NationStates Jolt Archive

The Ministry of War for the Grand Duchy of New Gallagrad is announcing a new development from scientists in their employ.
The Magnetic Rail Weapons or MRW system is a concept to provide an alternative to costly and detectable long range delivery systems, this project has also been expanded to consider development of Rail weapons for the battlefield. Three Weapons systems are currently under development.

MRW-01

A long range delivery system, designed to launch payloads of up to five hundred kilograms over a distance of eight thousand miles. The system consists of a high temperature superconducting coils, cooled by liquid nitrogen, arranged on a one hundred metre launching track. The system is maintained by a high capacity output mobile generator, and can be carried by a total of four vehicles. The system takes thee hours to set up and two to dismantle; it can be assembled on any patch of level ground as small as one hundred and fifty metres long.

Range: 8000 miles (approximate)
Payload: 500 kg (conventional and nuclear payload capable)
Projectile velocity: 15000m/s (exit velocity, average)
Storage: 2 large trucks (similar to scuds) one tanker carrying liquid nitrogen and one mobile generator.

A prototype of this unit exists and has been successfully tested, since the launcher fires a projectile no regulation on missiles apply. Also unlike most delivery systems the launch is undetectable to current satellites.


MRW-02

A rail gun system miniaturised to be mounted on a modified Challenger 2 tank; the gun is ten metres long and can deliver small projectiles at very high velocities. Given the large kinetic energy of the projectiles when they reach their targets, no modern armour can stop the projectiles. Useful to tank to tank combat or for clearing enemy positions, the MRW-02 features the latest in compound armour and manageability. Comes equipped with self contained cooling system and high capacity batteries, although only enough power for 200 seconds of continuous firing. Includes solar panels for recharging in the field, although at least fifteen hours of light required for full charge.

Launcher details;
Size: 10m
Payload: Small metal projectiles, typically 5cm in diameter. (Although any metal objects may be used)
Projectile velocity: 30 000m/s
Storage: Whole system is self contained

Tank Details;
Size: hull length: 8.5m
Height: 2.5m
Width: 3.6m
Armaments: primary: 1x MRW-02, 4000 rounds/sec
Secondary: 1x 7.62mm GPMG Turret-Mounted for Air Defence
Ammunition: primary: 12000 rounds of 0.05m fletchets
10 HE high penetration projectiles
Secondary: 4000 rounds 7.62mm
Crew: 3 commander, driver, gunner
Speed: 45km/h road speed
35km/h cross country
Engine: CV12TCA 12 cylinder

Five operational Challenger 2 MRW-02 tanks have been built and are in the process of being tested.


MRW-03

An infantry support weapon, hand held operated by two soldiers on the field.
This project is in the very early development stages and as of yet no prototypes or designs have been released. Will be used between two soldiers, a loader and a gunner, and primary use will be against pillboxes or light to medium armoured vehicles.


These projects when completed will be offered for sale on the Global market, any interested parties should contact the Grand Duchy's Ministry of War.

Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of New Gallagrad

A prototype of this unit exists and has been successfully tested, since the launcher fires a projectile no regulation on missiles apply. Also unlike most delivery systems the launch is undetectable to current satellites.
The fifties are over, dear, and satellites can quite easily detect the launch platform and/ or the heat the generator produces.

Or, hell, the heat the projectile generates due to friction with the atmosphere.

Given the large kinetic energy of the projectiles when they reach their targets, no modern armour can stop the projectiles.Fortunately, not only guns advance. Armour advances, too, ne?

Tank Details;
Size: hull length: 8.5m
Height: 2.5m
Width: 3.6mWhere do you fit the vaguely huge reactor (Huge: Fusion. Very huge: Fission. Ludicrously huge: Conventional) necessary to power your gun? Solar power sounds vaguely... insufficient.

Armaments: primary: 1x MRW-02, 4000 rounds/sec
*Falls down laughing*

~ Ministry of Techwank, DA, highly amused

Point one, The projectile moves at the 5% the speed of light its far to fast to be detected by modern satellites, even if they detect its path through air its moving to fast.
point two, satellites detect the smoke and exhaust of a rocket when they take of, and the lauching platform is cooled to approximatly 75 kelvin.
Point three, with the kinetic enery these things are moving at it doesn't matter if you've got a mountain i front of you it will still get through until the projectile itself is vapourised
four, as stated with high capacity batteries you only have about three mins of continuous fire and because the rail gun generates a field all you have to do is dump bits of metal in as fast as possible and it'll shoot them of at revatalistic velocities!

four, as stated with high capacity batteries you only have about three mins of continuous fire and because the rail gun generates a field all you have to do is dump bits of metal in as fast as possible and it'll shoot them of at revatalistic velocities!

