, I went to university as a Computer Engineering major and many of my professors came from the defense industry, so many of the problems I would solve in class would be similar to those solved by engineers working on missile and targeting systems. The main contributors to missile pricing in defense contracts are the targeting system and manufacturing cost. While parts themselves are a fraction of the total cost, manufacturing can be quite expensive when basically everybody on the line needs to be a top machinist along with full background checks and clearances, plus inspections at every point. Targeting systems though are extraordinarily complex. Lets say you are working with a Fox-3 missile like an AIM-120 which is active radar guiding. Not only do you need to squeeze the radar, IR, etc. sensors into the missile, but then you need to take the raw sensor data, determine what is an anomaly due to the sensor hardware, then determine objects, classify those objects as friend or foe based almost purely on the data from the sensor suite alone, and then use that data that you read in to feed a controls system which modifies things such as engine output, aerodynamic surfaces, gyroscopes, etc. to follow an intercept path. This controls side is complex, but generally a mostly solved problem since the issues also reside in many consumer and civilian industries meaning you can hire standard controls engineers. The sensor to controls link however is extremely complex and requires basically the best mathematicians your country has, and at that point they also need to be extremely proficient with programming and designing and running simulations in order to achieve the system of equations and constants that are required to do this processing which highly skilled programmers can then sit down at and optimize for speed, parallelism, embedding directly onto hardware using ASICs (custom silicon, expensive) or FPGAs, etc. While this whole thing is going on, you are also designing around adversaries who are doing the same thing and using their top tier personnel to try to find ways to minimize their assets appearance to your sensors to make the difference between an anomaly and a good detection even smaller, meaning the entire equation just got even harder while you were working on it. For instance, the F-22A raptor is claimed to appear on radar as roughly the same size as a bird or insect depending on the source you use, meaning that your filters for filtering out wildlife and your filters which define a reading of an enemy are now overlapping and you need to both re-engineer your filters, and come up with additional systems and stages to handle the overlap. All of this processing then has to be done hundreds to thousands of times a second while both your perspective as the missile is moving, and the enemy is also presumably moving at their best skill to try to evade you. Now take into account the salaries of all these technical minds that you've needed to accrue to design this system, the amount of time (often years) they have been working on this one specific product, the training and recruiting costs to find and encourage the next generation of people to replace your current engineers when they retire, the costs of failed prototypes, testing, demonstrations, certifications, etc. and bake them into the price that you sell each missile at based off the initial contract. If the navy wants to only purchase say 500 of your missiles that you've spent billions of dollars developing, you need to sell them at enough of a price to ensure that you still break even, and then ideally make a profit on it as well. Now, if the navy were to come back and say that they want 10,000 more with no additional modifications, you can sell those closer to unit cost, make more profit off them while selling them at a lesser price since you've already recuperated your development costs, however it is rare for this to happen and if the armed forces end up asking for more of a unit, they may ask for certain modifications which you then need to handle the engineering and development costs again for those new variants, however those are typically lower than the initial system depending on what they want updated.
A rail gun round hitting a ship, would be a lot like a sabot round from a tank. At the point of contact, the pressure would be so high, that metal would vaporize causing fires.
The thing about a rail gun, if they could make it viable is that you couldn’t intercept it, and if you have a good targeting system you could rapidly critically damage many ships. Slam engines, weapon systems, bridges, and so on. Not to mention the shock from a projectile going that fast, could shred and warp a ships haul. Any crew members near the point of impacted would be evaporated. Could be a decent crippling weapon.
@@slll9862 yes, but those missiles are much larger and further away. A rail gun isn't shooting from hundreds of miles away. It's a point defense/offense weapon. Not to mention it surely can't go that far before atmospheric friction vaporizes it. We don't have anything that could intercept it except MAYBE CIWS, but being a 20 kilo lump of metal, it's gonna be hard for a 20mm round to do much to alter it's trajectory.
The drawback to ERG is the erosion of the launch platform. And ridiculous prices to machine a piece metal the size of a breadbox. $129M? MIC is not living in our reality.
A rail gun projectile would slice through a ship and suck out the soft fleshy inhabitants out the other side. Early sabot rounds would not only penetrate armor, but would also cause sudden decompression inside armored vehicles. During the Six-Day War the Israelis shot tanks several times before realizing they were neutralized by the first round. They would slice through the tank, killing the crew via sudden compression. Later sabot designs implemented materials which would not only penetrate armor, but would also deflect inside the vehicle, causing internal ammo magazines to explode.
@@bryanst.martin7134 Exactly, the cost per shot an the weapon's excessive rate of wear make it infeasible for the railgun. The original video narrator is just plain wrong with a lot of the info he is claiming.
Railgun, no Explosives needed. It does damage on impact purely through its kinetic energy until its lost all that energy. And it has a LOT of energy. If you like that, look for Information to "Rod from God" A Kinetic Satelite Weapon Thats absolutely crazy.
Here are some numbers for comparison. The new SR-72 numbers which are being released (actual performance may be in excess of these numbers) is to fly Mach 6 at 80,000 ft. That means the speed of 4,630 mi an hour at an altitude of 15.15 miles. The railgun leaves the ship at 5,616 mph and already has a range of 125 miles. That means in theory the railgun could shoot down the SR-72, but that would have to be one heck of a shot. Good thing no other country has one of these guns.
@@jameswells554 You're thinking of Project Babylon. That wasn't a railgun as much as it was just a huge a*s cannon intended to yeet payloads into low earth orbit to have them come crashing down. And by huge a*s, I'm pretty sure "Baby Babylon" (the one they managed to actually build) was in the realms of I think 50-ish meters in length. "Big Babylon" (what Sadaam wanted) was going to slap an additional 100 meters onto it. It wasn't massive in caliber, though. A modest 13.5 inch (about the same size as naval guns at the very beginning of WWII.) But no Electro Magnetic Propulsion there.
@@chernobyl68US does have a railgun but they “cancelled” the project cuz they didn’t want the public knowing anymore ab it and has been in developed since then
Gerneral Atomics, who designed and developed the electromagnetic catapult system for the Ford class carriers, was working on a gauss rifle (similar to the catapult system) to replace the 5 inch naval guns, but the Navy decided to pull the plug because they've still got plenty of shells. Gauss rifles are different from rail guns because the rails don't erode with use. They were planning on putting these guns on nuclear powered ships, so the energy was "free".
They had a rail gun on a small boy in Mayport Navy Base in 2004. The Doyle or Boyd or something. It was gonna be tested in sea trials. It was only about 20 feet long.
Railguns are a option at super long range but honestly it's the laser weapons that are going to be most used. It's more accurate more controllable and can even be used to destroy engines in battleships.
