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Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 10:33 pm: | 
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>>>>>>I guess we should just surrender since you haven't read anything about how we intend to defend a carrier against a missile. Dude.
Who the hell is taking about surrender...are you a defeatist in disguise?
Aesquire put it better than I, carriers are on the verge of being obsolete, along with all other surface warships.....in a conventional type war.
Asymmetrical warfare is another question altogether.
Are you guys arguing that ship based rail guns at a cost of however many $$$ are needed for asymmetrical warfare? and that those $$$ couldn't be better used elsewhere? How about a satellite defense system? (if we dont already have one)
If thats your position, I dont have a counter argument. Other wise I think that we should all get used to the idea that the DoD shouldn't be given a blank check for anything they want.
To fix the financial condition of the country EVERYONE is going to have to take a hit, including the Pentagon.} |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 10:53 pm: |
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Are you guys arguing that ship based rail guns at a cost of however many $$$ are needed for asymmetrical warfare?
Heck no. For that we need to improve & deploy the best tech we can hand our troops. Also there is a political component. That determines our strategy, and that's a whole argument by itself. ( let's both assume they're doing it all wrong, and discuss it amiably on another thread... )
But it's not just a gold toilet, or another multimillion dollar study at the Pentagon as to which handgun is going to not be purchased this year. Rail gun/linear accelerator technology makes a quantum leap greater by far than smokeless over black powder, possibly as much as internal combustion over steam.
Besides, cool video! |
Darth_villar
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 10:57 pm: |
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I personally can't wait for Mass Particle Accelerators (Railguns) to be made small enough for personal weapons.
Obvious problems such as the immense energy they require, and the fact the human body can take only so much recoil.
Think Mass Effect style weapons, extremely tiny chunks of metal stored inside the weapon basically making reloading a thing of the past.
I for one totally support this technology.
Phil |
Kc10_fe
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 11:49 pm: |
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CVN-78 is in the making. Projection is key folks. You dont project with Global Chicken. Defense and offense is just like todays computer technology; Ever evolving. The ONLY way to keep ahead is R&D. R&D costs heavy coin. Freedom isnt free. The ability to float anywhere to kick some ass isnt cheap either.
If you didnt know it VFA-213 took off from CVN-70 and dropped the first bombs of OEF. |
Tom_b
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:08 am: |
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Aesquire.. wasn't the "Pluto Project" the one where the US govt. Studied the possibility of using a nuclear reactor to power a ramjet missle?? That was actually on Discovery or some other show a few years ago. pretty cool, but not practical considering the cost of conventional ICBM's. the only advantage was the seriously long cruise time once the reactor kicked in. It was also a major concern of the fact it was spewing radiation once the reactor was kicked in |
Tom_b
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:17 am: |
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In all honesty a "carrier battle group" has been obsolete for over 50 years if your talking about hitting one with a bomb. Bikini Atoll weapons tests proved that. That argument is kind of lame. The ability to put an airwing within easy striking distance anywhere in the world is hard to beat. The chinese missle ability to hit a battle group is way overrated in public. My best freind retired 5 years ago from the USN as an EWTC. Which is an Electronic Warfare Tech.. No problem is what he says. I beleive him more than propanganda on the news and the net |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:46 am: |
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Thank you Tom. Well said.
If a carrier battle group is obsolete because of enemy threat, well then so is an air base, an army base, anything a missile can hit. |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 08:27 am: |
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Court hit on a good point. because of the interdependence of international trade the risk of conventional war between major world powers is very very low. Does that mean we dont remain prepared for one?...HELL no.
In all honesty a "carrier battle group" has been obsolete for over 50 years if your talking about hitting one with a bomb. Bikini Atoll weapons tests proved that. That argument is kind of lame.
Sorry but that is just plain wrong. Carriers move and their movement plus the air power is their best defense. A bomber just isn't going to get close enough to drop a nuke, and the ship will be long gone by time a dumb missile gets to where it was aimed.
To top it off, NOBODY (nation states) is going to start popping off nukes, especially for sake of a carrier group.
If a carrier battle group is obsolete because of enemy threat, well then so is an air base, an army base, anything a missile can hit.
You still sound like a defeatist or a little kid that wants to take his ball and go home b/c someone is saying no.
