Navy Sets World Record With Incredible, Sci-Fi Weapon

[Armoredpriapism]

Well:

1. At velocities a railgun uses there is little difference between water and an equal weight of steel armor. So if a long rod penetrator could, for example, go through 2 feet of steel armor it could penetrate only about 20 feet of water before being completely ablated away.
2. Railguns have recoil, lasers don’t. The Navy design looks to have about as much recoil as an 8” gun and uses fire-out-of-battery and a long recoil stroke, so there is not much more you can do to decrease the peak forces. You might be able to build a custom aircraft around the gun that could survive more than a couple shots without falling apart, but you probably wouldn’t want to be on board when it was fired.
3. You do not want to put a 747 (or any other commercial aircraft) in a vertical dive, you will probably rip the wings off. And it is very likely that it does not have the structural strength to mount dive brakes.
4. How would you aim a downward pointed railgun on a ship? Firing a railgun with the muzzle underwater would be like firing a gun when the muzzle is packed with cement.

:lam

Oh... lol that's why I'm in biology What if it were a heavier round going much slower? What if it were designed to be slightly screw-like? Or is it pretty much impossible for anything to hit the water with any velocity enough to kill a submarine?
I'm wondering at what velocity seawater fills a vaccuum. If the projectile had something like dimples on a golf ball, if it were moving fast enough would the sides of it not have to deal with resistance? If it were designed with a mild screw could it spin fast enough for only the leading edges to actually deal with friction? I'm sorry if that's too stupid to even respond to xD

 

[My2Cents]

Oh... lol that's why I'm in biology What if it were a heavier round going much slower? What if it were designed to be slightly screw-like? Or is it pretty much impossible for anything to hit the water with any velocity enough to kill a submarine?
I'm wondering at what velocity seawater fills a vaccuum. If the projectile had something like dimples on a golf ball, if it were moving fast enough would the sides of it not have to deal with resistance? If it were designed with a mild screw could it spin fast enough for only the leading edges to actually deal with friction? I'm sorry if that's too stupid to even respond to xD

Sounds like what you want is an airdropped version of the VA-111 Shkval. See http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/navy-maritime/iran-anti-ship-torpedo-missile-fact-fiction-4679/ for details, but aiming it will be next to impossible.

 

[Doering]

Technology moves faster than many realize. What seems impossible today, becomes very normal in a very short period of time. Who ever thought that something could travel faster than the speed of light? Well it has been done at CERN!

 

[My2Cents]

Technology moves faster than many realize. What seems impossible today, becomes very normal in a very short period of time. Who ever thought that something could travel faster than the speed of light? Well it has been done at CERN!

Sorry, but that may have been explained 3 weeks ago. Boo! Hiss! Dutch Scientist Rains on Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Parade | News & Opinion | PCMag.com. (There is a link to the actual paper detailing the proposed error in the report, if anyone is interested in some heavy math.)

What it is claimed happened is that they were getting their time from the GPS satellites, but did not fully correct for the relativistic effects of the motions of the GPS satellites and neutrinos. If correct it is an embarrassing ‘oops’, but nothing earthshaking. :coffee

 

[Doering]

Sorry, but that may have been explained 3 weeks ago. Boo! Hiss! Dutch Scientist Rains on Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Parade | News & Opinion | PCMag.com. (There is a link to the actual paper detailing the proposed error in the report, if anyone is interested in some heavy math.)

What it is claimed happened is that they were getting their time from the GPS satellites, but did not fully correct for the relativistic effects of the motions of the GPS satellites and neutrinos. If correct it is an embarrassing ‘oops’, but nothing earthshaking. :coffee

Thanks for this. We will have to wait for the final verdict. Albert Einstein is still resting peacefully!

 

[rip]

Thanks for this. We will have to wait for the final verdict. Albert Einstein is still resting peacefully!