The three Zumwalt Class Destroyers and one or two Classes of the latest Aircraft Carriers (Nimitz & Ford) are the only Naval Ships w/ enough power to fire a BAE Rail Gun atm. My understanding of the Awesome Rail Gun is that the project has been placed on hold until they figure out a Barrel that can withstand more than one or two firings. The advantages of the Rail Gun far outweigh the disadvantages and I'm sure research is continuing on Barrel development. The Money for the Rail Gun has been sent towards developing Laser Systems. Laser Systems have one major disadvantage, they're dependent on clear weather.
We have an airforce with only 3 aircraft too. US Space Force. They have 3 unmanned lifting body shuttles. There are several rail guns on naval vessels. The LCS ships are rumored to be designed for a rail gun because the power system is 5x more than is needed to run the ship. Railguns cost nothing to fire..... the projectile costs around $250 each. The power is just fuel costs. The rail gun does not degrade, the laser system does. Its why they built it on modular platforms. The cost of the munitions are mainly due to the cost of the research. There are 50 projects that lead up to some of these weapons. We dont field weapons without testing them alot.
@OriginalHuman I love watching videos about the military, personal, and equipment and it's alot better when we get the input from a member of another nations military. We get to learn a lot about haw different or the same our allies are doing. Please keep up the good work thank you for the entertainment your very funny while also being professional when needed. You bring a lot of info from u home nation God bless u man
The main problem with lasers is range. The horizon is only about 3 miles away (a bit more than that because of the height of the ship, maybe as much as 12 miles), so you can't shoot a laser farther than that at surface targets. Unless we can mount one on a plane, but then there's power generation issues.
Quick mention about laser tech. Sadly the atmosphere is dusty, so in the long run it will greatly weaken a laser beam. Basically after a couple tens of kms laser might become useless (depends on how clean the air is). Since cleaning the air is impossible atm, the only way to improve lasers is to increase the power. Also, firing a laser beam for a long time heats up the air it passes through (again, the dust) so after a while the aim get can wonky, and the dispersion might increase (so instead of focusing the light into a tiny dot, it becomes a long range flashlight). There are quite a few issues with laser weaponry, but they are very useful after all. I think the Iron Dome in Israel already has laser weapons included for medium range defense (rockets are long range, and autoguns short range, or something like that).
I always go back to that line in the movie Independence Day “You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?” ..since it's spot on, when I was in the Army they were being charged an arm and a leg for tank parts... whats even more crazy is some of those parts were the same ones used in the air force and they were being charged a lot less for the same parts..
A railgun can be far more devastating than a missle; not because of explosive force, but by removing watertight integrity through the ship. If the exit is below the waterline, you will have a serious problem. The best host for this weapon has been decommissioned so I'll say this again: BRING BACK BATTLESHIPS!!!
Check out the SM6 the navy's newest missile. It can engage about anything including land and ship targets. The navy is adapting the Super Hornets to carry it. The range of the Aim 120 missiles the Hornet has now is maybe 100 miles. The SM6 will be about 250 miles. Huge difference.
2nd biggest airforce (by numerical count of all total aircraft) is the US Army. The Navy is now in 4th place after Russia. Isreal's Iron Dome is based on missiles with greater range and less collateral fallout than the Phalanx system. Railguns are not in use on ships because of issues with the capacitor banks; the nuclear power on the ships is capable of supplying the total energy requirement but it has to charge capacitors over time. Railguns also have to limit the projectile speed or the rails that guide the projectile will warp and melt.
I do think that is why the allies of the U.S. are keeping their costs so low while maintaining fairly modern equipment. The U.S. is developing them and their allies are just buying them without needing to spend money on R & D. I think if every country stuck to only it's own technology the U.S. military budget wouldn't be so high in comparison.
The thing about laser weapons is that they don't work instantaneously like kinetic weapons do. It's a high energy beam that has to be held on an exact target for a period of time before they even do anything. No fire and forget capability
I believe the laser weapons will take out the sensitive electronics of plane/ship/directed ordinance with a few seconds blast, it would take a prolonged targeting to explode, bring down planes/missles. It is the electronics that is most vulnerable to high energy weaponry.
Unless a round or a missile can guide itself to the target, then it doesn't have fire-and-forget either. Which are many weapons still used. So, that most likely wouldn't be a major decision-making factor.
@@bobprivate8575 Plus there's atmospheric conditions that effect how efficient that laser is out to a distance and placing them on the most consistently unpredictable meteorological environment on the planet will be just perfect for them. It'll all be fun and games until that squall moves in and then no one gets to use their lasers. Morning mists? Lasers are down, but these old missiles and guns still work.
They would need to be near-perfect mirrors which you are not going to be able to make stable outside of a controlled environment. A regular mirror would reflect about 70% of the first few milliseconds of the laser hitting, and then vaporize.
@@RagingPhoenix16661 lol it would protect the plane, but that laser might reflect god knows where and hit something else rofl. Idk what the range on those things are, but that would be comedy
The amount of spall from a hit also moving at insane speeds, that in turn creating more spall, incredible amounts of damage are possible. You could have a cloud of spall 30 ft in diameter moving at mach speeds.
Laser can be countered with dust, smoke, fog, rain, any number of particulates that can come between the source and its target. Let alone reflective materials.
Rail gun shell are going so fast when it hits something it detonates. Theres videos out there showing the explosion it couses , just because of friction and kinetic energy, it will not pass though . Its like a bullet when it hits a hard point it shatters into many pieces yet it causes a mini explosion at impact. Thr trident is not just one missile , inside it has multiple warheads , so when it re enters the atmosphere it splits into multiple war heads that can hit different cities with just 1 missile.
When they can find a way to shield an ordinance package inside the MAC rounds. They can lighten the load of the rounds, only being limited by a very accurate timing or contact explosive. The way some sci-fi tropes are concerned. Using a tungsten alloy core that is precut to shatter on impact might do the trick aslwell
I've also heard that the 3rd largest Airforce in the world is the decommissioned fleet that the US keeps in storage yards that can be recommissioned into service if need be.
The cost of missiles is mainly due to the price of manufacturing the parts. Machinists get paid handsomely for producing these things. So i couldn't imagine it costing 10k in parts
Railguns are mounted on a solid platform without any Recoil. All that recoil is going somewhere, and if it was installed on a ship it could knock the ship off course enough to throw off its aim, if it doesn't damage the ship. All that power is converted into Kinetic energy faster than a bomb explosion (show me a bomb that can produce enough energy to send a projectile off at 1.6 miles per second.) The electromagnets are in the barrel, so if the barrel even moved a few millimeters it could throw off the timing of the magnets. The technology has been around for decades, but they had to figure out how to build one that could withstand the punishment. I would at least wait until they can build it into a system that will allow the barrel to be aimed, because it's really pointless if you can't aim the thing.
6:30 You can see the bullets actually hitting each other where they cross to the right of the telephone pole. 6:38 that puff of smoke in the center of the screen was the target getting hit. 10:30 A lump of metal might not explode, but if you're using depleted uranium, you're going to burn everything around where it hit. DU BURNS when it goes through armor setting anything inside the ship on fire.
