PRC/PLAN Laser and Rail Gun Development Thread

Inst

Captain
Phalanx has a maximum effective range of 9 km. I'm sure Russian and Chinese counterparts might do slightly better. I really don't see the point of putting a multi-million dollar coilgun turret to CIWS use.
 
I now located this picture:
...
$

CHINESE RAILGUN

...
... in the article
中國超級電磁炮曝光 打穿10米混凝土
2015/11/14
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"China super-electromagnetic guns exposed piercing 10 meters of concrete"
is an automatic translation of the title ... is it sensationalist? 谢谢
 

kurutoga

Junior Member
Registered Member
I now located this picture:... in the article
"China super-electromagnetic guns exposed piercing 10 meters of concrete"
is an automatic translation of the title ... is it sensationalist? 谢谢

Jura this sort of articles were all repost of a Jane's report in 2013. Although I can't find it, the
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at that time said the Jane's report on Chinese railguns were published on 11/14/2013.

Unrelated, I am adding a page from a textbook showing a 9 MJ railgun prototype. It has been circling around lately. As shown it has all parts of a railgun, using turbine-flywheel for energy storage. I always suspect under the huge cupola the space around the gun barrel could be all empty for cooling purposes, or housing some accessory systems, that the Chinese railgun is much lighter than it looks.


00.jpg
 
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Jura this sort of articles were all repost of a Jane's report in 2013. ...
well I was attracted by the apparent claim of "piercing 10 meters of concrete"
had it been true, it would've meant the energy as of a 16" gun! = more-than-one-ton-weighting shell shot off using 300 kg of gunpowder LOL!
thanks anyway
 

Inst

Captain
It reads railgun in the picture. I did bother to magnify the pictures we have of the EM Gun, and it's still too hard to tell whether it's circular or ovoid.
 

steve_rolfe

Junior Member
Well this is interesting news..........but i have a question, as we have seen CGI renderings of a railgun as fitted to an 055 large Destroyer, in place of the standard gun.........is this actually a physical possibilty. The reason i ask as on the Zumwalts the layout of bow of the ship is different to those of what i would say is a conventional layout i.e a main gun in front of a VLS system. As a railgun appears to need a lot of auxillary equipment, would that require that there be a larger gap between the gun and a VLS system, or can this equipment be fitted elsewhere on a ship? I believe on the Zumwalts, the VLS is on the perimeter of the bow of the vessel.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
"Miniaturize scramjets"??? LOL I don't think so. I have no idea why you think an already hypersonic projectile out of the muzzle needs any kind of extra propulsion mechanism to become maneuverable. All you need are sensors and fins, no miniaturization of anything required.


Huh? Destroying incoming missiles at "10km or so" is better than what a CIWS can achieve, so I'm not sure what you mean by "CIWS is unlikely". The best and technologically easiest application of an EM gun is definitely shore bombardment, with everything else being much harder to accomplish. But CIWS against non-maneuvering targets is certainly the second easiest mission to adapt the EM gun to.

It's unlikely to be useful as a CIWS because it can only engage one missile at a time. If the range at which an incoming missile is engaged is around 10km for a close to 100% hit probability, how many missiles do you think it can intercept? Once you destroyed one incoming missile, the others would have destroyed your ship. If you want to engage missiles at greater distances then your accuracy and hit probability is so low, it becomes pointless. Manqiangrexu already mentioned the obvious, once your enemy realises your EMG is good at destroying their missiles 100km out, they will make modifications so they maneuver slightly once in a while so that it makes a basic projectile from EMG impossible to hit the missile while only sacrificing range slightly. So that leaves the final few seconds where the EMG can shoot and hit 100%. But if there are more than a few coming in at the same time, EMG cannot intercept them all. This makes CIWS unlikely. It all comes down to the projectile but early days to replace existing proven CIWS.
 

kurutoga

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well this is interesting news..........but i have a question, as we have seen CGI renderings of a railgun as fitted to an 055 large Destroyer, in place of the standard gun.........is this actually a physical possibilty. The reason i ask as on the Zumwalts the layout of bow of the ship is different to those of what i would say is a conventional layout i.e a main gun in front of a VLS system. As a railgun appears to need a lot of auxillary equipment, would that require that there be a larger gap between the gun and a VLS system, or can this equipment be fitted elsewhere on a ship? I believe on the Zumwalts, the VLS is on the perimeter of the bow of the vessel.

It's always easier to relocate the EM gun turret, because it connects to the power source via copper wires. EM gun's ammo loading is supposed to be both small in volume and simpler.
 
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