I have no comment about the experiment with the neutrinos but all of you are misapplying Albert Einstein’s laws. The law’s say an existing object with a rest mass traveling at a speed less than the speed of light could not be accelerated to the speed of light because it would accrue an infinite mass. But matter can be created directly out of energy. There is no rule from Albert Einstein’s law’s that says that a particle could not be created with an intrinsic velocity greater than the speed of light and the mathematics also allows for a completely separate universe to exist where the slowest particles of matter would have the greatest energy and the speed limit would be equally unreachable but the speed of light would the lower limit. No such particles have even been detected but they have a name Tachyons.

Since neutrinos have been determined to have a small rest mass it was unlikely that they could move faster than the speed of light. But if there was a particle with a low enough rest mass, by the rules of Quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principal it is not unconceivable that such a particle could at times have an effective zero rest mass by uncertainty and at other times have a very tiny mass. I am not saying that such a particle exists only that our current understands does not yet forbid it. The problem with our current laws is not that their predictions have proved false. It is all of the aspects of reality that they do not predict. So we know that at least that they are incomplete.





[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon"]Tachyon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[My2Cents]

I have no comment about the experiment with the neutrinos but all of you are misapplying Albert Einstein’s laws. The law’s say an existing object with a rest mass traveling at a speed less than the speed of light could not be accelerated to the speed of light because it would accrue an infinite mass. But matter can be created directly out of energy. There is no rule from Albert Einstein’s law’s that says that a particle could not be created with an intrinsic velocity greater than the speed of light and the mathematics also allows for a completely separate universe to exist where the slowest particles of matter would have the greatest energy and the speed limit would be equally unreachable but the speed of light would the lower limit. No such particles have even been detected but they have a name Tachyons.

Since neutrinos have been determined to have a small rest mass it was unlikely that they could move faster than the speed of light. But if there was a particle with a low enough rest mass, by the rules of Quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principal it is not unconceivable that such a particle could at times have an effective zero rest mass by uncertainty and at other times have a very tiny mass. I am not saying that such a particle exists only that our current understands does not yet forbid it. The problem with our current laws is not that their predictions have proved false. It is all of the aspects of reality that they do not predict. So we know that at least that they are incomplete.

I am afraid that you are misinterpreting Albert Einstein’s Laws, Quantum Mechanics, and the Uncertainty Principle.

• The Uncertainty Principle is about the limits of measurement. It does not mean that a particle has variable mass, or can have a mass less than zero.
• The equations of Quantum Mechanics do allow solutions for particles that travel faster than the speed of light, however:
  1. Such particles must have an odd number of imaginary dimensions. What imaginary dimensions means is, well nobody knows. However, Quantum Mechanics makes it is very clear that these particles would be totally incapable of interacting with our space-time.
  2. Current theory allows for the construction of continuums where faster-than-light particles exist, however in such continuums the speed-of-light becomes a minimum velocity that nothing can go slower than.
  3. These particles are called Tachyons. Science does not say that Tachyons do not exist, but Quantum Mechanics does say whether or not they do exist cannot be detected according to current theory so not test can be constructed to falsify the theory. Therefore the existence or non-existence of Tachyon is irrelevant and can be ignored.
• Albert Einstein’s Laws state that mass and energy are equivalent. Mass is not created from energy, energy is converted to mass. Matter is mass with momentum, which requires kinetic energy, which is part of the energy price of the conversion.
• Not sure what you mean by “It is all of the aspects of reality that they do not predict.”, but just because you want something to be true does not mean that it must be true.

 

[rip]

I am afraid that you are misinterpreting Albert Einstein’s Laws, Quantum Mechanics, and the Uncertainty Principle.

