NationStates Jolt Archive

After years of research, the original idea for Particle Projection Cannon Ortillery was finally scrapped, much to the scientists' dissapointment. They were hopeful, but unfortunatley, the laws of physics are a harsh mistress.

So, instead, they are using what they can salvage from the project to begin research on gauss cannon ortillery. They all agree that although it's not too original, they are certain they will be able to create it.

Gauss cannons are a true innovation in the world of projectile weapons. They do not use small amounts of explosives to propel the projectile through the barrel, but rather use a system called a RailGun.

Usually, the projectile is propelled through a small explosion, started by the firing pin located at the end of the barrel. This system made created a lot of friction between the projectile and the barrel, reducing the projectile speed. Also, the projectiles charged small amounts of explosive, creating ammunition affected by heat and direct hits. The RailGun system tried to solve this problem with a series of electromagnetic sectors and a projectile (electromagnetically charged oppositely). This system removed the friction and the problems related with the explosions, as the projectile became a big piece of metal. The study of this system was suspended due to the problems related with the power source.

Modern day Gauss cannons are the direct evolution of this system. Gauss rilfes use the same system to propel the projectile, a nickel-ferrous slug, and uses a series of capacitors to power the weapons. Thanks to the near endless power that a fusion reactor provides, these capacitors can be charged infinetily.

The projectlie coming from the ammo bin is introduced to a loading chamber, where the specific mechanism place the shell in the first section of the weapon's long barrel. The loading chamber (and the rest of the weapon) is divided from the barrel by a diaphragm. This diaphragm opens to let the passage of the shell, then seals the barrel to discharge the projectile. As described above, the projectile is moved by electromagnetic force, rather than the usual charge of gun powder. The barrel is composed by a series of electromagnetically charged sectors and isolation areas between these sectors; turned on and off progessively (starting from the innermost sector to the outer one), the sectors propel the shell toward the barrel nozzle. Without friction and other slowdowns, the projectile can achieve a speed of mach 5 or greater in an atmosphere.

These sectors are powered by a series of capacitors placed behind the loading chamber. A power line starts from the capacitors to the barrel, where a ring, called a power ring, collects the energy and passes it to the four power lines encircling the barrel; the barrels are named with the four cardinal points, north, south, west and east, due to their placement. The capacitors are connected to the main power line from the reactor. Due to the high amounts of power required by the capacitor, the power line of the Gauss cannon is unusually large for a ballistic weapon.

The final part of the cannon is composed by the coolant circuit and recoil absorbing system. The recoil system is the only piece of machinery that generates a large amount of heat, and thus is the only part connected to the small cooling circuit in the cannon's back. The systems are linked with an heat exchanger for facilitating the heat conduction.

Normally these gauss cannons are mounted on mechs and artillery pieces, non-explosive, and range between 16 and 18 inch diameters. The gauss cannon ortillery will be in the range of 22 to 25 inch diameters, and will be filled with high explosives.

The pheasability of this project is much greater than the PPC ortillery. Powering the gauss ortillery will be one of the fusion reactors usually found inside a BattleMech, modified to operate in orbit. Although a recoil system is in place, the recoil itself will be much, much less than the PPC. The satilite will be unmanned, operated from the ground.

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If you need a rudimentary AI system for these, we can donate one to you, and we will sign an agreement that we will put no form of control for us in them.

Thanks for the offer, but we'd prefer to have the satilite under our control. An artificial intelligence onboard could lead to it firing at whatever it likes (OOC: Haven't you seen 2001: A Space Odyssey?). Plus, being a nation comprised entirley of robots, our AI technology is well beyond rudimentary, and we could've done that ourselves. Without it, we'd be mindless drones.

heh, just wondering, my nation is an AI network...

I guess no one seems to mind. At least I don't have droves of people shouting "GODMOD!"

yeah...

OOC: Not a godmode, but there are a few things that will make it ineffective.

1: Particle beams do not work well in an atmosphere. The particles run into air particles and at great distances, you don't even feel a gust of wind. This wouldn't matter much for very strong particle beams hitting mountaintops from space...but anything at sea level should be mostly safe (unless you have a rather large nuclear reactor attached).

2: Particle beams, using conventional technology, fire charged particles. The particles need to be charged or they can not be accelerated with electric and/or magnetic fields. While there are means to keep these particles from bending due to Earth's (and other) magnetic fields, their same charge still means that they will repell each other...they will spread apart. This is a problem in space too.

So your problem will be limited range and inability to reach sea level...not the best for ortillary.

I would suggest the age old method sentients have used to kill each other. Throw rocks at them.

After trying their best, scientists have come to the conclusion that the PPC ortillery, although it was an amazing prospect, is physically impossible to create, without having severe limitations. They have therefore, salvaged what they could from the project, and started researching gauss cannon ortillery. The project is expected to be completed much faster, possibly within 5 years.

as usual I am in.

as for it needing maintenece i could send some mbile repair units to you

Gauss cannons do not utilize a 'RailGun' system. Rail guns and gauss(coil) guns are quite different, don't you people read my posts?

GLACORP produces gauss cannons, well sell some to you for 10,000 dollars each, or you could buy an Assault Walker.

Gauss cannons do not utilize a 'RailGun' system. Rail guns and gauss(coil) guns are quite different, don't you people read my posts?

I've gotten into this discussion before. And some say gauss cannons fuction the same as rail guns, and then some say gauss cannons function completley different from rail guns. Honestly, I don't care anymore. I'm not in the mood to debate this.

