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Rent-A-Cop posted:At the moment the railgun barrel gets hosed up in a big way. Erosion of the rails is one of the major issues with the concept. There actually may be a way around this-- I know the Navy is experimenting with putting a plasma sheathe around the projectile, keeping it from physically contacting the rails. This works since plasma is affected by the magnetic field too, so it just gets dragged along with the projectile 
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Jun 10, 2015 21:18
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Why not just pump more power into a coil gun? The projectile doesn't technically have to touch anything (or you could just give it a plastic sabot that is softer than the barrel)
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Jun 10, 2015 21:34
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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I think a big changer that's overlooked a lot when looking at current and future warfare are IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device) and the countermeasures for them. Cheapo homemade bombs forced the U.S. to shell out 50 billion dollars in specialty vehicles not to mention all the ECM systems that the U.S. fielded - down to individual backpack units. There's almost never any stories or articles about IEDs outside of military sources or niche monitoring groups but given the cost to benefit of using them, they aren't going anywhere. I'd be curious as to how much of a deterrent the use of IEDs are to a developed nation when considering an attack on a developing nation.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:40
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Kaal posted:Oh and by the way if you had to buy a million dollar barrel after 40 shots (which they won't) then the comparative cost would still be hugely in favor of the railgun since the unit cost would be $50,000 per railgun shell rather than $1 million per missile. I agree the $25,000 number isn't representative of the actual cost of firing the weapon.
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Jun 11, 2015 00:07
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Bip Roberts posted:I agree the $25,000 number isn't representative of the actual cost of firing the weapon. I think that it's pretty clear that you have no particular knowledge about the issue, or of basic mathematics.
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Jun 11, 2015 00:50
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Kaal posted:I think that it's pretty clear that you have no particular knowledge about the issue, or of basic mathematics. I think being skeptical of military cost savings is a realistic position especially when the figure of merit being proposed is patently unrelated to actual cost.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:00
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Bip Roberts posted:I think being skeptical of military cost savings is a realistic position especially when the figure of merit being proposed is patently unrelated to actual cost. Maybe if it was based on anything but complete fabrication and goalpost tending. You've gone from arguing that "railguns cost more than $1 million per round!", to "railguns cost something more than $25,000 but you don't really know how much since it's not based on any facts or figures".
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Jun 11, 2015 01:02
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Kaal posted:Maybe if it was based on anything but complete fabrication and goalpost tending. You've gone from arguing that "railguns cost more than $1 million per round!", to "railguns cost something more than $25,000 but you don't really know how much since it's not based on any facts or figures". Where did I say "railguns cost more than $1 million per round!"? I was asking how much more than $25,000 they cost because $25,000 is patently wrong.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:06
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How are railguns hitting targets beyond the horizon? Firing from really high up? Engineering the speed somehow so that the projectile is fast enough to drop with the curvature of the earth?
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Jun 11, 2015 01:06
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Bip Roberts posted:Where did I say "railguns cost more than $1 million per round!"? I was asking how much more than $25,000 they cost because $25,000 is patently wrong. [Citation needed] I'm tired of arguing with ideas that aren't based on anything but your gut.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:08
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Kaal posted:[Citation needed] Maybe the rail pellets propel themselves for free. Kaal posted:I'm tired of arguing with ideas that aren't based on anything but your gut. 
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Jun 11, 2015 01:09
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Fargo Fukes posted:How are railguns hitting targets beyond the horizon? Firing from really high up? Engineering the speed somehow so that the projectile is fast enough to drop with the curvature of the earth? Yep, arcing the shot in. Naval artillery can already do this. Bip Roberts posted:Maybe the rail pellets propel themselves for free. Maybe the GUVMENT is LYING and just trying to SPEND MAH TAXDOLLERS  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/07/us-usa-navy-railgun-idUSBREA361QF20140407
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Jun 11, 2015 01:11
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Dirt5o8 posted:I'd be curious as to how much of a deterrent the use of IEDs are to a developed nation when considering an attack on a developing nation.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:41
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Kaal posted:[Citation needed] Are the Pentagon's gut-based ideas more worthy of discussion? Because that's about how much evidence they have that railguns will be a viable or cost-effective strike weapon.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:42
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Not really a deterrent at all I'd imagine. IEDs are the weapon you turn to when you are willing to blow up a lot of street corners and vegetable markets in order to maybe kill a few of your enemies. Nations generally cease to exist in any meaningful sense before they resort to decentralized DIY bombing campaigns against their own territory. Right. I mean IEDs are of course a significant threat, but they're not particularly different from standard counter-mining operations. The biggest issue is that IEDs occur in irregular conflicts, which add all the concurrent issues of COIN operations.
