PRC/PLAN Laser and Rail Gun Development Thread

[taxiya]

You are absolutely right. But the timeline is too soon. I doubt it will come soon within the lifetime of existing hulls. The first gen rail could be equipped, say, a decade later. By then the doctrine could've been developed beyond recognition. If we still need 4000-ton class ships doing what a current ship's been doing, then the railgun/coilgun needs to be made smaller and lighter. IMHO because the weapon system change is so vast, it will drive changes at the root of Navy. What types of ships will be produced is the result of that change so it is unknown at this point.

On the other hand, people are saying the railgun/coilgun is voluminous but not heavy.

It would be heavy as well in today's tech.

Professor Ma's design is based on battery and supercapacitor. Battery is probably heavier (density) than chemical explosives in the gun shell put their magazin. Supercapacitor in today's construction seems not be much ligher either.

 

[latenlazy]

That is the center issue. How big the ship has to be to be able to put in the electricity generator, power storage (batteries and supercapacitors) and controlling modules (those big boxes). These are extras that are meant to replace the gun shell magazines. If they can not be smaller (in the near future), frigate may be too small.

The space this test device takes up looks big because none of the power systems are built into the test ship, so dedicated systems specifically for the gun must be installed on deck. That won’t be the case for an actual production weapon. The production version would be integrated into the native power system of the ship it’s installed on.

 

[taxiya]

The space this test device takes up looks big because none of the power systems are built into the test ship, so dedicated systems specifically for the gun must be installed on deck. That won’t be the case for an actual production weapon. The production version would be integrated into the native power system of the ship it’s installed on.

The final product will be more compact in footprint than they are on this test ship, but they are still very heavy (close to the current weight). The subsystems I listed will be part of the (future deployed) ship's native integrated electrical power system which do not exist in a conventional ship. Here, the listed power storage system is only enough to store the energy for the gun, not the regulation storage for propulsion which will also take up space that is not needed in conventional ship.

What I am trying to say is that, full E ship (a must) with EM gun will likely need more space and displacement than a conventional one. That extra space may be reduced to close to conventional ship, but unlikely to disappear. So depend of how tech proceed, Frigate maybe able to accomedate a EM gun in the long run, but unlikely in the near future, surely only after big destroyers have got it.

 

[latenlazy]

The final product will be more compact in footprint than they are on this test ship, but they are still very heavy (close to the current weight). The subsystems I listed above are part of the ships native integrated electrical power system which do not exist in a conventional ship. Here, the listed power storage system is only enough to store the energy for the gun, not the regulation storage for propulsion which will also take up space that is not needed in conventional ship.

I’m not an expert on electrical engineering, but as I understand it in a ship with IEP the only extra demand on physical space a railgun would add, outside the gun itself, is perhaps dedicated energy storage. Everything else should already be an integrated part of the ships native electrical and computing systems (or, at least it could be integrated?).

Edit: Just saw your edit. I guess we were trying to say the same things. To clarify I wasn’t suggesting that this current weapon could be installed onto a frigate. However, I do wonder if on net a fully electric ship with an EM gun would actually need more space than a comparable conventional ship, since a fully electric ship also means a ship where different electrically powered systems don’t need dedicated electrical systems of their own anymore. In some ways this is an apples to oranges comparison of course, but I also think we should consider that it’s probably much easy to modularize and miniaturize a fully electrical ship’s systems than a conventional ship’s, and that may also yield dividends on structural space that you couldn’t get conventionally.

 

[davidau]

Recently, there are pictures on the internet suspected that the Chinese navy used 072 landing ships to test the electromagnetic gun..

 

[latenlazy]

Recently, there are pictures on the internet suspected that the Chinese navy used 072 landing ships to test the electromagnetic gun..

Already posted...next time maybe you should check to see if something has already been posted before you post it yourself...

 

[Hendrik_2000]

David you are late by 3 pages

 

[taxiya]

I’m not an expert on electrical engineering, but as I understand it in a ship with IEP the only extra demand on physical space a railgun would add, outside the gun itself, is perhaps dedicated energy storage. Everything else should already be an integrated part of the ships native electrical and computing systems (or, at least it could be integrated?).

Yes, that was one of my points. And that addition is big in volume, and more importantly, heaviest of all additoinals except the gun itself.

Edit: Just saw your edit. I guess we were trying to say the same things. To clarify I wasn’t suggesting that this current weapon could be installed onto a frigate. However, I do wonder if on net a fully electric ship with an EM gun would actually need more space than a comparable conventional ship, since a fully electric ship also means a ship where different electrically powered systems don’t need dedicated electrical systems of their own anymore. In some ways this is an apples to oranges comparison of course, but I also think we should consider that it’s probably much easy to modularize and miniaturize a fully electrical ship’s systems than a conventional ship’s, and that may also yield dividends on structural space that you couldn’t get conventionally.

yes we are.

Probably need more, abeit not necessarily very bigger. In essense, if we take the whole ship as a closed system with energy (chemical fuel) input and output (KE of the projectiles discharged), the differences are

1. Conventional gun will burn the propellant, and deliver the shell. The weight of propellent is gone. For Railgun systme, the weight is constant because the dead weight of storage system remains. The weight density of batteries is likely be higher than the chemicals.
2. Components of conventional ship that can be replaced are (among others), gear box, longer drift shaft against in E ship, the generator, the motor and their bigger more powerful control circuit. I don't know if the weight difference here is big enough to mean anything.

I am not sure of space consuption but the more weight is kind of certain to me, just how significant is a question. But the extra weight will translate to extra displacement, the outter space.

Just like you, I am not expert either although I major in the broad field of EE, but not into power electrical system (generation, grid, storage etc.). So just treat my words as a knowledge sharing discussion. I based my guesstimate on the assumption on that:

1. Most batteries are heavy (high density) compared with chemical explosives.
2. The battery racks and supercapacity banks look very big in one of the pictures in Professor Ma's paper.

 

[latenlazy]

Yes, that was one of my points. And that addition is big in volume, and more importantly, heaviest of all additoinals except the gun itself.


yes we are.

Probably need more, abeit not necessarily very bigger. In essense, if we take the whole ship as a closed system with energy (chemical fuel) input and output (KE of the projectiles discharged), the differences are

1. Conventional gun will burn the propellant, and deliver the shell. The weight of propellent is gone. For Railgun systme, the weight is constant because the dead weight of storage system remains. The weight density of batteries is likely be higher than the chemicals.
2. Components of conventional ship that can be replaced are (among others), gear box, longer drift shaft against in E ship, the generator, the motor and their bigger more powerful control circuit. I don't know if the weight difference here is big enough to mean anything.

I am not sure of space consuption but the more weight is kind of certain to me, just how significant is a question. But the extra weight will translate to extra displacement, the outter space.

Just like you, I am not expert either although I major in the broad field of EE, but not into power electrical system (generation, grid, storage etc.). So just treat my words as a knowledge sharing discussion. I based my guesstimate on the assumption on that:

1. Most batteries are heavy (high density) compared with chemical explosives.
2. The battery racks and supercapacity banks look very big in one of the pictures in Professor Ma's paper.

With an all electric system you can probably also integrate some electrical components that would have been dedicated before but would could be rendered redundant. I’ll take your point about batteries being heavy, but I’m not sure batteries plus electric motors would actually be heavier than the mechanical drive components that it would replace (that stuff is *big* in these large ships). Furthermore, the storage piece of the power system is its most modular part, and I’d be curious to see if lighter weight storage solutions emerge as IEPS technologies mature (do we know what kind of storage solutions today’s combat ships use? Certainly not lithium based batteries I imagine?).

 

[Hyperwarp]