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On the suggestion of blunt for century, welcome to the first(?) ever PYF Weapon System Thread! Hey, are you unnerved by the fact that the missiles fired from a BUK are longer than the average sedan, but have a range of 5 kays and can hit mach 3? This is the thread for you! Perhaps you'd like more information on the new laser weaponry being deployed by the US Navy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0DbgNju2wE Or a little something on the development of Railguns? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ix62_oBGtg Heck, maybe you're just into CIWS porn? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L0ZAGOuaqg From big static platforms, to something you can carry in your pocket - post it here! Just make sure it's interesting and sourced!
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Apr 8, 2015 00:18
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A bit more on the Railgun I'm focusing mainly on the model currently under development by the US Navy since that's the one that's furthest along (AFAIK) First, what is a Railgun? wikipedia posted:A railgun is an electrically powered electromagnetic projectile launcher based on similar principles to the homopolar motor. A railgun comprises a pair of parallel conducting rails, along which a sliding armature is accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flows down one rail, into the armature and then back along the other rail. There are some design issues with Railguns, however. The immense amounts of power required, and the forces being thrown around mean that the service life of these weapon systems are...fairly short: quote:Chief of Naval Research, Admiral Matthew Klunder stated, "Barrel life has increased from tens of shots to over 400, with a program path to achieve 1000 shots." However, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) will not confirm that the 400 shots are full-power shots. Further there is nothing published to indicate there are any high megajoule class railguns with the capability of firing hundreds of full-power shots while staying within the strict operational parameters necessary to fire railgun shots accurately and safely. As noted in an article by Globalsecurity.org: railguns should be able to fire 6 rounds per minute with a rail life of about 3000 rounds. Given launch acceleration of up to 60,000 g's, massive pressures and mega amps of current, railgun rails are quickly destroyed and getting to the endurance to fire hundreds of full-power rounds, much less thousands of rounds will require major breakthroughs in material science that cannot be scheduled and could be decades in coming. Additionally, Railguns rounds are currently "dumbfire" - they are not guided by any means. Considering the range they're meant to cover, this limits the usefulness of the weapon on the field. Once again from the wikipedia article: quote:"The [guidance] package must fit within the mass (< 2 kg), diameter (< 40 mm outer diameter), and volume (200 cm3) constraints of the projectile and do so without altering the center of gravity. It should also be able to survive accelerations of at least 20,000 g (threshold) / 40,000 g (objective) in all axes, high electromagnetic fields (E > 5,000 V/m, B > 2 T), and surface temperatures of > 800 deg C. The package should be able to operate in the presence of any plasma that may form in the bore or at the muzzle exit and must also be radiation hardened due to exo-atmospheric flight. Total power consumption must be less than 8 watts (threshold) / 5 watts (objective) and the battery life must be at least 5 minutes (from initial launch) to enable operation during the entire engagement. In order to be affordable, the production cost per projectile must be as low as possible, with a goal of less than $1,000 per unit." Right, so Railguns aren't going to be actually deployed on anything until 2050 or some bullshit, right? WRONGO quote:The U.S. Navy plans to integrate a railgun that has a range of over 160 km (100 mi) onto a ship by 2016. This weapon, while having a form factor more typical of a naval gun will "utilize components largely in common with those developed and demonstrated at Dahlgren. The hyper-velocity rounds weigh 10 kg (23 lb). When in the future guided rounds are developed, the Navy is projecting each self-guided round to cost about $25,000 each, though it must be noted that developing guided projectile for guns has a history of doubling or tripling initial cost estimates. Some HPV projectiles developed by the Navy have command guidance, but it is not known nor is there any published data on the accuracy of the command guidance or even if it can survive a full power shot. A future goal is to develop projectiles that are self-guided - a necessary requirement to hit distant targets or intercepting missiles. The 18 in (460 mm) shells are fired at Mach 7. however... quote:Currently the only US Navy ships that can produce enough electrical power to get desired performance are the Zumwalt-class destroyers; they can generate 78 megawatts of power, more than is necessary to power a railgun. Engineers are working to derive technologies developed for the DDG-1000 series ships into a battery system so other warships can operate a railgun...