• The Uncertainty Principle is about the limits of measurement. It does not mean that a particle has variable mass, or can have a mass less than zero.
• The equations of Quantum Mechanics do allow solutions for particles that travel faster than the speed of light, however:
  1. Such particles must have an odd number of imaginary dimensions. What imaginary dimensions means is, well nobody knows. However, Quantum Mechanics makes it is very clear that these particles would be totally incapable of interacting with our space-time.
  2. Current theory allows for the construction of continuums where faster-than-light particles exist, however in such continuums the speed-of-light becomes a minimum velocity that nothing can go slower than.
  3. These particles are called Tachyons. Science does not say that Tachyons do not exist, but Quantum Mechanics does say whether or not they do exist cannot be detected according to current theory so not test can be constructed to falsify the theory. Therefore the existence or non-existence of Tachyon is irrelevant and can be ignored.
• Albert Einstein’s Laws state that mass and energy are equivalent. Mass is not created from energy, energy is converted to mass. Matter is mass with momentum, which requires kinetic energy, which is part of the energy price of the conversion.
• Not sure what you mean by “It is all of the aspects of reality that they do not predict.”, but just because you want something to be true does not mean that it must be true.

I am not sure how we turned the thread into a physics board but there is still a lot we do not know about how the universe really works. But as a point of logic we must always remember that our mathematics we hold so dear, perhaps too dear, as well as the laws we have ascribed to nature are completely human inventions and nature is not bound or limited by our inventions. Some of these human inventions “mathematical systems bases upon axioms (Axiomatic systems of logic)” can be used to model, to some degree of accuracy, real phenomena within the universe that we can observe producing reliable results we can profitably exploit. All models created by human beings are simplifications of real events that leave out some real physical features to simplify the description of state so as to predict events, as such they are always approximations. Within my lifetime I have seen so many scientific dogmas that were questionable then overturned and discredited. I find it hard beehive that the process has now come to a complete halt.


I think you are misrepresenting Quantum Mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle. Though there is more than one view on the subject within the literature I will grant you, the subject is not resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. My own view, which I hold with many others, is that everything is quantified mass, energy, and space, which when acting together create the since of time. This view better explains phenomena like election tunneling and both supper conduction of current and frictionless fluid flow far better than the measurement explanation of the Uncertainty Principle. Though I agree that these are effects seen within populations of individual partials that never-the-less are interacting with each other and not a single measurable events seen in the classical context.

I consider the question that some form of matter could behave is ways not predicted by Albert Einstein’s Laws still to be open because there are things we know to exist that nether Albert Einstein’s Law’s nor Quantum Mechanics predicts.

Some think that a complete understanding of natural phenomena may be beyond the current ability of human beings to understand. I side with the group that that goal is within out capacity but we are not there yet. As to what is it that I do want as you put it? I just want to know as much about how the universe really works as I can. But part of that knowledge is knowing what I don't yet know for sure.

 

[colay]

Hypersonic missiles will match and even exceed the velocity of a railgun round. Its only to be expected that most railgun rounds would have to have some onboard guidance so they won't be as cheap as expected.
One video on the web mentions the potential of the railgun for air defense.. a railgun round that can release a swarm of metal buckshot in the path of an incoming missile..

 

[My2Cents]

Hypersonic missiles will match and even exceed the velocity of a railgun round. Its only to be expected that most railgun rounds would have to have some onboard guidance so they won't be as cheap as expected.
One video on the web mentions the potential of the railgun for air defense.. a railgun round that can release a swarm of metal buckshot in the path of an incoming missile..

Correct

The big difference is that the missile will be 20x to 50x the size of the projectile. Of course the railgun itself and the associated equipment are much larger than a simple VLS, but it all comes down to the number of rounds carried.

Up to several dozen the missiles are more compact, probably somewhere between 30 and 80. Above that the railgun takes less space and weight. They are proposing to have several hundred rounds in the magazine.

 

[PCShogun]

Above that the railgun takes less space and weight. They are proposing to have several hundred rounds in the magazine.