The potential for rail gun technology is HUGE....depolying it on a ship (just because we can) in its current state is a waste of my and your money. Keep developing the technology so that we can set it up for land deployment where we can move it to the theater of operations, increase the rate of fire to make it feasible for ship defense, decrease the energy requirements to allow it to be used on something small than a ship. I'm saying that deploying rail technology as a "big cannon" on a big surface ship (because thats the only thing than generate enough energy to shoot it) does not make economic or tactical sense. |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 10:12 am: |
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>>> You still sound like a defeatist or a little kid that wants to take his ball and go home b/c someone is saying no.
Way to sink to personal commentary in lieu of the issue.  Please avoid that from here on out. My point was apparently lost on you; it was meant to expose the flawed logic of your statement that a carrier group was obsolete due to its vulnerability to certain forms of attack.
I agree, rail-gun technology offers huge potential.
The military states per the report above that the technology won't be ready for deployment for another fifteen years.
>>> I'm saying that deploying rail technology as a "big cannon" on a big surface ship (because thats the only thing than generate enough energy to shoot it) does not make economic or tactical sense.
Please explain how replacing and/or augmenting the bulky and expensive high-explosive-laden, vulnerable to anti-aircraft defenses and jamming, and relatively slow to reach the target $600,000 per shot Tomohawk with a near-invulnerable 20 LB chunk of balistic metal does not make economic sense.
I don't know of many military development programs that make more economic sense. |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 11:05 am: |
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I apologize if my comment offended you. Should I have just said that your comments about giving up are a straw man and do not relate to the topic at hand like you do in other threads? Either way I believe the same message is conveyed....... because its blatantly obvious that you are not a defeatist. I would never use something to tease someone that I thought was even remotely true, and my intent is for the ridiculousness of the assertion to show that its teasing and not a personal attack.
Please explain how replacing and/or augmenting the bulky and expensive high-explosive-laden, vulnerable to anti-aircraft defenses and jamming, and relatively slow to reach the target $600,000 per shot Tomohawk with a near-invulnerable 20 LB chunk of balistic metal does not make economic sense.
A ship is not going to get close enough, 200 miles, to use its "big gun"..... so why build the gun in the first place? You end up with a great gun that never gets used....except for maybe political purposes. Why risk a billion plus dollar ship when a plane or any number of other weapon systems can already do the job? In 10-20 years, when they expect to put one on a ship, who knows what we will be able to do with UAVs, heck we could have whole squadrons of them up and flying 24/7/360 across the entire globe.
I'll grant you that the speed of the projectile is impressive but at max range we are still talking about somewhere around 6 minutes to hit the target. A mobile target is going to be gone in the intervening 6 minutes between firing and impact. I'd rather have us use a guided cruise missile and make sure we hit the target. If, like others have said, the projectile can somehow be guided the cost up of each shot goes up and is susceptible to all the same things as a cruise missile.
I still can not imagine that, in its currently described form, this is anything but a poor investment. So far nothing that has been said comes close to convincing me otherwise. The technology potential..... priceless, rushing it into service in a role like a battleship ....worthless.
(Message edited by sayitaintso on December 15, 2010) |
Hootowl
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 11:27 am: |
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"They are trying to get rid of steam on the deck."
Yes. Off the entire ship actually. They want to go all electric. Piping live steam everywhere makes everywhere hot. You can't walk on the flight deck in bare feet without getting burned. Ask a former wog how he knows. |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 11:39 am: |
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Entirely eliminating steam from ships, now that would be tremendous and a worthy project for funding.
I wonder how much weight is devoted to piping steam around a ship? How many sailors have been injured/killed due to steam leaks or accidents? |
Indy_bueller
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:03 pm: |
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Is developing rail gun technology as much a waste of money as this:
http://www.jldr.com/oh1mill.html
The whole government needs to be reigned in. Not just the DOD. |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:16 pm: |
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Indy, I couldn't agree more....but the DoD isn't a sacred cow like many seem to think/act, same thing applies to police and fire at the local levels. Government spending is out of control, everywhere.
Everything needs to be up for evaluation and consideration of funding elimination/cuts, and those closest to the programs are not always the best for making those decisions. |
Fast1075
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:22 pm: |
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I don't think the technology will be the same for the aircraft launcher and the rail gun...I wonder how strong the EMF is from a firing of that rail gun...methinks it may need some rather robust shielding.