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Apr 8, 2015 00:40
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cheese-cube posted:Throw money at Rosoboronexport and get a 3M-54E Club-K system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbUU_9bOcnM I want to see this system vs the Spyder (in it's defensive anti-guided-munitions role) wikipedia posted:The SPYDER (Surface-to-air PYthon and DERby) is an Israeli short and medium range mobile air defence system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with assistance from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Rafael is the prime contractor and IAI is the major subcontractor for the SPYDER program. This system achieved a notable milestone in 2005 when missiles were fired against test targets in Shdema, Israel and scored direct hits... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1is-gYc7Jeo Appologies for the bad quality footage and the bad quality presenter, but it does display the concept pretty well.
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Apr 9, 2015 00:28
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cheese-cube posted:I don't think the SPYDER is designed to intercept surface-skimming cruise missiles. It's flight altitude is listed as 20-9,000m whereas the 3M-54 is 10-15m. Still you never know what Rafael has up their sleeves. Hmm! Excellent point there. I got a bit ahead of myself. Also, the terminal phase of that thing is no loving joke. Also I think it might be the best pitch video I've seen since the first MetalStorm videos.
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Apr 9, 2015 11:22
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blunt for century posted:Dear god that would be an uncomfortable takeoff I think maybe there's a lot about that design they didn't think all the way through  EDIT: Might've been possible to counter it with enough Trim, I have no idea how that poo poo would be manageable without a Fly By Wire system. DPM has a new favorite as of 02:39 on Apr 11, 2015 |
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Apr 11, 2015 00:32
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blunt for century posted:Why didn't they make a stationary test site? Too remote to build properly? I have wondered exactly this since I first heard about it. I've been thinking a lot about door breaching recently, so... The Utas UTS-15 Shotgun!  Hooray for feed-selection shotguns! The UTS was the first to market, but had a high rate of failure. Thankfully the Kel-Tec KSG was there to pick up the slack. These weapons were designed to be the ultimate in tactical law enforcement shotguns. Ballistic breaching is not a new idea, but it does have issues. Typically the rounds used in ballistic breaching were non-lethal and usually loaded to be the first shells the shotgun would fire in tactical insertion situations. Big problem though - what happens if you get surprised, or you need to return fire*? Feed selector shotguns allow you to load two individual feed tubes, with a big thumb selector on top to change between them. This makes it possible to have, say, Breaching and LTL rounds on one side, and whatever you want on the other. Shot on one, slug on the other, what have you. Or you can fill the fucker with 15 of the same type, set it to alternate, and "go nuts". *Considering the range of Picatinny Rail underslung shotguns, feed selector shotguns do fill a rather specific niche. Still cool though. EDIT: I totally forgot about the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_o3YsUVAyQ
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Apr 13, 2015 03:39
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Good posts as always blunt. Was gunna do a post about BLEVE's and their military usages but I am sadbrain today (estranging my lovely parents, whoo) so look forward to massive loving explosion videos tomorrow.
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Apr 15, 2015 05:47
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:So, what's the problem with the f-35? It's got a bunch of issues. The development went overlong and they spent way more than they projected in the process. Still has lots of design issues that made it through - like it can't be loaded with warm AvGas. Hooray for loving loving gently caress fuckedy fuckwit Tony Abbott for ordering a bunch more while screaming about all the money we don't have.
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Apr 16, 2015 06:52
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blunt for century posted:Get the engineers for Porsche to assist in making the A-10 mark 2 (A-11?) so it's pretty much the same thing but better Honestly, given the incredible things you can do with a C-130 gunship, I'm amazed that the A-10 is still in use. A-10s rule though, GAU 8 Avengers all loving day son: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sALiuWg_I1k  30mm Gau 8 Avenger round next to a .30-06 It fires 70 of those rounds per 1 second burst. The recoil from the weapon is so great, that... wikipedia posted:Each barrel fires when it reaches roughly the 9 o'clock position, when viewed from the front of the plane. Because the gun's recoil forces could push the entire plane off target during firing, the weapon itself is mounted laterally off-center, slightly to the portside of the fuselage centreline as seen from above, with the actively "firing" barrel in the 3 o'clock position, so that the firing barrel lies directly on the aircraft's center line. The firing barrel also lies just below the aircraft's center of gravity, being bore sighted along a line 2 degrees below the aircraft's line of flight. This arrangement accurately centers the recoil forces, preventing changes in pitch or yaw when fired. wikipedia posted:Precision: 80% of rounds fired at 4,000 feet (1,200 m) range hit within a 40 feet (12 m) diameter circle  Gau 8 next to a VW Beetle Would still love the effort post from Son of Thunderbeast, especially since I have been eyeing off RAAF and RAN technician jobs recently...