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Jun 11, 2015 01:48
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Not really a deterrent at all I'd imagine. IEDs are the weapon you turn to when you are willing to blow up a lot of street corners and vegetable markets in order to maybe kill a few of your enemies. Nations generally cease to exist in any meaningful sense before they resort to decentralized DIY bombing campaigns against their own territory. I'd think there would (or at least should) be at least some discussion about them when considering an invasion/occupation. Iran as an example would be a nightmare for a modern military due to its terrain and the well-educated population. Going back into how murderously expensive western counter-IED equipment is and the general feeling that losing even a handful of western soldiers in a day is considered a disaster, it seems kinda crazy not to consider the costs of IEDs compared to how much you want to attack a place. Kaal posted:Right. I mean IEDs are of course a significant threat, but they're not particularly different from standard counter-mining operations. The biggest issue is that IEDs occur in irregular conflicts, which add all the concurrent issues of COIN operations. I wouldn't totally agree with you on the similarities of counter-mining and counter-IED. Landmines are primarily counter-mobility and for defense, IEDs can be used defensively but are mainly used for attacking enemy movements. Granted clearing either mines or IEDs requires security but IEDs are often used as triggers for an actual small arms attack. The dude laying in the IED is paid a bounty for a successful hit so they're usually pretty motivated to make them as effective as possible by placement and concealment. Considering how unlikely a major war between developed nations is, I think its a reasonable expectation that irregular conflicts are what most modern armies will face. COIN is a growing field and is still evolving and borrowing ideas from a bunch of disciplines. My experiences with COIN, past establishing basic security in an area, is always to find IED factories, materials and people involved with production and emplacement. I could have a bias when I think about IEDs since my main job for the last few years was blowing them up but it just seems they don't get discussed much considering how much they damage they do compared to the production cost. Sorry if that was a bit rambling. I'm sick and these meds are kicking my rear end.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:08
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Dirt5o8 posted:the general feeling that losing even a handful of western soldiers in a day is considered a disaster, Which I absolutely don't get. If you go to war, people die. That's normal in war. Either have less wars or grow a spine and accept that not everyone's kids are coming back.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:19
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Dirt5o8 posted:I wouldn't totally agree with you on the similarities of counter-mining and counter-IED. Landmines are primarily counter-mobility and for defense, IEDs can be used defensively but are mainly used for attacking enemy movements. Granted clearing either mines or IEDs requires security but IEDs are often used as triggers for an actual small arms attack. The dude laying in the IED is paid a bounty for a successful hit so they're usually pretty motivated to make them as effective as possible by placement and concealment. Those are some pretty good points, thanks for mentioning them. I was thinking more in terms of how landmines have been used in past conflicts, rather than the purely defensive mode the US employs them now. For example, back in Vietnam it was fairly common for the Viet Cong to use land mines (either booby-trapped or command-detonated) to spring ambushes on patrolling American troops. To my mind, there's a lot of similarities there in terms of how they impact military operations. But I'm sure you'd have a better perspective on the matter since I haven't really been looking at it for years.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:30
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Kaal posted:Those are some pretty good points, thanks for mentioning them. I was thinking more in terms of how landmines have been used in past conflicts, rather than the purely defensive mode the US employs them now. For example, back in Vietnam it was fairly common for the Viet Cong to use land mines (either booby-trapped or command-detonated) to spring ambushes on patrolling American troops. To my mind, there's a lot of similarities there in terms of how they impact military operations. But I'm sure you'd have a better perspective on the matter since I haven't really been looking at it for years. That's actually an issue the U.S. had in the first few years of IED combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leadership wasn't really putting landmines and IEDs in separate categories. An example of that is the call up procedure for a piece of unexploded ordnance was the same for an IED (9-line UXO report). Only in the closing years of Iraq did IEDs get a new, more in depth report (15 lines). It seems kinda nit-picky but once the U.S. fully got behind the principle of IED combat, IED effectiveness began to drop. I don't think we're really in disagreement, just using different definitions. The Viet Cong definitely had the same goals as Iraqi and Afghan insurgents. Kill NATO/Coalition troops. They both used military ordnance and captured equipment when they could. What the Viet Cong did with U.S. Claymores was essentially, turn a mine into an IED. Pakistan has had a thriving black market cottage industry for years converting old Chinese and Russian mines into IEDs for insurgents in Afghanistan. The biggest differences between Vietnam and the Iraq/Afghanistan insurgencies was supply and quality of training. The Vietnamese were highly trained and could generally go toe-to-toe with U.S. troops. Vietnamese mines/IEDs were just used as force multipliers. They had a fairly reliable supply trickling in from the north. Iraqi and Afghan fighters were generally poorly trained for direct action and IEDs and bombings were the main mechanism to attack Government and NATO troops.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:09
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Fargo Fukes posted:How are railguns hitting targets beyond the horizon? Firing from really high up? Engineering the speed somehow so that the projectile is fast enough to drop with the curvature of the earth? Yes and all of this has been done before. During WWI, the Germans build the biggest land artillery piece in history. That thing was absolutely crazy and probably the product of extreme meth addiction and desperation, but it still managed to shell Paris from more than 100km away. Among other things, they had to account for the earths rotation during the long flight time when aiming that monstrosity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun
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Jun 11, 2015 20:15
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You technically have to account for the Earth's rotation when firing a sniper rifle over a sufficient distance.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:19
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Fojar38 posted:You technically have to account for the Earth's rotation when firing a sniper rifle over a sufficient distance. Yes this is a very helpful addition to the discussion, thank you. You also have to account for the Earth's rotation when you walk a sobriety test.
