Navy Seeks Rail Guns, Lasers, Cruise Missiles To Improve Pacific Firepower

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Did the solve the rail issue? Wasn't that what sank the USN's program?
 
DrRansom said:
Did the solve the rail issue? Wasn't that what sank the USN's program?
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Nope the rail issue didn't sink the USN railgun program.

By the time that was canceled they were averaging roughly 600 full power shots between replacements. The barrel life for the 5 inch is 1200 full charge and for the M1 Abrams 120mm it 1k. So it was basically fixed.

It was the fact we had nothing to put them on that killed it.
 
Making it combat rugged is extremely hard still. That's alot of power going thru the system. anything goes wrong a surge in power can fry things quickly.
 
donnage99 said:
Making it combat rugged is extremely hard still. That's alot of power going thru the system. anything goes wrong a surge in power can fry things quickly.
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No different then ensure a gun powder doesn't explode. Or deal with the SPY1 6mw per face.

And from what Ive heard that was largely a fixed issue as well.

But the question of...

What to put it on.

Isnt fixed.

Cause the poor Burkes lack the power and the weight to get more power. The Constellation has the same issues due to its size. LCS might if you willing to lose the hanger and mission bay, ditto for the San Ans. Only ships able easily take the Gear are the carrier types, which is a no. And tge Zumwalts due to being design as such but were poison at the time and now slated for hypersonics.
 
I would guess any platform using a railgun of the size of the USN concept would have to be designed around it, like the zoomies were designed around the 155mm and associated handling system. There would have to be a strong defensive use case for that kind of design, which I don't think the USN was convinced it could reach. The Japanese design seems smaller and focused on point defense. Probably much more achievable, but I still question the utility.
 
Firefinder said:
Nope the rail issue didn't sink the USN railgun program.

By the time that was canceled they were averaging roughly 600 full power shots between replacements. The barrel life for the 5 inch is 1200 full charge and for the M1 Abrams 120mm it 1k. So it was basically fixed.

It was the fact we had nothing to put them on that killed it.
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Why wouldn't the Zumwalts have worked? Yeah there are only 3 of them but it's a start and they were going to be undergoing a major refit for something even if it wasn't railguns.
 
 
Firefinder said:
No different then ensure a gun powder doesn't explode. Or deal with the SPY1 6mw per face.

And from what Ive heard that was largely a fixed issue as well.

But the question of...

What to put it on.

Isnt fixed.

Cause the poor Burkes lack the power and the weight to get more power. The Constellation has the same issues due to its size. LCS might if you willing to lose the hanger and mission bay, ditto for the San Ans. Only ships able easily take the Gear are the carrier types, which is a no. And tge Zumwalts due to being design as such but were poison at the time and now slated for hypersonics.
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That's what I heard from a guy works on one of the technologies for this thing. He doesn't think it's ready and at least for another 20 years or so. his words not mine
 
HVP always struck me as relatively low hanging fruit that would still have enough benefits to be worth the effort. As far as I can tell the basic technology is there already.
 
DrRansom said:
Did the solve the rail issue? Wasn't that what sank the USN's program?
Click to expand...

No, it was just a low priority program, but it would have been neat to see Zumbo with a Blitzer and a quad round CPS array at the end.
 
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