It's a gauss cannon though. However you want to view how it works is up to you. But basically, it's a shell launched with magnets instead of explosives.

GLACORP produces gauss cannons, well sell some to you for 10,000 dollars each, or you could buy an Assault Walker.

We produce gauss cannons also. Have you not read my post? A number of our mech designs have gauss rifles incorporated into them. And we have gauss cannon artillery, and a much smaller shoulder-mounted unit as well, but that's still undergoing fine tuning.

Ack, sorry. Betus is one of my other nations. Those were my two posts.

Electro thermal cannons are more practical. Instead of conventional propellent, you have a piece of light metal behind the shell and a electrical charge goes through the light metal and causes it to turn to plasma. Thus propelling it really fast.

We have considered plasma, but we decided that that is too unstable to be completley reliable as a solid shell. And these will still produce the same effect, but the shells will be cheaper to manufacture, as well as the satilite. We plan to have more than one of these. But thank you for the imput.

A Railgun proper uses two rails, one charges positively, the other negatively, the charge runs up the rail, across the bottom of the projectile creating a magnetic chrage pushing the projectile along, and back into the second rail.

This is not a Gauss cannon, theres a thread around about a CapitalShipDestroyer that has a lot more specs on the systems. the railgun s simpler, just turn on the current, and it shoots, the Gauss cannon, while needing less power, needs a hell of a lot of sophisticated picosecond or less reaction time switches. If you have fusion, use a railgun proper.

See HERE (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=68088)

No, the plasma is the propellent. The temperature jumps the pressure and propells the shell to about 3000m/s

does this really matter?

just let him be

A basic targeting system for the gauss cannon has been worked out. There will be three different ways that the satilite will be able to verify the target. First of all, GPS will be the most dominant system. It has the least possibility of failure out of the other two systems.

A secondary system will be infared verification. To overcome visual interference from clouds, the satilite will use high-resolution infared images to verify a target by comparing the image it sees to the image of the target uploaded to it from reconnaissance.

A third method that will be used in case of emergency will be a manual aim. Using a high powered zoom, the ortillery is able to transmit live images of the target back to a user, who can then manipulate the guidance and aiming mechanisms to hit the target. Of course, that method is succeptable to cloud or smoke cover.

As the development continues, more targeting systems will be researched. Some of the fields researchers are currently looking at are magnetic irregularities, high-powered sonar, and long range radar.

Due to communications difficulty, the status report from the first gauss cannon ortillery prototype was delayed. But we are pleased to say it was a complete success. We successfully fired a 18" gauss slug from low orbit numerous times from low orbit. We tried it on several targets, here is the damage report below of each of the shots:

1) Six retired medium tanks, stationary, arranged in 2 columns. Targeted between the two center tanks. Upon impact, the two center tanks were obliterated, and the other four were also destroyed, although they were more recognizable than the ones at the impact zone. Crater indicated that any surrounding units would have also been damaged if not incapacitated. Infantry would not have survived.

2) Thirty-six "soldiers" (dummies) in standard body armor. There were none left standing. The crater left behind indicated that we could've hit a larger amount of troops, especially if they were closer together rather than marching formation.

3) Star of retired OBT-1 Obitus BattleMechs (5 total). Three were destroyed, two were critically damaged but not completley destroyed. If the reactors were not removed already, one of them would've went critical and caused another large explosion.

4) Standard civilian building, made of concrete, steel, etc. Completley destroyed.

5) Reinforced civilian building, reinforced concrete. Destroyed, but some parts of the structure remained standing. Impossible to survive without being critically wounded.

6) Small steel hangar/storage building, capable of holding 1 fighter jet. Completley destroyed.

7) Large steel hangar, capable of holding a larger plane such as a commercial airliner or military transport plane, heavily damaged at impact point. Some of the structure still standing but it was unusable, and the contents inside would've been destroyed.

8] Standard military bunker, above ground. Completley destroyed.

9) Reinforced military bunker, above ground. Also completley destroyed.

10) Underground bunker, reinforced concrete. Exposed part was completley destroyed but underground portion remained farily intact, but still damaged from the blast.

11) Mock ICBM silo, reinforced steel doors. The doors were heavily damaged and did not expose the mock missile inside was not directly damaged, but silo doors were inoperable rendering the silo useless.

12) Watermelon. We made a fruit salad.


There were more tests conducted but we feel that enough information was released to give the idea of how the 18" slug faired. Assembly of a larger 22" ortillery is also under under way, and scientists have deemed the current prototype already in orbit acceptable for further use. A resupply shuttle has been launched to refill it and check to make sure no damage has occurred to it. The largest size planned for the gauss ortillery is 25", but we might go larger if the research indicates we can.

Countries interested in investing in this technology are invited to contact us, but we will not release the information to you unless we feel you are trustworthy.

I would like the tech and you know i am trustworthy

How much are you offering?

Assembly of a 25" gauss cannon ortillery has been completed, and tests show a complete success. The damage is much greater than the 18" shells, and the satilite is already in stable orbit, ready for use. Now that the parts for the ortillery have been standardized, faster production is now available. We plan to produce 2 more 25" ortillery, 4 22" ortillery, and 3 more 18" ortillery within the next 2 decades.

How much are you offering?

how about a trillion

Sounds good. We're transporting the plans via a secured airlift. Be prepared for a transport plane escorted with 5 fighters to be arriving at your airport soon. The plans will be protected by 50 spec ops soldiers.

ok. you know I could pick them up in a safer transport