Consider the shock wave of a rail gun. When Navy ships are shock tested it is done with thousands of pounds of explosive off the stern of the ship to simulate a near hit. This can result in rippled decks, damaged equipment and injured personnel.
Hey Mate! I will tell you what the deadliest thing in the US Navy is. It is the Sailors. I'm proud to have been one active duty, and for life. I met some of you Furriners, in Mildenhall and Torremolinos, Sp. We wound up adjusting some attitudes of the least receptive locals of our friendly, party hungry state of mind. I think 38 fights broke out in the weekend we were there. I don't think anyone was hospitalized. What a blast!
Railguns are currently deployed on Japanese destroyers as of this year I believe. Possibly late last year, but they ARE currently deployed now by the JPN. Maybe that would be a cool thing to follow up on with a reaction.
Actually, the UK has already nailed the laser system with that Dragon system. It's supposed to be more advanced than the US LAWS version. The UK is already putting them into production.
Two things… the kinetic energy involved would create tremendous damage. Secondly you have to remember that other navy’s don’t have the amazing damage control capabilities we do
The railgun round fires at a speed of about mach 7.5 Also I agree lasers are more likely than railguns, but keep in mind lasers have to have direct line of sight, so it does have a significant draw back.
the round doesn't remain intact as it passes through the ship. it fragments, the hull where it hits fragments, the pieces are going insanely fast, they punch through the next wall and fragment again, and THAT wall fragments, rinse and repeat. essentially a hypersonic shotgun. a railgun round hitting a ship would shred things in a cone through the ship. this doesn't even touch on the shockwave that would pass through the ship on impact. even stuff not in that cone would have a bad day. no, they can't fire all the weapons at the same time. the heat and vibrations generated by each is considerable. it would be bad for both the ship and it's crew. they CAN, however, use them in quick succession, and over a considerable amount of time. imagine a ship continuously firing at some target area for a considerably longer period of time than would be required to completely decimate anything in that area. they aren't used that way though. they are used more like a someone plinking targets with a rifle rather than saturating an area with machine gun fire. But they CAN.
I was on the USS Merrill (DD-976) from 87-91. I was surprised to see her mentioned. I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to fire most, if not all, weapon types at one time. Each has a separate control console.
After hearing that insane speed I looked at some high speed projectiles and here is what I found, "Using an experimental gun about 60 feet long, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have blasted a small projectile(1 gram) to a speed of 10 miles a second, which is thought to be the highest velocity ever reached on earth by any object larger than a speck of dust." This was published in the New York Times Mar 22, 1994.
For that railgun, shooting at 1.56 miles per second is equal to 5,616 miles per hour. That's Mach 7.3, and it has about 9,454,367 joules, which is equal to a 1-ton car moving at 48 miles per hour, or 2,300 calories, which is 9.4 Big Macs' worth. 1) That's a lot of energy. 2) Food holds an insane amount of energy. 3) Our bodies consume a crazy amount of energy every day..
If launching an expensive missile prevents a ship from being attacked or sunk, it is probably a good deal. Missiles are a whole lot less expensive that a ship and its crew.
The only reason we don't use the rail guns is the maintenance. The actual launch rails literally rip themselves apart when firing. So until we improve the materials they are basically a shelved concept. We can get a few shots out of a set of rails but not much more than that.
You would be shocked how much the parts for the missiles cost. The government wastes so much money on supplies it’s disgusting. I’m a mechanic for F22’s and let’s say a simple air hose coupler started leaking and needed to be replaced. In the sane world you could go to a hardware store buy one for $2.50 and just swap it out. Not on a government installation. You’d have to find a “purchaser” from your supply crib that then has to call the stores to order them. Then that coupler will go through like 4 other avenues with paperwork, certifications and what not. Then the big boss of the building will have to contact maintenance to have them send out 3-4 guys that will drag out a 10 second job out for an hour or 2. By the end of the process that $2.50 coupler is now a $750 coupler. It’s “mental!” Lol
Laser is limited by Earth's curvature, ships disappear to the horizon at around 20 km... unless you're a flat earther, but it doesn't need to be one thing or the other, railgun for ship to ship and laser for air defense
The main issue with railguns isn't even energy consumption anymore, that's only a small problem now. The real issue is longevity of the weapon system. Whenever you fire any gun the barrel receives a little damage which is usually negligible, even artillery guns can fire thousands of rounds before replacement, but railguns suffer immense deterioration from each shot. You'd be lucky to shoot a railgun more than a couple dozen times without catastrophic failure
I saw a video a while back where it stated that the rail gun was scrapped because the projectiles damaged the barrels too quickly. Maybe that was incorrect, or perhaps they’ve improved on the design.
Actually you underestimate the endpoint potential of the railgun technology. Picture a sturdy projectile that not only travels so fast, creating tremendous impact force on its own, but add a powerful thermobaric charge or cluster ammo warhead and you get a terrifying projectile that is virtually impossible to be intercepted. It would basically make Ballistic weaponry capable of instantly penetrating ships or similar large structures with extreme effectiveness and impunity while also allowing for a different variant of the ammunition to deploy extensive Area of Denial devastation without any chance of interception. That is exactly the kind of advantage the US military constantly craves.
The only nuclear powered ships in our navy are the carriers and the submarines. But hey, we’re Americans, putting a railgun on a carrier wouldn’t be that unusual. If you’re sending aircraft to hit the enemy 200 miles away you might as well start shooting dumbbell weights at them while you’re at it.
I think you're mistaken about the railgun. As it continues to be improved, taking into account advances in metallurgy, I believe it will be a valued weapon right alongside of the laser. There are counters for lasers, although most of them require specific knowledge of the weapon itself, i.e. exact wavelength, what type of lasing material, etc. Why are they all seemingly ship mounted? DON'T TOUCH OUR BOATS is why. Really, DON'T TOUCH OUR BOATS! In other words: "Sailor!" "Sir, yes sir!" "Do you see that ship?" "Sir, yes sir!" "THEY TOUCHED OUR BOAT! I don't want to see it anymore!" "Sir, yes sir!" Insert various explosions, possible coastline reshaping, etc. EDIT: Yes, the prices of the weapons seems high, but think of the cost of the boats themselves. A 5 or 6 million dollar missile pales in comparison to the cost of the ship that launched it, not to mention the sailors aboard, and so from the ship's point of view, it's totally worth a few million dollar shot with almost guaranteed hit vs. possible loss of a multi-billion dollar ship and all her crew.
When you mentioned a Laser can't be countered.... Not sure, how about some sort of coating for planes that is kind of like "Frosted Glass" that would not allow the laser to focus on the aircraft? Funnier concept still would be some sort of Mirror you (As the target) could have available that were able to be aimed. You could lterally point the laser back at the people firing it. No only that but I think too many thing interefere with it from Simply clouds, etc. I personally think it would be WAY too dependent on clear/good weather to even have a CHANCE at focusing, ya know? Would love to hear what others think... It honestly just seems like there are too many things against it that could "Scatter" the light and not allow it to focus (Both natural and man-made.
