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I saw this on Digg today and thought "Wow." Not quite what Jason came up with, but more like the original design that he based his gun on (Edit: Starship mounted satellite launcher). The unit will be ship-mounted on naval ships to replace / supplement existing guns with much greater range.

http://digg.com/gadgets/Railguns_Now_a_Reality

-Miraborn

I wonder how much the railgun will cost. And for a $1000 a round, I'd be making sure I actually hit something important.
I so want one...oh well...

that's a ship baised railgun, we're nowhere close to a handheld model yet, mostly because of power requirements, we can't make nukes that small yet... the reactors anyways...

Wingsolution wrote:that's a ship baised railgun, we're nowhere close to a handheld model yet, mostly because of power requirements, we can't make nukes that small yet... the reactors anyways...

Well sure, but it would be cool to have one for the tank I'll own someday!

Like I told you guys a long time ago, Jason's railgun is inspired from real technology.

Fel wrote:Like I told you guys a long time ago, Jason's railgun is inspired from real technology.

Or maybe the Movie Eraser? (hell I think that had the corkscrew too)

heh

Actually, the railguns from Eraser were ALSO based on real technology. Not the xray scopes and all that other crap, but the concept of the rail gun, either a magnetic or electrostatic catapult system for projectiles, is very real.

The corkscrew trail is also very real. When rounds moving that fast spin, the shockwave condenses water vapor in the air in the direction of their spin, just like the vapor trail off an airplane seen from a distance, leaving a corkscrew tail behind them showing how they've displaced the air. That's not smoke behind the round, that's water vapor.

That's basic physics.

Bullets fired from a gun would create a similar corkscrew if they were moving fast enough.

Fel wrote:Actually, the railguns from Eraser were ALSO based on real technology. Not the xray scopes and all that other crap, but the concept of the rail gun, either a magnetic or electrostatic catapult system for projectiles, is very real.

The corkscrew trail is also very real. When rounds moving that fast spin, the shockwave condenses water vapor in the air in the direction of their spin, just like the vapor trail off an airplane seen from a distance, leaving a corkscrew tail behind them showing how they've displaced the air. That's not smoke behind the round, that's water vapor.

That's basic physics.

Bullets fired from a gun would create a similar corkscrew if they were moving fast enough.

Oh I know they were based on Real Tech, but I just have never seen one actually fired so I wasn't sure if the corkscrew would be real or not.

Fel wrote:Actually, the railguns from Eraser were ALSO based on real technology. Not the xray scopes and all that other crap, but the concept of the rail gun, either a magnetic or electrostatic catapult system for projectiles, is very real.

The corkscrew trail is also very real. When rounds moving that fast spin, the shockwave condenses water vapor in the air in the direction of their spin, just like the vapor trail off an airplane seen from a distance, leaving a corkscrew tail behind them showing how they've displaced the air. That's not smoke behind the round, that's water vapor.

That's basic physics.

Bullets fired from a gun would create a similar corkscrew if they were moving fast enough.

So, Great Fel, why did Jason's railgun lose the sonic boom?

Fel wrote:The corkscrew trail is also very real. When rounds moving that fast spin, the shockwave condenses water vapor in the air in the direction of their spin

This I'm not too sure about. Whatever the spin might be doing to the air, the bullet is moving at mach 15 or so, and generating an appropriate shockwave, which might disrupt such effects.

Building railguns hasn't been a problem for a long time. The problem is that each time they are fired the rails melt. Up until now that is. If the Americans have solved that problem this could be very interesting indeed.

The problem is that each time they are fired the rails melt.

There might be some confusion here. Railguns technically have a shuttle of sorts that moves through the barrel pushing the projectile ahead of it. The shuttle is moved by the magnetic forces. A Gauss gun uses magnetic forces to move the projectile itself with no other moving parts. Jason's railgun would technically be a gauss gun - as would (I believe) the new American weapon.

-Miraborn