Twenty-three pound projectile at 7800 F.P.S.

[Phineas Bluster]

Deleted

[coloraydo]

Navy quoted (about 5300 mph or 7800 fps)

Slight correction, 5300 mph comes out to 19,080,000 fps. Pretty impressive.

[JB Weld]

I read about this the other day. It has an impressive rate of fire as well.
I cannot remember the actual #, but they can send several of those shells downrange quick, fast, and in a hurry!

[Duckiller]

5300mi/hrx5280ft/mixihr/3600=7773 fps or approx 7800fps. 19080000 is feet per hour.

[texaswoodworker]

I wonder how well it groups. Is it sub MOA?

[garym1a2]

But can it hit a target and be more effective than a savo of guided missiles?

[bikerbeans]

If Ackley was around today I bet he would try an improve this gun.

BB

[Plate plinker]

I volunteer to have one installed on my front yard. I could shell GARY IN and maybe parts of Chicago.

[fng]

oh the new 16,100,000gr boolit

[Ballistics in Scotland]

But can it hit a target and be more effective than a savo of guided missiles?

That, really, is the problem. BAe have been working on this for many years, and it has great advantages besides velocity. It doesn't heat up (er... I think), and I am sure it doesn't heat up enough to erode. I would guess that it is much lighter than a gun of comparable performance, though it might be very long. I think it would avoid the blast signature on dust, vegetation etc. by which conventional artject to illery is detected. I don't know whether a sonic crack makes sound location possible, but I would doubt it. But I can't imagine that the projectile is stabilized by rifling, and anything fin-stabilized loses quite a bit of velocity by extra friction.

I was taught on a summer course in 1970 by a delightful Parisian lady who was born with the century, and liked Paris better with the horses. She claimed her father had escaped execution by the Communards of the 1871 revolt because his hobby of rowing on the Seine had given him working-class callouses. Well I don't doubt he had a worrying experience, but the government forces executed far more people than the Commune. She said people had nothing but contempt for the German Paris gun, because it could hit nothing much smaller than a city. There never was any evidence that it could pick out targets, although it surely used the best technology of a war in which artillery came closer than any other arm to modern capability.

Dr. Gerald Bull of Iraqi supergun fame wrote the ultimate book on the Paris gun. But it seems invariably to be priced at around $300 on the used market, and he has gone where he can't promote a new edition.

If the rail gun gets its range (around 50% greater than the Paris gun's) by the same method, angling ar greater than the theoretical maximum elevation to take advantage of thinner air), it will surely be subject to some of the same limitations. We don't know a lot more about drift, for which even conventional heavy artillery of the period was used to calculating. We can certainly calculate almost instantaneously by computer, but just what the air is doing up there may be hard to determine.

The mechanical calculating devices used in large warships were far better than most of us today realize. People using instruments in different parts of the ship could enter in almost all the factors which affect the shell's flight, such as movement, wind, humidity, air temperature, direction on the compass, temperature and wear of the gun etc. "Warspite" and "Scharnhorst" both made first-shot hits at 26,000 yards, with both vessels moving. But that means visible on the horizon, and 223,000 yards isn't. I think use of that long range has to depend on coordination with radar observation from somewhere else.

Vanished weapons come back sometimes, like muzzle-loading mortars and the hand-grenade. At the very least the existence of such weapons, even smaller ones at closer range, mean we are unlikely ever to see armoured warships again.

[BrassMagnet]

But can it hit a target and be more effective than a savo of guided missiles?

My Specialty was Firecontrol Radar. A Salvo of missiles can be intercepted, deceived, or jammed. A series of steel containers full of explosives weighing in like a large vehicle can be pushed a little off target when it is successfully intercepted near the target. It cannot be deceived or jammed.

Hello!
This is the US Navy knocking on your door!
Soon we will be knocking on your basement door.
How do you like us now?

[Blammer]

I'm betting the 23 pound projectile is cheaper than the guided missile.

[theperfessor]

Any reason that end-guidance technology can't be incorporated into the projectile? The Navy was awfully quick to integrate proximity fuses when they were developed into existing artillery.

[WILCO]

Anyone else notice the bridge, oil tanks and power plant in the background of the test footage?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

My Specialty was Firecontrol Radar. A Salvo of missiles can be intercepted, deceived, or jammed. A series of steel containers full of explosives weighing in like a large vehicle can be pushed a little off target when it is successfully intercepted near the target. It cannot be deceived or jammed.

Hello!
This is the US Navy knocking on your door!
Soon we will be knocking on your basement door.
How do you like us now?

It would be interesting to know, if it is fit for the public domain, whether fire control radar can now operate accurately beyond the horizon. My guess would be only if the signal comes from an aircraft or small vessel much closer up, possibly relayed by satellite. GPS would now give a very accurate position for the radar itself.

The picture is one of my favourite pieces of ordnance, the hundred-ton Armstrong muzzle-loader rifled gun in Gibraltar. Whenever I pay it a visit I reflect that it could be fatal to any modern vessel, except probably one of Ronald Reagan's demothballed battleships, and nobody can jam the guidance system. In the 1890s they realized that it had never been fired in anger, or often in much of anything, so it was about time they did. It failed to go off, so a particularly thin soldier had to go headfirst down the barrel clutching a ringbolt, for which he was promoted to corporal.

Lots of things can be intercepted now which couldn't in the past, probably including artillery shells. I don't much fancy anybody's chances of hitting a major power's warship with an Exocet nowadays. But the size and speed of this thing would surely make it a far more difficult target.

As to built-in guidance, it would depend on how you knew where to guide it. I suppose a camera is possible, since one of the major snags with delicate equipment is spin, which it probably won't have. Now there would be a filmclip you'd have no trouble getting on the news.

[leebuilder]

Thats crazy. I did notice all the stuctures in the back ground. I am wondering where all the muzzle flash is coming from?

[BrassMagnet]

A 16" shell weighs like a large vehicle.
At 23# this is much smaller.
Once a 23# version is fielded, larger projectile models will be developed.
Radar is used to detect, track, and target airborne targets.
Ground targets are detected by recon aircraft and satellites more often than not. The detection does not have to be recent. Think Google Earth. The real issue is target analysis! Is that an underground hospital or a Command and Control bunker or missile silo? Five year old Google Earth photos could tell.

[.30-06 fan]

If Ackley was around today I bet he would try an improve this gun.

BB

awesome

[Artful]

Thats crazy. I did notice all the stuctures in the back ground. I am wondering where all the muzzle flash is coming from?

Same as when space ship reenters - friction of the air compressing and moving out of the way. Think Diesel engine.

[NavyVet1959]

It's main advantages are economics and shipboard safety. Cheaper projectiles, no propellant or explosives that could burn or explode. At that speed, it would not take much in the way of directional fins to fine tune the impact point.