The problem with lasers is as mentioned, the power consumption but to your point nuclear power is something available so maybe not an issue. However weather is a problem. Any kind of water vaper or anything in the air, will negatively affect the range and power, and possibly even accuracy. In space lasers are a no brainer, but in an atmosphere there's a lot that can negatively affect their performance. Maybe those things can be overcome but it will probably require more power so that it would just burn though the atmosphere as the beam moved through it. That could increase accuracy and range and possibly keep the beam more coherent as it moves through weather and moisture. I'm sure someone will figure it out.
the kinetic energy of the rail gun projectile does cause explosions from super heated air. Just imagine the vacuum caused when the projectile exits the ship at 5,000 mph. It would literally suck a camel through the eye of a needle
Fun fact, all 3 Zumwalt class stealth destroyers that were built here in Maine at Bath Iron Works in the city of Bath, were specifically designed to generate enough power to power a rail gun. Sadly, the navy completely cut funding for its rail gun program with no plans to resume it. The navy had planned to outfit all 3 Zumwalt class destroyers with rail guns upon the programs completion, but all 3 will now be fitted out with a hypersonic missile system instead.
I saw a video of what the rail gun can do. It was fired and went through 5 or 6 slabs of concrete several feet thick. When it burst through each slab it came through in a ball of fire 🔥. I'm guessing there was that much friction.
The railguns were supposed to go on the Zumwalt's. They have the power to run them At 78 megawatts. The problem is the rail guns chew up the barrel Vs a gauss rifle which floats the round down magnets. The problem is the ships were a boondoggle.
Lasers could be defended against, not 100% but partially, by smoke and dense clouds of chaff. Anything that can be used to diffuse that beam will reduce its impact on the target, so a properly prepared opponent could litter the field with airborne diffusing agents. That being said, let's take a minute to giggle at how they chose the acronym of DEEW. Which means if they ever develop a plasma variant, we will have PEEWs. 🤣
Problem they have with the rail gun is, it only takes a few rounds to essentially melt the internal components of the gun itself. So, long-term use of the system is not yet viable.
It could fire all weapons at once. Every weapon has its own crew. Some even have their own radar and targeting computers. So in theory, yes. But, would it be effective?
A huge problem with the rail gun is a hypersonic projectile is going to bleed speed at a much higher rate, so while the muzzle velocity may be high, it won't be nearly that fast at 150mi. It's the same reason why the Russians claimed the Kinjhal missile was hypersonic but could still be shot down by Patriot systems. And Aegis is even better at target tracking and interception than Patriot is. Also, in terms of profits, the US mil-industry has one of the slimmest profit margins of any industry. If you were to combine all of the profits of the top 5 biggest US military contractors for 2023, it's ~50 billion dollars. If you compare to other big US companies That number really isn't very impressive. For example, with Apple: 169 billion, Amazon: 270 billion, Walmart: 157 billion, Microsoft: 171 billion, Google(Alphabet): 174 billion.
Sir, you need to take a look at the U.S.A.F.’s new weapon called the Quick Sink, delivered by the B2. Another weapon system is called Rapid Dragon though this one is not so much an anti ship it’s still a scary one.
With a rail gun you could hit the ships magazine or engine and an explosion would happen before they even know they were even hit or the ship would be dead in the water. Having some coming at you that fast that you can’t track on radar is frightening. I’d take that rail gun over a missile any day.
That is a true fact. The largest airports in the world is the US Air force, and the second largest is the US Navy. Mainly because the US Navy comprises not only the Navy but the Marine Corps as well.
The kinetic energy of a projectile traveling at 5,000 mph is devastating. It’s not just gonna poke a small hole the size of whatever you threw at the ship. Small rocks hitting the earth or moon with no explosives make huge craters from just sheer speed
I was just about to type this! Great way of explaining
For funsies, I put in 1.56 MPS into a google search to see what it came to in MPH, came to 5,616 MPH. Then, went MPH to Mach. That sucker is being shot at approximately Mach 7 per google.
Speed + mass. Without mass they wouldn't leave craters. a 20 pound projectile would do some good damage at those speeds, though. I wonder how far those projectiles can go before they've vaporized from atmospheric friction.
same as apfsds, no warhead, still makes target go boom
@@Jason_Lallathin Similar for sure. Overpressure will definitely blow out a few compartments.
Human reaction time to visual stimuli is typically around 200-250 milliseconds. In this time, an object moving at 1.6 miles per second would have already traveled:
1.6 miles in just 1 second.
In 250 milliseconds (0.25 seconds), the object would travel around 0.4 miles (640 meters).
This means that by the time your brain processes what it sees, the object would have already moved a significant distance, making it extremely hard to track.
if we want to add to this figure. That is 7.5 times the speed of sound or Mach 7
Reason Railguns aren't used more often now isn't because of power so much as the wear and tear that firing causes on the barrel and components. The sheer amount of heat warps the components out of whack and needs repairs often. It's good tech, just needs more dev time to get it to a state where it's truly feasible. Imagine battleships with no explosive magazines because they don't have a need for it, just lasers and railguns.
BTW 5760 mph is over Mach 7. It's BANANAS. There's no dodging it, no intercepting that mid air
Yeah and it’s instant Mach 7. Soon as you pull the trigger, it leaves the barrel at Mach 7
... just use coilgun, cause, I'm pretty sure it's possible to make them modular, and as such, would be able to be repaired and refitted much more easily, plus, to help avoid the electromagnets, tearing themselves apart, you can make the coils bigger in radius, plus, given the modularity, you could make a coilgun with enough power, to reach ESCAPE VELOCITY, or even higher.
Regarding missile pricing, I went to university as a Computer Engineering major and many of my professors came from the defense industry, so many of the problems I would solve in class would be similar to those solved by engineers working on missile and targeting systems. The main contributors to missile pricing in defense contracts are the targeting system and manufacturing cost. While parts themselves are a fraction of the total cost, manufacturing can be quite expensive when basically everybody on the line needs to be a top machinist along with full background checks and clearances, plus inspections at every point. Targeting systems though are extraordinarily complex. Lets say you are working with a Fox-3 missile like an AIM-120 which is active radar guiding. Not only do you need to squeeze the radar, IR, etc. sensors into the missile, but then you need to take the raw sensor data, determine what is an anomaly due to the sensor hardware, then determine objects, classify those objects as friend or foe based almost purely on the data from the sensor suite alone, and then use that data that you read in to feed a controls system which modifies things such as engine output, aerodynamic surfaces, gyroscopes, etc. to follow an intercept path. This controls side is complex, but generally a mostly solved problem since the issues also reside in many consumer and civilian industries meaning you can hire standard controls engineers. The sensor to controls link however is extremely complex and requires basically the best mathematicians your country has, and at that point they also need to be extremely proficient with programming and designing and running simulations in order to achieve the system of equations and constants that are required to do this processing which highly skilled programmers can then sit down at and optimize for speed, parallelism, embedding directly onto hardware using ASICs (custom silicon, expensive) or FPGAs, etc.
