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Oafman
Draconis Combine
Tai-sho
Joined: 18-Nov-2003 00:00
Posts: 1657
Location: United States
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 Posted: 19-May-2004 09:07 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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With the amount of damage it will do I would think not.
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Wanallo
Federated Suns
Leftenant Colonel
Joined: 02-Jan-2004 00:00
Posts: 671
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 09:49 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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Imagine the damage done, it would roughly have the velocity of a larger meteor (because its solid metal, not rock or ice). And i would expect the slug to be shaped, which would be designed to cause the most disruption. I mean, a lump of metal the size of a orange shot at mach 4 has more damage potential than 100 tonnes of TNT. You could put it through 40ft of reinforced concrete (although this is in theory, as the ball would have disintergrated through friction much earlier)
Your kind of using the same principal as the Sabot round, kinetic energy has a much higher potential of damage than an equal or much larger mass of explosives. I mean isn't it the kinetic energy from a neuclear bomb which causes the devastation? Its the kinetic energy of the splitting atoms which causes the chain reaction.
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Bullfrog
Draconis Combine
Gunjin
Joined: 06-Mar-2004 00:00
Posts: 48
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 11:42 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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On 2004-05-18 14:15, Oafman wrote:
The most logical thing would be to have the standard US Navy Nuclear power plant and draw a portion of that power into a capacitor until the gun is ready to fire.
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Wow, think of the size of the capacitor! Anyone know what the maximum size available for capacitors is? I'd imagine that you would have to have a large amount of space dedicated to the storage of the capacitors. I have seen a 1 farad capacitor comercially available, but I have no idea on the sizes available to the military.
Plus you have the problem of fully charged capacitors being a bit explosive if damaged.
Then again I havn't done physics properly for a few years, so... meh.
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Bullfrog
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Feral
ComStar
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Joined: 25-Mar-2004 00:00
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 14:12 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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On 2004-05-19 11:42, Bullfrog wrote:
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On 2004-05-18 14:15, Oafman wrote:
The most logical thing would be to have the standard US Navy Nuclear power plant and draw a portion of that power into a capacitor until the gun is ready to fire.
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Wow, think of the size of the capacitor! Anyone know what the maximum size available for capacitors is? I'd imagine that you would have to have a large amount of space dedicated to the storage of the capacitors. I have seen a 1 farad capacitor comercially available, but I have no idea on the sizes available to the military.
Plus you have the problem of fully charged capacitors being a bit explosive if damaged.
Then again I havn't done physics properly for a few years, so... meh.
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Well the other thing that tends to be quite explosive is ... explosives ... and you will find almost unlimited amounts of them on our warships so I don't see them being overly concerned with the capacitors.
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Oafman
Draconis Combine
Tai-sho
Joined: 18-Nov-2003 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 14:12 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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From what I remember fo the first tests done in physics labs, they were firing standard bb size pellets. One pellet could desintegrate a regular concrete block wall. Incredible stuff.
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Oafman
Draconis Combine
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 14:15 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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This is the fun part of working through these sorts of problems. Armchair physics people like us can come up with the weirdest of ideas. 
It also depends on how they setup the rail gun. The Superman ride uses electromagnets that turn off and on to pull the sleds. From what I understand that is the easiest way to build them, but the biggest drainer of power. That ride uses as much power with each shot up the ramp as a small farm town does in a week.
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 07-May-2004 00:00
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 17:03 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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Obviously there's been a lot of discussion on this... allow me to demonstrate my ignorance and seek knowledge from the informed.
1.) My understanding was that in the BT universe there was a rail gun which fired a solid projectile across several maps, and a Gause Rifle, which was like the shotgun equivalent, firing several smaller projectiles at close range. (It is entirely possible this was developed only for MechCommander and my GMs simply shoehorned it into their games).
2.) A rail gun works like a giant magnetic slingshot, so wouldn't the fear be dragging the ship after the shell, rather than falling backwards? And isn't the point of using magnets to limit the effects of Newton's laws be requiring less force to accomplish the same speed.
Something I know, people were talking about kinetic energy verses explosive energy. All damage is caused by kinetic energy or heat energy. Atomic bombs use mostly kinetic (the shockwave) nuclear bombs use heat (hence, Thermonuclear).
When an explosive is detonated, it creates a shockwave of air that is "denser than steel" (my chemistry professor's words). Depending on the size of the explosion, that wall of compressed air can be thick or thin. The compressed air is what does most of the damage (imagine being his over the head by a steel plate, but all over your body). Kinetic rounds do the same ammount of damage, but concentrate it in an area the size of a nickle.
Heat of course, just melts stuff.
M"SD"H
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ralgith
Blighted Sun Battalion
1st Company
"Ralgith's Renegades"
Colonel
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 17:40 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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The BT Gauss Rifle shoots a basketball sized sphere of nickle and iron. The "Shotgun Like" weapon is the LB-X class of autocannon. As for something that shoots many maps the only thing I know of is Artillery in B-Tech, both normal and Arrow IV Missiles.
