So, I just found out about this today, but apparently it's been out in the open since spring. The US Navy has been designing a functioning railgun that's been tested in laboratory conditions and shown to be capable of hurling a projectile at Mach 7 speeds through several walls of reinforced concrete and multiple steel plates.
The price of each projectile is $25,000 at the moment, and this is likely to become cheaper as production methods mature. At that price, it's cheaper than the missiles it will be used to destroy.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking--but won't the gun be expensive? Yeah, it seems like it would be, especially considering it relies on an electromagnetic phenomenon called the Lorenz force, but according to the Navy's budget, between 2005 and 2011, the entire program ran up a bill of $250 million. An exorbitant amount of money in civilian terms, but as US Military budgets go, that's dirt cheap--that's less money than the airforce spends building two F-22 Raptors. Even better, the program is projected to only spend another $250 million by 2017, and by that time it's expected to start sea-trials.
I was happy to see this news and I hope that it's a success because I'm tired of seeing the US Military spending billions on researching new technologies only to determine after going way overbudget that the technology either isn't feasible, economical, or doesn't actually confer any advantage over our current capabilities that would be worth the cost.
Also...we're like... maybe twenty years from mounting these on whatever vehicle replaces the Humvee and creating Gausshogs.
Interesting... I'm a former sailor myself. Three years.
Go Navy!
__________________ Darwin's theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought. It is large, completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe.-Dr. David Berlinski, Philosophy
Most people believe Evolution not because they themselves are dumb, but cause they trust the "experts" who are feeding them evolutionary fast food, and so they don't bother questioning whether or not it's true.
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__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
Yeah, I kinda agree with what that guy says but it's important for the U.S. military to keep making advancements in technology in order to stay ahead of everybody else. That's just the way the game is played. Everybody getting together, holding hands, and singing "We are the World" is never going to happen anytime soon. Especially not when you have world leaders like Putin and that N Korea guy (not sure how to spell his name so not even gonna try). Not to mention ISIS.
__________________ Darwin's theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought. It is large, completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe.-Dr. David Berlinski, Philosophy
Most people believe Evolution not because they themselves are dumb, but cause they trust the "experts" who are feeding them evolutionary fast food, and so they don't bother questioning whether or not it's true.
America is not going to conquer and liberate the world with this technology. If they had ever intended to do so, a lot of people would be dead and most of us would be holding hands singing.
Did you know that our senators can accept bribes due to changes in policy? America may as well be run by wealthy enough foreigners, unless you trust the dignity of our most powerful governmental branch.
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__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
"War is obsolete" is a ridiculous, naive statement.
I don't believe there's such thing as a "good" war and even "justified" wars are incredibly rare, but wars happen and no amount of utopian goodwill will change that.
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
Directly after WWII, if America had built a sufficient nuclear defense system, and preemptively annihilated half the world, it could have then installed Venus cities everywhere and therefore we'd have detoxified and cleansed (of all radioactivity) whatever the nukes brought up off the ground, rebuilt the eco-system, and would be terraforming other worlds by this decade. All we need is dark energy and light-speed is a cake walk. Our vessels would just be doing what tachyons and certain neutrinos do (fold space). Even the scientifically null author Frank Herbet thought of it. They called the benevolent God Emperor "Leto the Tyrant" for a reason. That's exactly would America would have had to of been to save the world.
It was our duty to save the world, it was on us since we made the decision to get involved with a crumbling humanity in WWI. After WWII we were this juggernaut, an omnipotent force. Precisely because we'd been the good guys and that's what gave us power, others joining our cause. Then it was military-industrial autonomy, that is what I'm talking about with a money-less, resource-based economy. We manufactured those planes so cheaply that it was unprecedented. We did it, but then the officials radically altered the constitution and decided that they wanted to rule a dystopia instead.
There'd be a perfectly preserved Utopia, because all the cyber-spatial terrorists or Utopian citizens who mutilate their pets would be undergoing cycles in the phantom-zone. Futuristic psych-wards.
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
Last edited by KillaKassara on Oct 20th, 2014 at 04:40 AM
But wars are kind of obsolete in the same sense some technologies go out of fashion. You don't see rich developped states going into full-on open war anymore, it has been replaced with a more short-fused armed conflicts that is more fit to reply to the fast markets of the modern societies.
Even recent wars are kind of sluggish and unfeasible money-wise. We are steadly leaving wars behind and not for any utopian reasons.
I remember my Dad and I researching this a good six or seven years ago. At that time, the Navy was toting that they could launch a projectile that would hit its target with the force of a mini-van moving at mach 2.
Manly stuff.
__________________
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Last edited by Tzeentch on Oct 20th, 2014 at 05:03 PM
__________________ "Compounding these trickster aspects, the Joker ethos is verbally explicated as such by his psychiatrist, who describes his madness as "super-sanity." Where "sanity" previously suggested acquiescence with cultural codes, the addition of "super" implies that this common "sanity" has been replaced by a superior form, in which perception and processing are completely ungoverned and unconstrained"
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maybe twenty years from mounting these on whatever vehicle replaces the Humvee and creating Gausshogs. 
Oct 19th, 2014 05:08 PM
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