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Ragnarow main gun = Gaus or Rail gun?

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Ragnarow main gun = Gaus or Rail gun?

from Sins Forums

I am doing some damage comparsions....

 

I am however unsure if the giant main gun of the Ragnarow Titan is a Gaus or the Rail gun? 

 

Please help me: B)

 

 

 

 

Primary Weaspon = EDIT: Rail Gun

 

Secondardy Weapon = EDIT: Gaus Guns

 

 

 

 

Thank you!  :)

111,323 views 35 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ChaoticMagician, reply 21
I would be cautious about using such a device underwater... I'd be concerned that the water itself would tear the projectile to shreds.

In the event of the submarine surfacing you run into another problem: as mentioned previously the rails undergo friction, which degrades them. In addition, you will get electrical arcing (which is a big portion of the fireball that you see in those test shots). If a submarine fires the weapon shortly after surfacing, I would be concerned that the salt water would conduct the current from the rails to some other location that it's not supposed to go.

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 22
On Mythbusters, they tried a .50 cal shot into water; it disentegrated the bullet within a couple feet.  The same would probably happen to the railgun's slug.  Aside from that, you have a ton of current and a hot object.  Current makes water split into it's components.  Hot objects tends to make nearby hydrogen and oxygen go boom.  You might actually blow your gun up lol.

Come to think of it though, I could see some smaller and less powerful nations using cloud seeding to cause rain near the ships using railguns to bombard them from hundreds of miles away, thus halting the bombardment.  Hmm..

 

actually, i read something recently about a specially designed hydrodynamic projectile tip that vaporizes water as it comes into contact with it at speed. so, the only obstacle when it comes to firing one underwater would be isolating the electrical current from the water, as volt mentions.

Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting sareth01, reply 23

Now all the maintenance costs of those extra moving parts on such a ship would probably ensure that there wouldn't be a lot of these sort of "submersible guns", and we wouldn't know if such maintenance would be worth the cost.  Yet, just possessing the capability alone is enough to change the nature of strategic planning, and therefore development of such a weapon could be worth the cost for this reason alone. 

You're dismissing the heat problem for a 16 Gw gun.  The gun will be hot after a shot and the submarine wil have to wait some time before stowing away the weapon less suffer from buckling problems as the heat transfer will warp the hull when exposed to the ice cold depth of the sea.

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Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting sareth01, reply 23
@ nate

Interesting idea however salt is a major issue with this system and reguler upkeep is required to combat corrosion I don't see how that would be practical on a submarine but maebe some genious will figure something out.

Na you don't need to be genius to solve the corrosion issue.  You would have to store the gun internally(in a specially sealed, water free environment using a demoisturizer to limit corrosion...these are standard on submarines as it is, so this is completely doable) and set it up to fire as a deck gun via a "crane" apparatus that would require a small amount of setup before use. You would need calm seas and clear air to fire, yet i'm sure there would be testing to make it as "rough weather ready" as possible.  This would be a rather large submarine, and it would have to have a keel or risk being flipped after it shoots (a submarine normally has a round hull).  This thing probably wouldn't be winning any sound silencing competitions, yet its ability to be something like a large submersible sniper could be quite alluring for special ops.  Especially if they could find a way to automate gun setup once the ship surfaces.

Now all the maintenance costs of those extra moving parts on such a ship would probably ensure that there wouldn't be a lot of these sort of "submersible guns", and we wouldn't know if such maintenance would be worth the cost.  Yet, just possessing the capability alone is enough to change the nature of strategic planning, and therefore development of such a weapon could be worth the cost for this reason alone. 

 

If you care the keel issue is a non issue since there is no recoil to speak of with this system. And regardless of what precautions you take the life span of something like this is gonna be shorter on a sub than it would be on the deck of a ship.

Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top

Why the hell put a gun (even railgun) with range  shorter than Tomahawk on a sub? Oh, and it requires surfacing. Surfaced subs are detectable by radar...

Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Mecha-Lenin, reply 29
Why the hell put a gun (even railgun) with range  shorter than Tomahawk on a sub? Oh, and it requires surfacing. Surfaced subs are detectable by radar...

I used to be a submariner, So naturally a new railgun being applied to this weapons platform sounded fun and came quite naturally.  I'm not saying its feasible, its just an entertaining thought experiment.  Also, tomahawk missiles are very expensive(as opposed to the far cheaper railgun shots) and you only have a limited, small number that you can fire(as opposed to potentially hundreds of railgun shots).  If you want to have a stealthy ship with long range long term firepower that can store a lot of railgun shots... well you have something to be feared.  Think how many merchant ships you could sink with one submarine, and think about how much the cost of your ammunition would be compared to the value of the tonnage sunk.  Honestly, it would be a weapons platform to be feared.  The potential for political plausible deniability(who fired the shot!---US---> "I don't know") would be a good sell to politicians, as this would be a weapon of war they could use to gain leverage in diplomatic discussions.  The submarine fleet is headed this way already with missiles (higher volume), the railgun submarine, if possible, would be a great addition to the capability of the US fleet.  Also, this idea is far less crazy then the fully submersible carrier that has both been extensively designed and possibly built. lol.

@ nate

you are totally correct :)

You're dismissing the heat problem for a 16 Gw gun.  The gun will be hot after a shot and the submarine wil have to wait some time before stowing away the weapon less suffer from buckling problems as the heat transfer will warp the hull when exposed to the ice cold depth of the sea.

Not dismissing, just hadn't thought about heat generation.  I don't know the specs on this, i'm sure its going to be a lot.  I don't know much about thermodynamics aside from the basic laws, please educate me. :).

Using the external hull of the submarine would be a no no, you don't want to screw with the malleable properties of the ships metal skin via high heat.  This internal compartment could be connected to the fire main system and cooled via seawater easily enough, many systems on modern submarines receive cooling this way.

 

Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top

Putting a rail gun on a sub is like putting a torpedo tube on a tank...

Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top

@ seleucia

A tank? not so much.  Submarines used to have deck guns.  To my knowledge a torpedo tank hasn't been built, but I could be wrong.  I could see their use in river warfare, high speed torpedoes designed to put holes in small targets.  park this bad boy on a bridge and hold the entire river.  I think a 50 cal would be cheaper, and more effective.  Yet it all depends on your opponents capability.  If they have some heavily armored "tank like" river boats that could survive 50 cal fire, well then a torpedo is a great alternative.  Also, a 50 cal requires direct line of sight for accurate fire, while a well designed small torpedo could be used to shoot around river bends before opposing river craft could use any of their direct line of sight weaponry.  The advantage of having this capability on a tank is that you can move it wherever you wish.  :)

 

Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top

Why don't you put nuclear charges on those river torpedoes? You know, just to be sure?:)

 

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Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Mecha-Lenin, reply 33
Why don't you put nuclear charges on those river torpedoes? You know, just to be sure?

 

hmm good idea to take from the ruskies.

After all, they used to have real nuclear torpedoes for the purposes of Mutually Assured Destruction.  Vaporize a few miles of ocean water in hopes to get lucky in sinking US submarines that they couldn't track.

Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top

Used for killing US carrier groups... torpedo costs probably more than a gunboat.