Before or after the tank vapourises itself with it's own waste heat? Also, batteries aren't good for what you're trying to do, you need fast-discharge power from capacitor banks. One shot, recharge the bank and reload, another shot. Also, with any conventional metal a projectile flying through an atmosphere at fractions of C would be so soft when it hit the target it would splash or vapourise rather than penetrate, expending all it's KE in destroying itself and doing virtually no damage to the target whatsoever.

A railtank should be firing at high mach numbers [10-25], not fractions of C.

Point one, The projectile moves at the 5% the speed of light its far to fast to be detected by modern satellites, even if they detect its path through air its moving to fast.
15000m/s are 0.005% of the speed of light... We strongly suggest that you fire your engineers and replace them with someone who has primary school education.

Furthermore, if they moved at 0.05c, it would have the nasty habit of excessive friction with the air and either detonate in the barrel or end up as a short flash of plasma with a range of perhaps a few kilometres.

FINALLY, if this weren't the case, 0.05c would be FAR above escape velocity, and you'd fire your projectile into space. Unfortunately, it wouldn't hit a target on earth, ever (Your projectiles do, of course, still fire above escape velocity, but air friction should take care of this)

PS: And the energy requirements for cfracs are a tad ludicrous.

point two, satellites detect the smoke and exhaust of a rocket when they take of, and the lauching platform is cooled to approximatly 75 kelvin.Given that 75 Kelvin is approximately 200- 220 kelvin below the temperature of the surrounding environment... We'd search for a spot with an infraredsignature far below that of the envirnment around it?

And millimetre/ centimetre wave radar should still be able to detect the projectile, really.

Point three, with the kinetic enery these things are moving at it doesn't matter if you've got a mountain i front of you it will still get through until the projectile itself is vapourised
To bad that the KE of a collision is equally distributed on both, the target and the projectile. It would leave a crater, sure. But going through with a KE of 1/2 times 500 times 15000^2 = 5.625e10 Joules or the equivalent of about 13.4 tons of TNT (A little more than a MOAB)... VEEEEEEEEEERY unlikely.

~ Ministry of Techwank, DA

Not to rain on anyones parade but being hit by a small cloud of plasma moving that fast would instantly flash boil the metal of any armour. So even if the projectile melts the cloud of accelerated plasma would have a far worse effect than of the physical impact.
Also to generate a moving magnetic field in a coil you need alternating current, the discharge of a capacitor would possiblly create an emp effect but wouldn't generate a useable magnetic field. Batteries liked to an AC coupled DC damped circuit would likely work but your point, though sarcastic, is noted. Some sort of generator would likely need to be mounted.
And these are concepts! get it, DARPA and what was formally DERA are looking at the implementaion for rail gun based weaponry. So these is some fact to it.

Oh and to detection, unless you have a tracking system that can respond to a projectile that fast and small you've still had it. IR detection from orbit would also be a no go as since the coils are compact from the orbit of spy satillite you would mostly pick up ambient IR radiation, maybe a area of relatively localised cooling but nothing to send up an alert.

Oh if you're interested i can tell you how to make a home made rail-gun with some lengths of steel tubing, twelve car batteries and a hell of a lot of copper wire!

OOC:OK STOP...........new gallagrad,you only have a pop. of 6 million so you a brand new(or this your second nation) but how do you afford the reasearch,production and distrobution of this weapon with a defence buget of only $203,717,420.42(million not Billion) compared to older countries,this is not much at all and a weapon like this if made in only moderate quantities would bankrupt you and your armies.i mean if a modern tank coast a couple of million how much would this cost reactor and all...also a reactor would be a couple of billion.


check here http://nseconomy.thirdgeek.com/nseconomy.php?nation=New+Gallagrad


who said all of us were sayin it was MT or FT

The thing is still a techwank. Any railgun is a tech wank. Even if you do get these velocities, the rail would destroy itself. Expecially with the size and speed of the projectile.

To coumpout the fact. The thing couldn't even go through a wall as it would expend all it's energy in that impact and vaporise itself. Railguns simply arn't MT. The fastest your going to get is an ETC. Unless youcount point-defense-lasers. The have a velocity of C.

OOC:OK STOP...........new gallagrad,you only have a pop. of 6 million so you a brand new(or this your second nation) but how do you afford the reasearch,production and distrobution of this weapon with a defence buget of only $203,717,420.42(million not Billion) compared to older countries,this is not much at all and a weapon like this if made in only moderate quantities would bankrupt you and your armies.i mean if a modern tank coast a couple of million how much would this cost reactor and all...also a reactor would be a couple of billion.


check here http://nseconomy.thirdgeek.com/nseconomy.php?nation=New+Gallagrad

Good point. Bad newbie!

Not to rain on anyones parade but being hit by a small cloud of plasma moving that fast would instantly flash boil the metal of any armour. So even if the projectile melts the cloud of accelerated plasma would have a far worse effect than of the physical impact.
Also to generate a moving magnetic field in a coil you need alternating current, the discharge of a capacitor would possiblly create an emp effect but wouldn't generate a useable magnetic field. Batteries liked to an AC coupled DC damped circuit would likely work but your point, though sarcastic, is noted. Some sort of generator would likely need to be mounted.
And these are concepts! get it, DARPA and what was formally DERA are looking at the implementaion for rail gun based weaponry. So these is some fact to it.
Well, if you can life with the problem of it burning your gun, too, sure.