While this whole thing is going on, you are also designing around adversaries who are doing the same thing and using their top tier personnel to try to find ways to minimize their assets appearance to your sensors to make the difference between an anomaly and a good detection even smaller, meaning the entire equation just got even harder while you were working on it. For instance, the F-22A raptor is claimed to appear on radar as roughly the same size as a bird or insect depending on the source you use, meaning that your filters for filtering out wildlife and your filters which define a reading of an enemy are now overlapping and you need to both re-engineer your filters, and come up with additional systems and stages to handle the overlap. All of this processing then has to be done hundreds to thousands of times a second while both your perspective as the missile is moving, and the enemy is also presumably moving at their best skill to try to evade you.
Now take into account the salaries of all these technical minds that you've needed to accrue to design this system, the amount of time (often years) they have been working on this one specific product, the training and recruiting costs to find and encourage the next generation of people to replace your current engineers when they retire, the costs of failed prototypes, testing, demonstrations, certifications, etc. and bake them into the price that you sell each missile at based off the initial contract. If the navy wants to only purchase say 500 of your missiles that you've spent billions of dollars developing, you need to sell them at enough of a price to ensure that you still break even, and then ideally make a profit on it as well. Now, if the navy were to come back and say that they want 10,000 more with no additional modifications, you can sell those closer to unit cost, make more profit off them while selling them at a lesser price since you've already recuperated your development costs, however it is rare for this to happen and if the armed forces end up asking for more of a unit, they may ask for certain modifications which you then need to handle the engineering and development costs again for those new variants, however those are typically lower than the initial system depending on what they want updated.
@@mjc4wilton and that's why it's 220k a missile!
A rail gun round hitting a ship, would be a lot like a sabot round from a tank. At the point of contact, the pressure would be so high, that metal would vaporize causing fires.
I think a ship that was hit would have an ocean of problems over their hole in their hull being vaporized due to a railgun shot.
@15:00 Just like stealth/ablative/spall-lined armor is a thing, reflective armor could be too. Where are my Mechwarrior fans?
2:02 the most modern that is declassified!
Lmao you're not wrong. at 1:35 I had the overwhelming urge to duck even though I wasn't the one being barrel swept.
The thing about a rail gun, if they could make it viable is that you couldn’t intercept it, and if you have a good targeting system you could rapidly critically damage many ships. Slam engines, weapon systems, bridges, and so on. Not to mention the shock from a projectile going that fast, could shred and warp a ships haul. Any crew members near the point of impacted would be evaporated. Could be a decent crippling weapon.
I doubt it couldn't be intercepted there are missiles that are faster
@@slll9862 yes, but those missiles are much larger and further away. A rail gun isn't shooting from hundreds of miles away. It's a point defense/offense weapon. Not to mention it surely can't go that far before atmospheric friction vaporizes it.
We don't have anything that could intercept it except MAYBE CIWS, but being a 20 kilo lump of metal, it's gonna be hard for a 20mm round to do much to alter it's trajectory.
The drawback to ERG is the erosion of the launch platform. And ridiculous prices to machine a piece metal the size of a breadbox. $129M? MIC is not living in our reality.
A rail gun projectile would slice through a ship and suck out the soft fleshy inhabitants out the other side.
Early sabot rounds would not only penetrate armor, but would also cause sudden decompression inside armored vehicles. During the Six-Day War the Israelis shot tanks several times before realizing they were neutralized by the first round. They would slice through the tank, killing the crew via sudden compression. Later sabot designs implemented materials which would not only penetrate armor, but would also deflect inside the vehicle, causing internal ammo magazines to explode.
@@bryanst.martin7134 Exactly, the cost per shot an the weapon's excessive rate of wear make it infeasible for the railgun. The original video narrator is just plain wrong with a lot of the info he is claiming.
Railgun, no Explosives needed. It does damage on impact purely through its kinetic energy until its lost all that energy. And it has a LOT of energy. If you like that, look for Information to "Rod from God" A Kinetic Satelite Weapon Thats absolutely crazy.
Here are some numbers for comparison. The new SR-72 numbers which are being released (actual performance may be in excess of these numbers) is to fly Mach 6 at 80,000 ft. That means the speed of 4,630 mi an hour at an altitude of 15.15 miles. The railgun leaves the ship at 5,616 mph and already has a range of 125 miles. That means in theory the railgun could shoot down the SR-72, but that would have to be one heck of a shot. Good thing no other country has one of these guns.
no country has them period. they've never been installed on a ship and are no longer under development for the USN.
Sadaam tried to have one built. He hired a Canadian engineer for the project if I remember correctly.
@@jameswells554 that wasn't a rail gun, that was his super cannon, where they tried to import cannon barrels claiming they were pipes for something
@@jameswells554 You're thinking of Project Babylon. That wasn't a railgun as much as it was just a huge a*s cannon intended to yeet payloads into low earth orbit to have them come crashing down. And by huge a*s, I'm pretty sure "Baby Babylon" (the one they managed to actually build) was in the realms of I think 50-ish meters in length. "Big Babylon" (what Sadaam wanted) was going to slap an additional 100 meters onto it. It wasn't massive in caliber, though. A modest 13.5 inch (about the same size as naval guns at the very beginning of WWII.) But no Electro Magnetic Propulsion there.
@@chernobyl68US does have a railgun but they “cancelled” the project cuz they didn’t want the public knowing anymore ab it and has been in developed since then
Gerneral Atomics, who designed and developed the electromagnetic catapult system for the Ford class carriers, was working on a gauss rifle (similar to the catapult system) to replace the 5 inch naval guns, but the Navy decided to pull the plug because they've still got plenty of shells. Gauss rifles are different from rail guns because the rails don't erode with use. They were planning on putting these guns on nuclear powered ships, so the energy was "free".
10:51 - yes it will fly through the boat armor but you forget about the vacuum pressure it will cause. just like what happens in a tank
They had a rail gun on a small boy in Mayport Navy Base in 2004. The Doyle or Boyd or something. It was gonna be tested in sea trials. It was only about 20 feet long.
Railguns are a option at super long range but honestly it's the laser weapons that are going to be most used. It's more accurate more controllable and can even be used to destroy engines in battleships.
The three Zumwalt Class Destroyers and one or two Classes of the latest Aircraft Carriers (Nimitz & Ford) are the only Naval Ships w/ enough power to fire a BAE Rail Gun atm. My understanding of the Awesome Rail Gun is that the project has been placed on hold until they figure out a Barrel that can withstand more than one or two firings.
The advantages of the Rail Gun far outweigh the disadvantages and I'm sure research is continuing on Barrel development. The Money for the Rail Gun has been sent towards developing Laser Systems. Laser Systems have one major disadvantage, they're dependent on clear weather.