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Blighted Sun Battalion
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 19-May-2004 19:39 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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Woah, you're info is messed up in a lot of areas. Let me add some correction.
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2.) A rail gun works like a giant magnetic slingshot, so wouldn't the fear be dragging the ship after the shell, rather than falling backwards? And isn't the point of using magnets to limit the effects of Newton's laws be requiring less force to accomplish the same speed.
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One one Newton's Laws is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is true whether you are using explosive force or magnetic force to accelerate the projectile. The difference is that, in theory, with electromagnetic forces more power can be delivered to the shell and the acceleration curve can be tailored for maximum efficiency.
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Something I know, people were talking about kinetic energy verses explosive energy. All damage is caused by kinetic energy or heat energy. Atomic bombs use mostly kinetic (the shockwave) nuclear bombs use heat (hence, Thermonuclear).
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Both nuclear and thermonuclear weapons use heat and shock to do damage. Nuclear weapons use fission, thermonuclear weapons use fusion.
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Oafman
Draconis Combine
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-May-2004 09:11 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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Here is a basic description of how a rail gun works. The barrel of the gun has a series of magnets along the length. The slug starts at one end with all of the magnets turned off. The first magnet is turned on which pulls the slug up to that point. Just before the slug reaches that magnet it is turned off and the next magnet along the line is turned on. This continues along the barrel until the slug is 'fired'. As the slug is pulled by the magnets the speed increase exponentially.
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
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| Posted: 20-May-2004 13:31 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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I was cut short in my last post and was not able to further elaborate.
Atomic bombs use fission, nuclear bombs use fusion, and both create a lot of heat and shockwave effect, however:
The damage done by an atomic bomb (particularly over distance) is due to the compression wave. This is why there are the pictures from Hiroshima of the shadows on the wall. The shockwave (in conjunction with heat) vaporizes the body and leaves the ash on the down-wind surface.
While a nuclear bomb has a compression wave, the heat from the weapon does most of the damage. Watch the old Nuclear test videos, you can see the compression wave hit the buildings (they wobble) and then the heat wave hits the building and they spontaneously combust. There's no shadow because there's not even ash left.
All explosives have heat and compression waves, I was only pointing out that they have them in differing amounts. With A/N/R weapons, does it really matter whether the shockwave, heat wave, or radiation gets you?
M"SD"H
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Oafman
Draconis Combine
Tai-sho
Joined: 18-Nov-2003 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-May-2004 14:18 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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Here is another cool thing with the Gauss rifle. Other than the whistle of the slug through the air, the gun is completly silent. So with some power supplies, you can have a completely silent sniper with devastating effects. The big downside right now, is that the handheld models in testing currently require a huge backpack for the power supply. Now as soon as they build one that is solar powered....
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Storm
Draconis Combine
Chu-i
Joined: 06-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-May-2004 14:37 Post subject: to STAY on top. |
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That's the purpose.
For all you mathematical geniuses, it looks like this:
Complacency=Death.
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ralgith
Blighted Sun Battalion
1st Company
"Ralgith's Renegades"
Colonel
Joined: 18-Aug-2003 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-May-2004 16:58 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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Quote:
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On 2004-05-20 09:11, Oafman wrote:
Here is a basic description of how a rail gun works. The barrel of the gun has a series of magnets along the length. The slug starts at one end with all of the magnets turned off. The first magnet is turned on which pulls the slug up to that point. Just before the slug reaches that magnet it is turned off and the next magnet along the line is turned on. This continues along the barrel until the slug is 'fired'. As the slug is pulled by the magnets the speed increase exponentially.
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Actually that is only one type, the other type is described in Feral's original post and is the type they are using since it can achieve faster speeds than the type you have described, which is being tested as an autodrive system for cars in some lab, or was. I think that project got cut due to impracticality. Anyways here's Feral's original posts description:
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The barrel of the electromagnetic railgun will contain two parallel conducting rails about 20 feet long, bridged by a sliding armature. In the current design, electric current travels up one rail, crosses the armature, and heads down the second rail. The loop induces a magnetic field that pushes the armature, and the projectile aboard it, up the rails.
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Colonel Ralgith t'Mayasara
Blighted Sun Battalion
1st Company 'Ralgith's Renegades'
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Seraph
Blighted Sun Battalion
2nd Company
"Seraph's Slaughter"
Major
Joined: 11-Mar-2004 00:00
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| Posted: 20-May-2004 19:52 Post subject: RE: More on real world Gauss rifles |
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Though as both the 2750 and 3050 TRO's and the compendium I have say that the Gauss rifles are a "series of mangets" then the BTech version would be more like Oafman's description than Feral's description.
Which I still maintain would have a lot less recoil than a bunch here think it would.
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