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Jun 12, 2015 11:05
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What he's saying is that accounting for the earth's rotation, and many other issues with firing an unguided projectile over long range, is not particularly a new or uncommon problem.
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Jun 12, 2015 14:22
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I don't have any issue with the Navy researching speculative technologies like rail guns. Maybe if we spent more time researching this stuff, and less time giving the usual suspects large procurement contracts on the basis of unproven technologies we'd end up making more cost effective decisions in the long run. I don't think military research is the problem--it's that we start buying stuff en masse before it's fully baked from a defense industry who is reluctant to take risks and innovate on their own dime while Uncle Sam keeps the money flowing.
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Jun 13, 2015 03:32
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Tetraptous posted:I don't have any issue with the Navy researching speculative technologies like rail guns. Maybe if we spent more time researching this stuff, and less time giving the usual suspects large procurement contracts on the basis of unproven technologies we'd end up making more cost effective decisions in the long run. I don't think military research is the problem--it's that we start buying stuff en masse before it's fully baked from a defense industry who is reluctant to take risks and innovate on their own dime while Uncle Sam keeps the money flowing. I don't know where you're going with this. I would love to have a different military procurement structure in the US, but there are a lot of things the US needs that can't be produced by a small company. If you can't break up the near-monopoly, how do you do away with the excesses of a near-monopoly?
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Jun 13, 2015 09:36
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Skeesix posted:I don't know where you're going with this. I would love to have a different military procurement structure in the US, but there are a lot of things the US needs that can't be produced by a small company. If you can't break up the near-monopoly, how do you do away with the excesses of a near-monopoly? That's almost another issue--I'm just saying we shouldn't be cramming each new platform fully of every whiz-bang gadget Lockheed can dream up. Leave the research to researchers and out of procurement programs. As far as the near-monopoly goes, you're right--at some point you need a big systems integrator to build the next fighter jet or destroyer. But, we were probably wrong to encourage industry consolidation to the extent that we have today. Sure it's left three big stable defense contractors in the US, so the government doesn't have to worry much about the health of the industry--but it's effectively eliminated all competition. The companies that are left do everything from ballistic missiles to desktop IT support for government agencies. They're experts at working the government's contracting rules and getting Congressional support more than anything else. You could nationalize them, I suppose--it wouldn't be all that different than what we have today, except there would be a little less incentive to over promise and under deliver.
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Jun 13, 2015 14:51
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This is an accurate depiction of the American military since the Protoss Scout (the small bird-looking ships) are so cost-ineffective that it is a blunder to build them unless you have such a material advantage that they should not be necessary anyway.
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Jun 13, 2015 17:57
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But they can actually fly though, and probably in wet weather too.
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Jun 14, 2015 02:53
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blowfish posted:Which I absolutely don't get. If you go to war, people die. That's normal in war. Either have less wars or grow a spine and accept that not everyone's kids are coming back. Our defense policy isn't made by one actor. It's not like "the US government" is a person who sat down and decided how much weight it should assign to dead soldiers. Defense policy is made by a process that involves lots of different actors. Some of those actors have one logically coherent position: "the cost of dead soldiers outweighs the benefits of war". Other actors have a different logically coherent position: "the benefits of war outweigh the cost of dead soldiers". Since both sets of actors have some input over the policy process, the output reflects a compromise between those logically coherent positions: "we should try to keep doing war, and we should try to keep any soldiers from dying". Even though the output position is incoherent by its own terms, it's a perfectly reasonable outcome of the process. Both sides get something they want and can take that victory back to their voters, their defense contractors, or whoever else they feel accountable to.
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Jun 14, 2015 03:16
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Coffins coming back from overseas is really really politically unpopular, which matters in a democracy, so you'd better be sure that the threat is worth the coffins.
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Jun 14, 2015 03:18
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rudatron posted:But they can actually fly though, and probably in wet weather too. Well, all it takes is a little bug poo poo for them to fall out of the sky. I mean heck, sometimes a guy only has to look at them real hard and they fall to pieces. 
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Jun 14, 2015 04:17
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Fojar38 posted:Coffins coming back from overseas is really really politically unpopular, which matters in a democracy, so you'd better be sure that the threat is worth the coffins. Frankly, even outside of a democracy, coffins coming back from overseas still matters if there are enough of them.
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Jun 14, 2015 09:01
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