We have an airforce with only 3 aircraft too. US Space Force. They have 3 unmanned lifting body shuttles.
There are several rail guns on naval vessels. The LCS ships are rumored to be designed for a rail gun because the power system is 5x more than is needed to run the ship. Railguns cost nothing to fire..... the projectile costs around $250 each. The power is just fuel costs. The rail gun does not degrade, the laser system does. Its why they built it on modular platforms.
The cost of the munitions are mainly due to the cost of the research. There are 50 projects that lead up to some of these weapons. We dont field weapons without testing them alot.
@OriginalHuman I love watching videos about the military, personal, and equipment and it's alot better when we get the input from a member of another nations military. We get to learn a lot about haw different or the same our allies are doing. Please keep up the good work thank you for the entertainment your very funny while also being professional when needed. You bring a lot of info from u home nation God bless u man
The main problem with lasers is range. The horizon is only about 3 miles away (a bit more than that because of the height of the ship, maybe as much as 12 miles), so you can't shoot a laser farther than that at surface targets. Unless we can mount one on a plane, but then there's power generation issues.
Quick mention about laser tech. Sadly the atmosphere is dusty, so in the long run it will greatly weaken a laser beam. Basically after a couple tens of kms laser might become useless (depends on how clean the air is). Since cleaning the air is impossible atm, the only way to improve lasers is to increase the power. Also, firing a laser beam for a long time heats up the air it passes through (again, the dust) so after a while the aim get can wonky, and the dispersion might increase (so instead of focusing the light into a tiny dot, it becomes a long range flashlight).
There are quite a few issues with laser weaponry, but they are very useful after all. I think the Iron Dome in Israel already has laser weapons included for medium range defense (rockets are long range, and autoguns short range, or something like that).
I always go back to that line in the movie Independence Day “You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?” ..since it's spot on, when I was in the Army they were being charged an arm and a leg for tank parts... whats even more crazy is some of those parts were the same ones used in the air force and they were being charged a lot less for the same parts..
A railgun can be far more devastating than a missle; not because of explosive force, but by removing watertight integrity through the ship. If the exit is below the waterline, you will have a serious problem. The best host for this weapon has been decommissioned so I'll say this again: BRING BACK BATTLESHIPS!!!
Check out the SM6 the navy's newest missile. It can engage about anything including land and ship targets.
The navy is adapting the Super Hornets to carry it. The range of the Aim 120 missiles the Hornet has now is maybe 100 miles. The SM6 will be about 250 miles. Huge difference.
TY and really enjoy your content and expertise on the videos.
2nd biggest airforce (by numerical count of all total aircraft) is the US Army. The Navy is now in 4th place after Russia. Isreal's Iron Dome is based on missiles with greater range and less collateral fallout than the Phalanx system. Railguns are not in use on ships because of issues with the capacitor banks; the nuclear power on the ships is capable of supplying the total energy requirement but it has to charge capacitors over time. Railguns also have to limit the projectile speed or the rails that guide the projectile will warp and melt.
I do think that is why the allies of the U.S. are keeping their costs so low while maintaining fairly modern equipment. The U.S. is developing them and their allies are just buying them without needing to spend money on R & D. I think if every country stuck to only it's own technology the U.S. military budget wouldn't be so high in comparison.
Awesome stuff brother! Keep it coming!!!
We couldn’t share that $1.87M. You’re too popular. What is that? About $2.25 each or something 😂😂
The thing about laser weapons is that they don't work instantaneously like kinetic weapons do. It's a high energy beam that has to be held on an exact target for a period of time before they even do anything. No fire and forget capability
Oh nice take, I thought it will be just like flash lights aimed at air
I believe the laser weapons will take out the sensitive electronics of plane/ship/directed ordinance with a few seconds blast, it would take a prolonged targeting to explode, bring down planes/missles. It is the electronics that is most vulnerable to high energy weaponry.
Unless a round or a missile can guide itself to the target, then it doesn't have fire-and-forget either. Which are many weapons still used. So, that most likely wouldn't be a major decision-making factor.
@@billyhndrsn4542 Lasers are impractical in an antiship role. Curvature of the Earth would limit their range to about 3-5 miles.
@@bobprivate8575 Plus there's atmospheric conditions that effect how efficient that laser is out to a distance and placing them on the most consistently unpredictable meteorological environment on the planet will be just perfect for them. It'll all be fun and games until that squall moves in and then no one gets to use their lasers. Morning mists? Lasers are down, but these old missiles and guns still work.
I’d say the only way to defend against a laser would be a mirror, can you imagine all planes covered in mirrors 😂
They would need to be near-perfect mirrors which you are not going to be able to make stable outside of a controlled environment. A regular mirror would reflect about 70% of the first few milliseconds of the laser hitting, and then vaporize.
@@kg4wwn I was just thinking of flight of the navigator style coating on planes and having a laugh
@@RagingPhoenix16661 lol it would protect the plane, but that laser might reflect god knows where and hit something else rofl. Idk what the range on those things are, but that would be comedy
The amount of spall from a hit also moving at insane speeds, that in turn creating more spall, incredible amounts of damage are possible. You could have a cloud of spall 30 ft in diameter moving at mach speeds.
Laser can be countered with dust, smoke, fog, rain, any number of particulates that can come between the source and its target. Let alone reflective materials.
Rail gun shell are going so fast when it hits something it detonates. Theres videos out there showing the explosion it couses , just because of friction and kinetic energy, it will not pass though . Its like a bullet when it hits a hard point it shatters into many pieces yet it causes a mini explosion at impact. Thr trident is not just one missile , inside it has multiple warheads , so when it re enters the atmosphere it splits into multiple war heads that can hit different cities with just 1 missile.
When they can find a way to shield an ordinance package inside the MAC rounds. They can lighten the load of the rounds, only being limited by a very accurate timing or contact explosive. The way some sci-fi tropes are concerned. Using a tungsten alloy core that is precut to shatter on impact might do the trick aslwell
I've also heard that the 3rd largest Airforce in the world is the decommissioned fleet that the US keeps in storage yards that can be recommissioned into service if need be.
I was on a US Navy destroyer in the late 80’s with a vertical launch system. We could launch all our tubes within minutes.
The cost of missiles is mainly due to the price of manufacturing the parts. Machinists get paid handsomely for producing these things. So i couldn't imagine it costing 10k in parts
The Railgun can be used on ships with nuclear power. Barrel wear is an issue, so it is still mostly a test weapon.
Railguns are mounted on a solid platform without any Recoil. All that recoil is going somewhere, and if it was installed on a ship it could knock the ship off course enough to throw off its aim, if it doesn't damage the ship. All that power is converted into Kinetic energy faster than a bomb explosion (show me a bomb that can produce enough energy to send a projectile off at 1.6 miles per second.) The electromagnets are in the barrel, so if the barrel even moved a few millimeters it could throw off the timing of the magnets. The technology has been around for decades, but they had to figure out how to build one that could withstand the punishment. I would at least wait until they can build it into a system that will allow the barrel to be aimed, because it's really pointless if you can't aim the thing.