I doubt that it would be a viable weapon if it took out anything electronic within 1000 yards. |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 01:13 pm: |
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>>> I apologize if my comment offended you. Should I have just said that your comments about giving up are a straw man and do not relate to the topic at hand like you do in other threads? Either way I believe the same message is conveyed.
That is no apology.
My comment about giving up was what is commonly known as "sarcasm." Sorry if that wasn't clear.
>>> A ship is not going to get close enough, 200 miles, to use its "big gun"
I'd sure like to know the rationale for that statement. I sure don't see any.
>>> Why risk a billion plus dollar ship when a plane or any number of other weapon systems can already do the job?
Cruisers may be billion dollar ships; I doubt that frigates and destroyers are anywhere near that expensive. But to your question, "why risk a ship?"; frigates, destroyers, and cruisers among others are assets that serve vital missions for our national security and warfighting capability, some of those missions involve landing force and port force protection. If the prerequisite for deployment for implementation of a weapon systems were that it not be at risk, well, what weapons systems would ever be deployed?
The logic that a ship employing a 200 mi range weapon would be forced to expose itself to undue risk is false. That is PLENTY of range to allow excellent defensive response in case of attack. Second, the weapon is there to support the mission of the ship, not the other way around. It is there when needed and as deemed appropriate. The ship is not a slave to each weapons system aboard.
Most ships do not carry a fleet of planes. Not all combat vessels are assigned to carrier battle groups. You might just as well ask why do our troops need rifles, artillery, and mortars, when a plane or any number of other weapons systems can already do the job. The reasons have been stated repeatedly, but you prefer to ignore them.
Cost, speed (time to target), invulnerability of projectile, non-explosive/safe storage, adaptable to many platforms including small ships such as destroyers and frigates and land-based platforms.
Cost: no need for a plane, which requires a carrier or land base, MASSIVE supporting infrastructure and planes are vulnerable to defensive measures not to mention VERY expensive, including their smart weapons systems which employ high explosives, no need for $600K per shot cruise missile which are also vulnerable to defensive measures, are slow, and employ high explosives.
Speed/time-to-target: Nothing but a laser or beam weapon would beat it.
Adaptability: We don't have any battleships in service anymore as you seem to think. This weapon will certainly be widely adaptable to most any platform and to varying scales.
>>> I still can not imagine that, in its currently described form, this is anything but a poor investment.
The current form is purely developmental and is merely proof of concept. Deployment of an actual weapons platform is estimated for 2022-2025 per the article, if I recall correctly. That means 12-15 more years of development. So you are correct, in it's current form, it makes no sense to put on a ship. But that is a straw man argument as no one is proposing to deploy the current form of the gun.
>>> So far nothing that has been said comes close to convincing me otherwise.
I concede, you've won the argument that in it's current form it is silly to put it on a ship.
>>> The technology potential..... priceless,
I agree.
>>> rushing it into service in a role like a battleship ....worthless.
Again, I agree. But again that is a straw man argument. No one is proposing any such thing. We don't even have any battleships in service anymore. |
Bigblock
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 02:06 pm: |
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With all the talk of the cruise missile, the Russians and Indians are developing a supersonic cruise missile together. |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 02:42 pm: |
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>>> rushing it into service in a role like a battleship ....worthless.
Again, I agree. But again that is a straw man argument. No one is proposing any such thing. We don't even have any battleships in service anymore.
Its not a straw man argument b/c without major advances in energy generation/storage a rail gun would be the main focus of the ship, including up to destroyer (500 ft length or so) class ships. This will give you an idea of what size gun and energy requirements we are talking about.....
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2008psa_peo/elliotday2.pd f
The whole write-up is interesting, but on page ten in the upper left corner is the capacitor bank that was used for the 33mj shot that was made. To the right of that is the "gun".
So, even if they are able to double the energy storage capacity with the same size storage facilities. Which is what they are talking about if they want to get to 64mj and ~200 mile range and this will most likely be the focus of the next 10-20 years development. With what they've shown, that is devoting a major portion of a ship to a single weapon. I dont know, but how long does it take to recharge the capacitors?
The whole thing, to me, sounds like going back to the days of battleships (i.e. major portion of ship devoted to a single weapon and naval bombardment of land targets).
In the example of the rail guns' use in the DoD document I provided, it sure looks like a drone on station could put a hellfire on target much faster and with better accuracy, plus and thats a current in use weapon system, not something that needs 10-20 years of development. Again just think where we can be with UAVs in 10-20 years.
