Whatever happened to railguns? Are we really bottlenecked by propellants/missiles?
>>65384343nottodisshittuagain
>>65384343What's this anime/robot ? It looks cool I'm interested
>>65384343Power supply and rail life. Railguns as of now only last > 20 shots which is completely unacceptable for combat use, and requires huge capacitor banks which takes up far more volume than chemical propellant. Naval and tank planners really need to look at Electro-Thermal Chemical (ETC) technology, as it is capable of being retrofitted and is possible NOW.>ETCUses chemical propellant that is ignited/boosted by a plasma charge, which can nearly double muzzle velocity and again can be retrofitted to current platforms.
>>65384343They exist. What more is there to be said? They were made, tested, and then largely not ordered because none of the nations that pioneered them are currently involved in a war with a near-peer opponent. You won't see railguns, orbital fighters, weaponized sattelites or any of the rest of the new-gen tech in the field until the US fights China, and you won't see any of it in the civilian market until its been in the field.
>>65384362Power supply is the easy obstacle, provided you are putting them on ships and mini reactors become widespreadRail life is the real bitch. There are certainly work arounds, you could make a fuck huge magazine to cycle rails once they are expended or before they start to degrade, but what cost benefit is there to that vs shoving missiles into cells?
>>65384360that's a Timberwolf mech from the Mechwarrior tabletop game>>65384343missiles are better in every single way
>>65384451That's clearly an Arm Slave from Full Metal Panic!.
>>65384360Metal Gear Solid, the robot is Metal Gear Rex. You don't get to actually pilot it until the 4th game, which gets released from Ps3 jail in a few weeks.
>>65384401>Power supply is the easy obstacle, provided you are putting them on ships and mini reactors become widespreadI think there's a current and serious push by either the navy itself or some parts of the defense industry to have future surface vessels be powered by nuclear reactors, but I think that stalled due a factor of things involving the Navy's consistant procurement debacles. I do distinctly remember that laser weaponry was one of the reasons why talks of having an all nuclear surface fleet was in discussion>Rail life is the real bitch. There are certainly work arounds, you could make a fuck huge magazine to cycle rails once they are expended or before they start to degrade, but what cost benefit is there to that vs shoving missiles into cells?This is the real issue with railguns. There isn't a material out there that is capable of surviving more than 20 or so shots and aren't expensive and time consuming to replace. You could probably get around the time constraints by building a modular railgun platform where you replace the "gun" part of the system while keeping the mounting system for the weapon where it is.
>>65384343Gauss guns are cooler.
>>65384343The super ultra ceramics that wear 40x less that you need to line the rails, while being thin enough to not impede the EM field interacting with the projectile, didn't come to exist.
>>65384468Why just lie on the internet?>>65384360It's a MadCat aka Timberwolf from the tabletop game Mech Warriors.
>>65384492Get your eyes checked, that's a Cicada. It even has the stock Cicada loadout of a Hyper-Assault Gauss 20 and Arrow IV launcher.
>>65384488>Gauss guns are cooler.I wonder how close we are to these things being somewhat practical. Like we are lightyears away from these thing doing the job of an actual military rifle but how about a home defense coil gun? Something picrel sized that can do similar damage as say .22 or .25ACP and is accurate to like 30-50 feet?
>>65384360It's a Gundam you dip
>>65384360Thats a duster from Blkout.
>>65384360It's a Ferrous Automated Mech (Assault-Striker), FAMAS for short. Model IST-HAT(A)
>>65384343Trump wanted one so now they're bad and wrong.
>>65384343There just isn't anything they can do that missiles can't do better. Even stuff like hypersonic interception, if you really need it, can be done better by missiles.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/11/japan/railgun-test-firing/
>>65384343Japan has taken up the efforts to make onehttps://newatlas.com/military/japan-electromagnetic-railgun-counter-hypersonic-missiles/
>>65386274Nevar 5get that the vessel that the nips used for the test firing shares her name with best girl.
>>65384592Ultimately, the only real advantage these things have is getting around the NFA. It's literally impossible to create a battery that offers more efficient energy storage than an explosive propellant, so electromagnetic/plasma/laser small arms are always going to be a weird niche thing.
>>65384480As far as I've understood the real issue is from the arcing electricity from rail to sled due to the relatively poor connectivity, whoch melts the rails. So... we "just" need a way to perfectly transfer from rail to projectile and the material issues should be minimized.
>>65386861>to create a battery that offers more efficient energy storage than an explosive propellant, so electromagnetic/plasma/laser small arms are always going to be a weird niche thing.That's... Not a barrier at all for low end applications like he asked about, because you don't use batteries to drive the coils, you use capacitors that you charge with batteries.>>65384592>Something picrel sized that can do similar damage as say .22 or .25ACP and is accurate to like 30-50 feet?I did a dive on this a while ago, and you could do it today, but the problem is that it would be rifle form factor and, for that power, DMR weight. The technology is poorly suited to that use case, but it does have advantages outside it: It's silent and you have a lot of control over the acceleration profile. The big question is around how efficient travelling wave coil assemblies can be made to be. It will start to find use soon.
>>65384362>>65384480>Railguns as of now only last > 20 shots>here isn't a material out there that is capable of surviving more than 20 or so shotsFucking boomer smell in here. The USN was over 300 shots back in the 2010s. The JMSDF is over 800 and thinks they can get thousands.Anyway: missiles are longer ranged and navies usually have few enemy ships to hit, so railguns can offer some minor improvements for survivability or point defense but don't change the offensive game.
>>65386946Whats missing everytime the variants with long barrel life get mentioned is that they achieve it by turning down the power. The reason the US keeps saying the problem isn't solved is because they want an ungodly energy in the thing. They're currently at the stage of "if we can't get the full power out of it then we won't change over to it... no we won't turn down the velocity"
>>65386946300 shots at what power level anon?'cause their 32mj prototype (goal was 64mj) burnt out after a handful of rounds.>The JMSDF is over 800The only number I can find for that is 5mj for a 40mm projectile, which makes sense since it's intended to destroy drones/missiles.
>>65387055Which is reasonable, considering their main use case is incepting Zircons or YJ-20s; and when your target is flying at mach 8; settling for a mach 6 projectile just for the sake of barrel life just isn't good enough.
>>65387674> and when your target is flying at mach 8; settling for a mach 6 projectile just for the sake of barrel life just isn't good enough.You aren't in a tail chase, you don't have to be faster than a projectile to intercept it. What makes you make that claim? That isn't to say velocity isn't helpful in interception, of course, but a mach 6 projectile could absolutely be good enough.
>>65384468metal gear?
>>65384360Tau Broadside Battesuit armed with a heavy railcannon
>>65387868It can't be!