6:30 You can see the bullets actually hitting each other where they cross to the right of the telephone pole.
6:38 that puff of smoke in the center of the screen was the target getting hit.
10:30 A lump of metal might not explode, but if you're using depleted uranium, you're going to burn everything around where it hit. DU BURNS when it goes through armor setting anything inside the ship on fire.
Consider the shock wave of a rail gun. When Navy ships are shock tested it is done with thousands of pounds of explosive off the stern of the ship to simulate a near hit. This can result in rippled decks, damaged equipment and injured personnel.
Hey Mate! I will tell you what the deadliest thing in the US Navy is. It is the Sailors. I'm proud to have been one active duty, and for life. I met some of you Furriners, in Mildenhall and Torremolinos, Sp. We wound up adjusting some attitudes of the least receptive locals of our friendly, party hungry state of mind. I think 38 fights broke out in the weekend we were there. I don't think anyone was hospitalized. What a blast!
Railguns are currently deployed on Japanese destroyers as of this year I believe. Possibly late last year, but they ARE currently deployed now by the JPN. Maybe that would be a cool thing to follow up on with a reaction.
Actually, the UK has already nailed the laser system with that Dragon system. It's supposed to be more advanced than the US LAWS version. The UK is already putting them into production.
Two things… the kinetic energy involved would create tremendous damage. Secondly you have to remember that other navy’s don’t have the amazing damage control capabilities we do
The railgun round fires at a speed of about mach 7.5 Also I agree lasers are more likely than railguns, but keep in mind lasers have to have direct line of sight, so it does have a significant draw back.
Another crazy fact....The US military normally have tech they have been working on, they say they are 10-20 years ahead of what they show the public.
Lasers are countered by fog, rain, or ANYTHING that reflects/refracts lights. I.e. is not reliably used in bad weather or with smoke screens
the round doesn't remain intact as it passes through the ship. it fragments, the hull where it hits fragments, the pieces are going insanely fast, they punch through the next wall and fragment again, and THAT wall fragments, rinse and repeat. essentially a hypersonic shotgun. a railgun round hitting a ship would shred things in a cone through the ship. this doesn't even touch on the shockwave that would pass through the ship on impact. even stuff not in that cone would have a bad day.
no, they can't fire all the weapons at the same time. the heat and vibrations generated by each is considerable. it would be bad for both the ship and it's crew. they CAN, however, use them in quick succession, and over a considerable amount of time. imagine a ship continuously firing at some target area for a considerably longer period of time than would be required to completely decimate anything in that area. they aren't used that way though. they are used more like a someone plinking targets with a rifle rather than saturating an area with machine gun fire. But they CAN.
I was on the USS Merrill (DD-976) from 87-91. I was surprised to see her mentioned.
I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to fire most, if not all, weapon types at one time. Each has a separate control console.
After hearing that insane speed I looked at some high speed projectiles and here is what I found, "Using an experimental gun about 60 feet long, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have blasted a small projectile(1 gram) to a speed of 10 miles a second, which is thought to be the highest velocity ever reached on earth by any object larger than a speck of dust." This was published in the New York Times Mar 22, 1994.
For that railgun, shooting at 1.56 miles per second is equal to 5,616 miles per hour. That's Mach 7.3, and it has about 9,454,367 joules, which is equal to a 1-ton car moving at 48 miles per hour, or 2,300 calories, which is 9.4 Big Macs' worth.
1) That's a lot of energy.
2) Food holds an insane amount of energy.
3) Our bodies consume a crazy amount of energy every day..
If launching an expensive missile prevents a ship from being attacked or sunk, it is probably a good deal. Missiles are a whole lot less expensive that a ship and its crew.
The only reason we don't use the rail guns is the maintenance. The actual launch rails literally rip themselves apart when firing. So until we improve the materials they are basically a shelved concept. We can get a few shots out of a set of rails but not much more than that.
You would be shocked how much the parts for the missiles cost. The government wastes so much money on supplies it’s disgusting. I’m a mechanic for F22’s and let’s say a simple air hose coupler started leaking and needed to be replaced. In the sane world you could go to a hardware store buy one for $2.50 and just swap it out. Not on a government installation. You’d have to find a “purchaser” from your supply crib that then has to call the stores to order them. Then that coupler will go through like 4 other avenues with paperwork, certifications and what not. Then the big boss of the building will have to contact maintenance to have them send out 3-4 guys that will drag out a 10 second job out for an hour or 2. By the end of the process that $2.50 coupler is now a $750 coupler. It’s “mental!” Lol
Laser is limited by Earth's curvature, ships disappear to the horizon at around 20 km... unless you're a flat earther, but it doesn't need to be one thing or the other, railgun for ship to ship and laser for air defense
The main issue with railguns isn't even energy consumption anymore, that's only a small problem now. The real issue is longevity of the weapon system. Whenever you fire any gun the barrel receives a little damage which is usually negligible, even artillery guns can fire thousands of rounds before replacement, but railguns suffer immense deterioration from each shot. You'd be lucky to shoot a railgun more than a couple dozen times without catastrophic failure
I saw a video a while back where it stated that the rail gun was scrapped because the projectiles damaged the barrels too quickly. Maybe that was incorrect, or perhaps they’ve improved on the design.
The AEGIS system is so good it could send signals to the UK to launch. The best offense and defense ever made. Poland just got it
Actually you underestimate the endpoint potential of the railgun technology.
Picture a sturdy projectile that not only travels so fast, creating tremendous impact force on its own, but add a powerful thermobaric charge or cluster ammo warhead and you get a terrifying projectile that is virtually impossible to be intercepted.
It would basically make Ballistic weaponry capable of instantly penetrating ships or similar large structures with extreme effectiveness and impunity while also allowing for a different variant of the ammunition to deploy extensive Area of Denial devastation without any chance of interception. That is exactly the kind of advantage the US military constantly craves.
The only nuclear powered ships in our navy are the carriers and the submarines. But hey, we’re Americans, putting a railgun on a carrier wouldn’t be that unusual. If you’re sending aircraft to hit the enemy 200 miles away you might as well start shooting dumbbell weights at them while you’re at it.
My brother works on the Trident Missile project. Pretty cool little toy!!!
I think you're mistaken about the railgun. As it continues to be improved, taking into account advances in metallurgy, I believe it will be a valued weapon right alongside of the laser. There are counters for lasers, although most of them require specific knowledge of the weapon itself, i.e. exact wavelength, what type of lasing material, etc.
Why are they all seemingly ship mounted? DON'T TOUCH OUR BOATS is why.
Really, DON'T TOUCH OUR BOATS!
In other words:
"Sailor!"
