I wonder how much more energy it took to accomplish that compared to just shooting a rocket. Last I had heard railguns weren’t really feasible because of the absurd amount of energy they would require even with perfect efficiency.
I’m no expert, but I could imagine rail-guns would be a huge advantage on nuclear powered vessels. For one the ammo doesn’t explode if hit by enemy fire, and I’m guessing the ammo would be super cheap. In theory you could shoot bars of iron.
They might also have a much smaller launch signature, meaning harder response to a first-strike launch. But I’m not a physicist or nuclear deterrence expert or anything.
They’ll turn a metal ring into a million dollar thing making sure it has 0 flaws on the surface that might cause 1 in a million shots to go off course.
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I wonder how much more energy it took to accomplish that compared to just shooting a rocket. Last I had heard railguns weren’t really feasible because of the absurd amount of energy they would require even with perfect efficiency.
I’m no expert, but I could imagine rail-guns would be a huge advantage on nuclear powered vessels. For one the ammo doesn’t explode if hit by enemy fire, and I’m guessing the ammo would be super cheap. In theory you could shoot bars of iron.
They might also have a much smaller launch signature, meaning harder response to a first-strike launch. But I’m not a physicist or nuclear deterrence expert or anything.
When it’s not an experiment:
This is the military we’re talking about.
They’ll turn a metal ring into a million dollar thing making sure it has 0 flaws on the surface that might cause 1 in a million shots to go off course.
They’re not feasible because of the erosion of the barrel with our current level of materials science.