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Apr 16, 2015 23:32
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I remember playing a flight sim of a Warthog, and it even had the plane stall if you laid on the cannon too much. IIRC, that was an issue with early version of the Warthog. The escaping gas from the GAU-8 would flow directly into the engine inlets and stall them. They fixed it pretty quickly, hehe. Now, time for one of my favourite munitions, the Paveway Bomb System https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrpXOIVCcAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fc8bgf1pGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srrBUGo-ckU For those moments when you have an itch you REALLY need to scratch! The Paveway system is actually a guidance system, making them members of the JDAM family of bombs. All sorts of different types of warheads have been attached to the system over the years, I'd point to the wikipedia page for more info. The majority of the Paves in existence are unpowered laser guided bombs. Varients can use different guidance systems, such as GPS. Some interesting tidbits: The Paveway III, aka GBU-28 which was designed, manufactured, tested, and deployed within three weeks to be used in Desert Storm. Wikipedia posted:The first GBU-28 was dropped off-target due to target misidentification. The second GBU-28 was a direct hit and penetrated the thick reinforced concrete before detonating, killing everyone inside. It was also used in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, now Israel has a stockpile of them. Here's footage of six of them in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOWK72i8bCU  The GBU-24 Some grainy footage of the '24 in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRRXK7QnxaU That's a whole lot of "gently caress you".
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Apr 23, 2015 06:37
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Wild T posted:I've never played with the HK GMG but I did get to fam fire the Mk19 (US military's grenade machine gun) a few years ago. It's a loving hoot. What I didn't know going in was that since the rounds are so massive and relatively slow, when you're looking through the sights you can see little black dots arcing downrange and going boom (or in the case of training rounds, sparkle). I've always wondered how accurate the Mk19 is? Most of the footage I've seen of it being used in the field has been for-effect.
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Apr 23, 2015 15:13
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Time for some thread necromancy with the Urumi, AKA the Indian Whip Sword https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMAsCuDFSUI wikipedia posted:The urumi hilt is constructed from iron or brass and is identical to that of the talwar, complete with a crossguard and frequently a slender knucklebow. The typical handle is termed a "disc hilt" from the prominent disc-shaped flange surrounding the pommel. The pommel often has a short decorative spike-like protrusion projecting from its centre. The blade is fashioned from flexible edged steel measuring three-quarters to one inch in width. Ideally it should be the same as the wielder's armspan, usually between 4 feet to 5.5 feet. Multiple blades are often attached to a single handle. The Sri Lankan variation can have up to 32 blades and is typically dual-wielded, with one in each hand
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May 7, 2015 03:48
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KillHour posted:This made sense when our "enemies" were superpowers with massive standing armies and R&D budgets. Now they're some just some random dudes with cold war leftovers. I'm not saying stop all military R&D, I'm saying "Why the gently caress do we need ICBM interceptors and billion-dollar air superiority fighters?" The excuse they're choosing to use is that everyone else is still developing gen 4+/++ air fighters That being said, it feels very much like the end-of-3rd-gen period ('Nam) to me - like the plane itself is getting less important, it's just about how much of what weapon system you can bolt to it. And, nowadays, how small you can make the radar profile. Kind of strikes me as the "end of days" for air superiority fighters. Why make something that requires a squishy, weak, fallible human to actually sit inside it, when you could be making bigger, faster drone fighters? Seems very much like fighter jets are losing the race against AA/SAMs more and more each day. The F-35 needs to die in a fire, for real. I can't believe the Australian government has committed E: Forgot about the price rise. And maths derp. DPM has a new favorite as of 07:01 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 06:54
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Turns out the Naval AWS/Laser weapons don't loving work: http://thebulletin.org/navys-new-laser-weapon-hype-or-reality8326
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Jun 2, 2015 09:47
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Tiberius Thyben posted:Well, they haven't managed to almost sink the ship they are mounted on, so they are still better than the f-35 AND YET http://breakingdefense.com/2015/05/lasers-on-a-plane-air-force-wants-fighter-firing-100-kilowatts-by-2022/
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Jun 2, 2015 11:28
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