"Sir, yes sir!"
"Do you see that ship?"
"Sir, yes sir!"
"THEY TOUCHED OUR BOAT! I don't want to see it anymore!"
"Sir, yes sir!"
Insert various explosions, possible coastline reshaping, etc.
EDIT: Yes, the prices of the weapons seems high, but think of the cost of the boats themselves. A 5 or 6 million dollar missile pales in comparison to the cost of the ship that launched it, not to mention the sailors aboard, and so from the ship's point of view, it's totally worth a few million dollar shot with almost guaranteed hit vs. possible loss of a multi-billion dollar ship and all her crew.
When you mentioned a Laser can't be countered.... Not sure, how about some sort of coating for planes that is kind of like "Frosted Glass" that would not allow the laser to focus on the aircraft? Funnier concept still would be some sort of Mirror you (As the target) could have available that were able to be aimed. You could lterally point the laser back at the people firing it. No only that but I think too many thing interefere with it from Simply clouds, etc. I personally think it would be WAY too dependent on clear/good weather to even have a CHANCE at focusing, ya know? Would love to hear what others think... It honestly just seems like there are too many things against it that could "Scatter" the light and not allow it to focus (Both natural and man-made.
You need to check out the “Quicksink” Airforce bomb man. Maybe combine the video with the “Rapid Dragon”. They are insane my friend. All the best.
The EU the UK Germany we all need each other we need to heavenly invest in military weapons to be strong
Biggest issue with the rail gun wasn't the power. It was the durability of the rails
The problem with lasers is as mentioned, the power consumption but to your point nuclear power is something available so maybe not an issue. However weather is a problem. Any kind of water vaper or anything in the air, will negatively affect the range and power, and possibly even accuracy. In space lasers are a no brainer, but in an atmosphere there's a lot that can negatively affect their performance. Maybe those things can be overcome but it will probably require more power so that it would just burn though the atmosphere as the beam moved through it. That could increase accuracy and range and possibly keep the beam more coherent as it moves through weather and moisture. I'm sure someone will figure it out.
A brick of metal flying a essentially Mach FU is always so funny
1.56 Miles per second is 8236 feet per second for those of us used to FPS in rifles. Holy crap.
the kinetic energy of the rail gun projectile does cause explosions from super heated air. Just imagine the vacuum caused when the projectile exits the ship at 5,000 mph. It would literally suck a camel through the eye of a needle
The US ships are now being built with way more electrical power and have room to expand electrical for lasers and rail guns
The power is less of the problem. The rail gun barrels fail after like 5 shots. It's a materials issue.
Fun fact, all 3 Zumwalt class stealth destroyers that were built here in Maine at Bath Iron Works in the city of Bath, were specifically designed to generate enough power to power a rail gun. Sadly, the navy completely cut funding for its rail gun program with no plans to resume it. The navy had planned to outfit all 3 Zumwalt class destroyers with rail guns upon the programs completion, but all 3 will now be fitted out with a hypersonic missile system instead.
They “cancelled” the program ;) they just didn’t want the public knowing anymore ab it lol
The Gerald R. Ford was built with extra nuclear reactors to prepare for the laser and rail gun. They are getting ready.
I saw a video of what the rail gun can do. It was fired and went through 5 or 6 slabs of concrete several feet thick. When it burst through each slab it came through in a ball of fire 🔥. I'm guessing there was that much friction.
The railguns were supposed to go on the Zumwalt's. They have the power to run them At 78 megawatts. The problem is the rail guns chew up the barrel Vs a gauss rifle which floats the round down magnets. The problem is the ships were a boondoggle.
Atmospheric conditions effect laser performance greatly
The missles seem like they cost too much. But when taken into account, they're designed to sink billion dollar ships.
Lasers could be defended against, not 100% but partially, by smoke and dense clouds of chaff. Anything that can be used to diffuse that beam will reduce its impact on the target, so a properly prepared opponent could litter the field with airborne diffusing agents.
That being said, let's take a minute to giggle at how they chose the acronym of DEEW. Which means if they ever develop a plasma variant, we will have PEEWs. 🤣
The power required to fire a rail gun is far cheaper than the cost of missiles and shells.
I feel like rail guns are future tech. Once we develop better power generation sources and munitions materials, it will become viable.
lol love that the railgun design that was used for the thumbnail was from Transformers 2😅
Whatever they are showing you, they are 3 generations ahead with what they aren't showing you.
Problem they have with the rail gun is, it only takes a few rounds to essentially melt the internal components of the gun itself. So, long-term use of the system is not yet viable.
What if they design the system to be modular so you could switch out new components quickly
It could fire all weapons at once. Every weapon has its own crew. Some even have their own radar and targeting computers. So in theory, yes. But, would it be effective?
A huge problem with the rail gun is a hypersonic projectile is going to bleed speed at a much higher rate, so while the muzzle velocity may be high, it won't be nearly that fast at 150mi. It's the same reason why the Russians claimed the Kinjhal missile was hypersonic but could still be shot down by Patriot systems. And Aegis is even better at target tracking and interception than Patriot is.
Also, in terms of profits, the US mil-industry has one of the slimmest profit margins of any industry. If you were to combine all of the profits of the top 5 biggest US military contractors for 2023, it's ~50 billion dollars. If you compare to other big US companies That number really isn't very impressive. For example, with Apple: 169 billion, Amazon: 270 billion, Walmart: 157 billion, Microsoft: 171 billion, Google(Alphabet): 174 billion.
Sir, you need to take a look at the U.S.A.F.’s new weapon called the Quick Sink, delivered by the B2.
Another weapon system is called Rapid Dragon though this one is not so much an anti ship it’s still a scary one.
We don’t call the CIWS a Minion. We call it R2D2.
That projectile moves 11x faster than a fighter jet.
For about 17 months i was afraid i might drown then being a corpsman really paid off. It was just so so dang hot
The rail gun was shit canned because it had a bad habit of tearing it's barrel apart when it was fired.
A full broad side fire from a Iowa class battleship moves the whole ship the opposite direction I would have to see a modern
The only way I see the rail gun being effective in the navy is if you know exactly where the enemy's magazine is then maybe...
You need to see the Fat Electrician's video about the Navy Seabees stealing a train during the Korean War (the Great Seabee Train Robbery)
With a rail gun you could hit the ships magazine or engine and an explosion would happen before they even know they were even hit or the ship would be dead in the water. Having some coming at you that fast that you can’t track on radar is frightening. I’d take that rail gun over a missile any day.
At a certain point it’s just easier to say a projectile going that fast is just moving at Mach fuck.
when people watch videos like these, remember this is the tech the military is willing to talk about.
That Rail gun can literally shoot into space.
That is a true fact. The largest airports in the world is the US Air force, and the second largest is the US Navy. Mainly because the US Navy comprises not only the Navy but the Marine Corps as well.
What does a meteor do when it impacts earth, even just all metal ones, metal at high speed explodes.