If it is a one off proof of concept; I still ask why, the same testing can be done on land.
And yes I know battleship are dead, but just for a bit of trivia, the last battleship in action was the Wisconsin in the first gulf war, but it saw little action...they have the Wisconsin on display in Norfolk, it was quite impressive when the family and I toured it a couple years ago. The reason it saw very little use? they were worried about mines. |
Boogiman1981
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 03:30 pm: |
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i doubt there would be any weight savings in going from steam to electric.steal pipes vs massive copper cables. heat management would def be a big plus though. a lot of 'teething' will need to be done to go all electric though. |
Swordsman
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 03:38 pm: |
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Just gimme' a frikkin' satellite laser already!
~SM
(Message edited by Swordsman on December 15, 2010) |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 03:54 pm: |
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Blake, let me try again.
I apologize if my comment offended you. Should I have just said that your comments about giving up are a straw man and do not relate to the topic at hand like you do in other threads? Either way I believe the same message is conveyed....... because its blatantly obvious that you are not a defeatist. I would never use something to tease someone that I thought was even remotely true, and my intent is for the ridiculousness of the assertion to show that its teasing and not a personal attack.
That is no apology.
I am sorry if my comments offended or came off as a personal attack.
We have not had the pleasure of meeting in person, if we had you would know that personal attacks or insults just are not my nature....ever.
Good natured teasing or sarcasm, absolutely, and probably more often than I'm serious about things.
The second sentence was an honest question, not meant as a way to insinuate that my apology was insincere. (I sometimes hate discussions on forums because the subtleties of face to face conversations are lost) The next comment was meant to show that I knew you were not serious in your previous comments and that I was being the same (not serious) |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 05:12 pm: |
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I figured your intent was good. Bad or insincere sounding apologies are one of my pet peeves.
In my book an apology is something like...
"I am sorry for calling you ________; that was out of line and I'll not do it again."
Any "apology" that prevaricates with "I am sorry if..." is not an apology in my view. It is just another insult that points the finger of blame at the person one is trying to apologize to. Like it is their fault for being too sensitive.
I'll have to read the literature you referenced. I wonder if you've considered how much volume of a war ship is consumed by launch tubes and the applicable support infrastructure.
You also seem stuck on one mission, attacking a particular known target. What about all the others and all the other types of missions that large guns are used to support.
I'm thinking that once the gun itself is proved, the capacitors will shrink a bunch. Right now, all they want is a power source and they don't care how large. Right now they are proving the concept of the gun. Once that is proved, they will likely move to packaging and miniaturization.
This is the common development cycle for such things.
This reminds me of what some said about stealth aircraft. I used to laugh out loud at the news reports back in the late '80s concerning the stealth bomber. The union of concerned scientists were just so sure it was a big farce. IDIOTS. |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 05:24 pm: |
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From page 5 of the literature...
Why is it important?
•Volume & Precision Fires
•Time Critical Strike
•All weather availability
•Variety of payload packages
•Scalable effects
•Deep Magazines
•Non explosive round/No gun propellant–Greatly simplified logistics–No IM (Insensitive Munitions) Issues
•Missile ranges at bullet prices
Who needs it?
•Marines and Army troops on ground
•Special forces clandestine ops
•GWOT
•Suppress air defenses
When?
•Feasibility Demo 2011
•System Demo 2016
•Fielding Objective 2020-2025 |
Hootowl
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 05:35 pm: |
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The steam catapults take up a great deal of space. They also make most of the 03 level forward of frame 64, and the port side pretty much everywhere unbearably hot and impossible to air condition, especially when it's 120 degrees outside, like it is where the Navy operates these days. Bring on the electromagnetic catapult.
(Message edited by hootowl on December 15, 2010) |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 06:31 pm: |
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Yea, I read all those and still think that until it can be scaled down to a reasonable size for many multiple "guns" on a single ship it doesn't make sense and is a waste of our money to deploy as a single "super gun" with the ship more or less devoted to toteing it around and powering it. All the advantages you listed are very real and tangible, I just dont agree with the application as described.
I can see this tech being much better and more useful for the navy once scaled down. And probably ready for the army/corps before the navy. Three or four guns could provide rapid artillery support for one hell of a large area.