And, as you seem to have missed our point: We didn't doubt the possibility of building a railgun. We're quite aware of said option, so it is kinda pointless to point out the possibility. What we do doubt is the size of the tank (We require a ~ 400 ton thing for a mere 11.x cm weapon) and the efficiency of your energy production, as well as the idea of armour being defeated with casual ease, given that armour is developing just like guns are.

~ Ministry for Techwank, DA

Oh if you're interested i can tell you how to make a home made rail-gun with some lengths of steel tubing, twelve car batteries and a hell of a lot of copper wire!Make it fire with a v0 of 0.5% c and I'll be impressed.

Can I just point out that if you used liquid nitrogen to cool the barrels of that gun, and it produces, minus the cooling, the heat that you claim, then (supposing the liquid nitrogen was strong enough to cool down the gun amply) then it would produce so much of a cold-on-hot cooling effect that the barrel would instantly crack and shatter after the first shot? Possibly even eliminating the ammunition it was firing.

Really, IMHO, the only place railguns belong is in PMT and FT, as without high temperature superconductors, the darn things are single shot. Then add the fact that you need a pebble-bed nuclear reactor to power the thing, and it suddenly becomes much more feasible to simply field several tanks using simple chemical propulsion at a fraction of the cost. Better yet, give infantry decent anti-tank weapons and watch the nice expensive fireworks display!

The thing is still a techwank. Any railgun is a tech wank. Even if you do get these velocities, the rail would destroy itself. Expecially with the size and speed of the projectile.

To coumpout the fact. The thing couldn't even go through a wall as it would expend all it's energy in that impact and vaporise itself. Railguns simply arn't MT. The fastest your going to get is an ETC. Unless youcount point-defense-lasers. The have a velocity of C.

OMG! The US Navy is guilty of techwank. You should immidiately go and send a formal complaint. Really, railguns are by no means techwank these days, the concept is feasible, they are doable with a few problems that are not insurmountable. Ofcourse, if this fellow here is using modern alloys as rail material, they sure as hell will destroy themselves when fired, but that obstacle can only be overcome by using handwavium alloys.

Heh, by your proclamation, any Future Tech in NS at all is tech wank due to the fact that its FT, kinda forgot that there are other than just modern tech players here didnt you?

Yes, but this is MT, not FT. And unless you don't mind your weapons self-destructing after firing once, railguns just aren't feasible in MT. With a high-temp super-conductor, maybe PMT or FT (easily FT), but not MT.

Yes, but this is MT, not FT. And unless you don't mind your weapons self-destructing after firing once, railguns just aren't feasible in MT.Uh, as much as I was the one starting to, uh... post somewhat disagreeing replies in this thread, the original auther didn't say anywhere that this is supposed to be 'Modern Tech'.

Which is to say, it is indeed not modern tech and any complaints based on it not being modern tech (As opposed to sheer errors in the basic math), are utterly idiotic, spam, and work only to show that the authors of said complains have the reading comprehension skills of a down-symdrome plagued squirrel.

Hey, don't insult the squirrels!

My main reason for thinking of it as MT is the fact that most PMT or FT nations tend not to use 7.62mm rounds or 12 cylinder engines (well, FT at least, and PMT should have hybrids by now). If it is in fact PMT, I retract all statements I have made regarding tech level. Still, this doesn't remove the fact that launching a projectile that small at such high speeds would most likely vaporize the projectile as soon as it exited the barrel.

Uh, as much as I was the one starting to, uh... post somewhat disagreeing replies in this thread, the original auther didn't say anywhere that this is supposed to be 'Modern Tech'.

Which is to say, it is indeed not modern tech and any complaints based on it not being modern tech (As opposed to sheer errors in the basic math), are utterly idiotic, spam, and work only to show that the authors of said complains have the reading comprehension skills of a down-symdrome plagued squirrel.

Ofcourse, FT and PMT bring with them certain allowances when it comes to mathematical problems such as the rounds exploding, rails destroying themselves etc. All of which can be explained via (albeit handwavium) more advanced materials. When going past MT, Suspension of Disbelief has to be taken into play.

Ofcourse, FT and PMT bring with them certain allowances when it comes to mathematical problems such as the rounds exploding, rails destroying themselves etc. All of which can be explained via (albeit handwavium) more advanced materials. When going past MT, Suspension of Disbelief has to be taken into play.Not when it comes to decreasing the speed of light by three orders of magnitude, tho.

Not when it comes to decreasing the speed of light by three orders of magnitude, tho.

Well naturally not, this wasnt what I meant nor does suspension of disbelief require one to suspend disbelief to such a huge degree.