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LQ
comparably-sized does not apply, for reasons already stated:
"yes a huge-ass railgun is more efficent than a huge-ass chemicle propelent cannon."
you're mounting it on a space fighter - its huge-assness is already sufficient to make the railgun a reasonable choice.
"and in space it would be more efficent to use railguns than any chemicle propelled perjectile for all applications (because you'd have to provide the oxygen as well as the chemicle propellent making the shells larger)."
False. Chemical propellent for closed-chamber projectille weapons are independent of outside oxygen sources, containing all the necessary reactants but the catalyst (heat/impact) supplied by the blast cap. Space gives the railgun the advantage of a vacuum (no air-resistance environment) to fire in, and the lack of gravitational forces to exert force on the slug/rails. It also gives chemical propellents the advantage of the vacuum - no air to push out of the barrel or to travel through in flight. The violent mechanism of chemical explosives makes it difficult to measure the effect of gravity on internal ballistics.
no, but that wasn't the point.
automatic railguns aren't (and won't be) practical though, because the nature of the mechanism requires an enormous discharge of energy per shot, and because the friction of the slug/cradle on the rails requires significant cooling time.
comparably-sized does not apply, for reasons already stated:
"yes a huge-ass railgun is more efficent than a huge-ass chemicle propelent cannon."
you're mounting it on a space fighter - its huge-assness is already sufficient to make the railgun a reasonable choice.
"and in space it would be more efficent to use railguns than any chemicle propelled perjectile for all applications (because you'd have to provide the oxygen as well as the chemicle propellent making the shells larger)."
False. Chemical propellent for closed-chamber projectille weapons are independent of outside oxygen sources, containing all the necessary reactants but the catalyst (heat/impact) supplied by the blast cap. Space gives the railgun the advantage of a vacuum (no air-resistance environment) to fire in, and the lack of gravitational forces to exert force on the slug/rails. It also gives chemical propellents the advantage of the vacuum - no air to push out of the barrel or to travel through in flight. The violent mechanism of chemical explosives makes it difficult to measure the effect of gravity on internal ballistics.
no, but that wasn't the point.
automatic railguns aren't (and won't be) practical though, because the nature of the mechanism requires an enormous discharge of energy per shot, and because the friction of the slug/cradle on the rails requires significant cooling time.
"False. Chemical propellent for closed-chamber projectille weapons are independent of outside oxygen sources, containing all the necessary reactants but the catalyst (heat/impact) supplied by the blast cap."
that doesn't change the fact that railgun ammo is smaller and less prone to explosions than chemicle weaponry
"you're mounting it on a space fighter - its huge-assness is already sufficient to make the railgun a reasonable choice."
not nesesarily, do they mount a battleship's cannon on a F-22? no, the reason is the mechanisam, and ammunition sizes are inpracticle (not to mention the recoil). fighters don't cary battleship weapons now and they never will (unless you count guided missiles). if you could put uber battleship cannon x on a fighter than you could undoutedly build a more powerfull version to mount on your battleships.
"automatic railguns aren't (and won't be) practical though, because the nature of the mechanism requires an enormous discharge of energy per shot, and because the friction of the slug/cradle on the rails requires significant cooling time."
1. i recomended a burst fire railgun (the bit about the energy actualy supports that as an attempt to make an automatic railgun was just too dificult so it was made to fire in bursts)
2. i don't believe that the cooling issues are inate to railguns as a whole but are more likley due to the extreem velocity the weapons are intended to cause.
3. early firearms had to be cleaned after every couple shots before the rifled barell was developed. the after shot reairs and couldown problems are issues that will likely be worked out once railguns gain popularity and are modified to perform a wider veriety of tasks. for example anit-missile deffence (as the curent phylosophy for point deffence weaponry is to spew as much lead into the air as posable)
anyway, the point of all this is: a bust-fire railgun is as realistic and practicle as hyperdrives, and teraforming. so you can debate the finer points of modern day technology all you want but unless you can honeslty say that no military ever would try to make an automatic railgun and over the coarse of several thousand years finde a way to make one capable of fireing more than one shot in quick sucession before needing to recharge, saying there is no real world parallel is meaningless.
that doesn't change the fact that railgun ammo is smaller and less prone to explosions than chemicle weaponry
"you're mounting it on a space fighter - its huge-assness is already sufficient to make the railgun a reasonable choice."
not nesesarily, do they mount a battleship's cannon on a F-22? no, the reason is the mechanisam, and ammunition sizes are inpracticle (not to mention the recoil). fighters don't cary battleship weapons now and they never will (unless you count guided missiles). if you could put uber battleship cannon x on a fighter than you could undoutedly build a more powerfull version to mount on your battleships.
"automatic railguns aren't (and won't be) practical though, because the nature of the mechanism requires an enormous discharge of energy per shot, and because the friction of the slug/cradle on the rails requires significant cooling time."
1. i recomended a burst fire railgun (the bit about the energy actualy supports that as an attempt to make an automatic railgun was just too dificult so it was made to fire in bursts)
2. i don't believe that the cooling issues are inate to railguns as a whole but are more likley due to the extreem velocity the weapons are intended to cause.
3. early firearms had to be cleaned after every couple shots before the rifled barell was developed. the after shot reairs and couldown problems are issues that will likely be worked out once railguns gain popularity and are modified to perform a wider veriety of tasks. for example anit-missile deffence (as the curent phylosophy for point deffence weaponry is to spew as much lead into the air as posable)
anyway, the point of all this is: a bust-fire railgun is as realistic and practicle as hyperdrives, and teraforming. so you can debate the finer points of modern day technology all you want but unless you can honeslty say that no military ever would try to make an automatic railgun and over the coarse of several thousand years finde a way to make one capable of fireing more than one shot in quick sucession before needing to recharge, saying there is no real world parallel is meaningless.
Fine, LQ. have it your way. I'll even ignore the contradictions in your post and just move on to say it:
the rapid-fire or burst-fire electronic weaponry of the future is the Gauss Gun, NOT the Rail Gun. Coil guns already have the distinct advantage of minimal friction or heat.
The reason that they haven't been used or developed in place of Rail Guns, is that range and velocity is of far greater importance to the developers of the technology than rapid fire is.
The people who focus on rapid fire, of course, make that their main concern, so they dream up electronic-ignition multibarrel chemical-propellent metalstorm guns - the main usefulness of rapid-fire is in anti-personnel, so chemical explosives are marvelously adequate and cost-effective.
So yea, if you want a burst-fire weapon, make it a Gauss gun, not a Rail gun.
the rapid-fire or burst-fire electronic weaponry of the future is the Gauss Gun, NOT the Rail Gun. Coil guns already have the distinct advantage of minimal friction or heat.
The reason that they haven't been used or developed in place of Rail Guns, is that range and velocity is of far greater importance to the developers of the technology than rapid fire is.
The people who focus on rapid fire, of course, make that their main concern, so they dream up electronic-ignition multibarrel chemical-propellent metalstorm guns - the main usefulness of rapid-fire is in anti-personnel, so chemical explosives are marvelously adequate and cost-effective.
So yea, if you want a burst-fire weapon, make it a Gauss gun, not a Rail gun.
but the curent in game gause cannon isn't ammo based, the railgun is. and THAT was the original reasoning for making it a railgun.
that's because the current ingame Gauss Cannon isn't really a Gauss Gun =P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun