Grimpak
Gallente
The Whitehound Corporation
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Posted - 2010.12.11 15:33:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Grimpak on 11/12/2010 15:37:06
 Originally by: Arkanor
Originally by: digitalwanderer
Originally by: Zindela
Originally by: CHEERWlNE
Extremely huge, Extremely inefficient and Extremely expensive all for what is basically a slightly more powerful tank cannon.
Not impressed - call me then they make a railgun that doesn't need a warehouse to power it.
You VASTLY underestimate the power in that railgun. 33 MegaJoules is a huge amount of energy. If you think that it's a "slightly more powerful tank cannon", show me the main battle tank in operation now that can utterly annihilate it's target at a range of 110 miles?
Especially when a modern tank can fire to maybe 3 miles at most,and the 16 inch main guns of an iowa class battleship are good to about 35 miles while still being effective against their target,and have to use hundreds of pounds of explosives to propel a single 2700 pound shell that far,or that a railgun,as the article states,eliminates the need to have high explosives aboard a ship in the first place,which is kinda bad when they get hit where the explosives are stored in the ship,no matter how secure ...:p
Obviously,the minmatar didn't get that memo....
Which is why we use missiles instead of battleships, there's not much reason for guns that big when missiles and aircraft strike much accurately from hundreds or thousands of miles.
it might signal a return of the battleship, with coastal bombardment.
difference is, they will be doing this from beyond the horizon
it's still something hard to pull up tho. rails need to be aligned with microns of tolerance, which means re-checks every shot, nevermind replacing any circuitry or part of a rail that went "boom" on the shot. and the "other" alternative (coil guns) are, theoredically, much more maintenance needy due to having basically high-powered magnets at a set distance that are constantly repelling (or attracting) each other, on top of having to keep the power balance of said magnets equal along the barrel.
it is cool tho: with the advent of railguns, you can kiss goodbye to the tomahawks, since the slug itself is no more than a simple iron/any kind of magnetizable alloy slug with no kind of payload xcept itself.
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