I guess I'm saying finish the R&D, dont rush it and waste my money. |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 07:35 pm: |
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Clarence "Kelly" Johnson once said. ( no quotes this is from memory ) Someday the Air Force will have the airplane that can do everything they want. They'll only be able to afford one, and have to park it in a vault to keep it safe.
Steam lines kill people every year. Steam is very dangerous power on the scale we are talking about. Live steam leaks are best found by sending in a dumb person who waves a stick in front of them, and when the stick or his arm falls off, you found the leak. 
The whole bit about "assymetrical warfare" is marketing. In "The Last Centurion" by Ringo, the need at one time is for food distribution. So every project gets sold that way. Rapid fire long range artillery is pimped in briefings as the killer app for rapid food distribution...... if you don't kill the people with the #10 cans, it IS quicker than a truck.....
Pretty silly, but thats the Pentagon...and Madison Ave.
The Pluto project was a Mach 3 atomic powered cruise missile, locomotive sized, with 5 Nuclear warheads it was to toss at targets on the way by.
From Dr. Strangelove. "If the pilot's good, see, I mean if he's reeeally sharp, he can barrel that baby in so low... oh you oughta see it sometime. It's a sight. A big plane like a '52... varrrooom! Its jet exhaust... frying chickens in the barnyard!"
The Slam would knock down the barn, kill the chickens with the sonic blast, then fry them with the exhaust on the way by.
One suggestion was to keep flying over the enemy after you dropped the bombs.
Reminds me of an incident during the Regan years when the Soviets were getting a tad too aggressive, and a Blackbird circled Moscow a few times, laying down a sonic boom, while sams rained down on the city. The Slam would have left devastation in it's wake.
( what goes up must come down. The French Embassy in Libya was hit by a Surface to Air Missile ( sam ) during the F-111 strikes. The picture that came with the complaint that we bombed it clearly shows it was a Soviet sam )
http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html
My best friend in High School went in the Army in the ASA. After the project was declassified, he told me about the laser tank plans that the Soviets were allowed to steal. We knew that at the time it wasn't practical, but Rumors were spread that the Armored guys at Ft. Carson were going to get the first ones for testing and SOP development, just to make it seem more real. The Soviets wasted a bunchaton of rubles on that.
At the current rate, it's probably be 20 years before any rail gun is deployed. After all, it's been longer than that since we built new fighter planes. ( the small number of F-22's don't count, darn it. ) |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 07:45 pm: |
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I disagree about the Army getting a railgun first. Regular artillery, guns and ammo is bad enough, but try hauling multi megawatt generators around to power the things. Ships can carry much heavier stuff than planes or tanks, and the early prototypes will have to be darn big. later? that's different.
The technology we are seeing in these videos was largely developed for the Strategic Defense Initiative. ( Star Wars, as Regan's detractors called it ) Handling lots and lots of power in higher density than ever before is where most of the money went we spent on SDI. That tech is proving quite useful and will be more so.
"what is the good of a newborn baby?"
( points for the source of quote ) |
Boogiman1981
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 08:45 pm: |
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franklin |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 09:23 pm: |
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Hell, I'm an engineer and I think I'd rather argue POLITICS on a sportbike board than weapon systems 2 generations in the future. |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 09:39 pm: |
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You're probably right about the Army
and I'm tired of politics.  |
Geforce
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 09:46 pm: |
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This type of weapons research can apply to a wide range of installations, not just on board a sea fairing vessel.
There is also a lot of talk about "sketching" a design and "how to" for orbital drops of troops to places all over the globe.
This type of weapon could also one day be used in space... a long ways off with current economic conditions, but it could serve a purpose "out there", and not just for shooting high potential kinetic energy things into other vessels... all kinds of stuff.
It's kind of like one of the weapon systems that we just killed... sadly it has enormous potential in the future but it's cost is just to exponential for current deployment. Once the technology was considered "good 'nough" we got the order to suspend and moth ball the project for later use. All data is archived and stored of later.
The DOD has TONS of archived cool stuff laying around. Lots of super cool technology that we tried out but realized that it just doesn't have a place in time at the moment.
Thumbs up to my Navy brothers for seeing this project through. I know how much time and effort goes into this sort of stuff. |
Indy_bueller
| | Posted on Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 12:35 am: |
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As a former army tank crewman, I can't tell you how much I'd like to see this technology perfected to the point that it was vehicle mountable. That would be the ultimate main weapon system for a tank. |
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