And that is saying a lot. Having the ability to engage, and to keep engaging, is a tremendous advantage and is one reason why deck guns are still a viable weapon. Low cost per round is another. Making this an unguided weapon means it is impossible to defend against. A rock, traveling at hyper velocity, will continue on regardless of countermeasure. You will not spoof it, decoy it, frustrate it, or blind it . . . unless as said above, someone puts a seeker on it. Not sure why it would be needed unless it is to be used to intercept other missiles. A ship isn't going to be able to move fast enough to avoid these rounds for very long.

 

[TACTICIAN]

So I skimmed the entire thread to see if my question was already answered and I did not see anything so here it goes. I was curious, I have been sort of following the development of the gun and I have read reports that a major hurdle that was giving issues with the project was reliability of the weapon. When the gun fired over 5 times in the realm of 8 to 10 times the magnets would get damage because of the sheer heat and velocity making the weapon inoperable. So my question is have they figured out how to fix this and if so how did they do it? thanks guys

 

[Quiller]

Yes I can think of a meteorite. Meteorites travel a lot faster when they inter the atmosphere at between 12 and 25 thousand miles an hour. But what is the final mass of the rail gun projectile at impact or should I say momentum which equates more to total energy? The projectile probably weight is less than a hundred pounds and maybe much less. I do not know exactly how efficiently the energy will transfer from the projectile to the fluid like ground impact; will result in effective fire for troupe support missions. Has it been tested? When, where and how? Hard fixed targets I am sure it will be effective. I do not know the answer of how effective it will be in troop support but it a real question I hope some can tell me. I am willing to learn. I do know that in conventional gun fire support under those liquid like condition gun fire support usually consists of air burst shells because under those condition they are more effective.

Wrong actually. Liquids do not, cannot, be compressed. That's why a metiorite strike into the ocean pretty much floods land masses widely. Hitting mud or water will not dissipate the energy, but will actually amplify it,

 

[assymmetric]

I think the best use of the railgun would be on an attack sub. Surface near the shore, and be able to mount a surprise attack on critical targets before the targets have time to detect incoming projectile and seek cover. A huge advantage over missiles is the time to impact. Definitely, having to surface to fire would be a disadvantage, but for time critical situations (disposing of a dictator etc) you need that projectile getting to the building before target is aware. Tomahawk cruise missiles won't do the job--you can see them coming.

Another advantage of putting a railgun on a sub would be for sinking carriers. Surface and fire at the carrier with very little chance of having the slug intercepted. Then submerge. Piece of cake. How are the carriers defensive ships going to stop a bullet at mach 7? Assuming the rail gun can fire 6 rounds per minute, park the sub 100km away from the carrier, fire 12 shots in two minutes, each at a different arc/velocity so that they all approach the carrier to hit nearly simultaneously.

It sounds like these long and thin darts have an awesome ballistic coefficient if they can strike their target still going mach 5 (leaving at mach 7). That seems to be another huge advantage over a conventional projectile, as the bore diameter has to be larger with a conventional for an equivalent energy and to keep chamber pressure within limits, reducing ballistic coefficient.

It seems that other than the potential heat of the rails there is no obvious limit on the velocity/power that can be obtained (in theory). Would like to see a mach 12+ projectile. They keep mentioning mach 7 in all the articles. I wonder what is the practical limits of the velocity?

 

[My2Cents]

I think the best use of the railgun would be on an attack sub. Surface near the shore, and be able to mount a surprise attack on critical targets before the targets have time to detect incoming projectile and seek cover. A huge advantage over missiles is the time to impact. Definitely, having to surface to fire would be a disadvantage, but for time critical situations (disposing of a dictator etc) you need that projectile getting to the building before target is aware. Tomahawk cruise missiles won't do the job--you can see them coming.

Another advantage of putting a railgun on a sub would be for sinking carriers. Surface and fire at the carrier with very little chance of having the slug intercepted. Then submerge. Piece of cake. How are the carriers defensive ships going to stop a bullet at mach 7? Assuming the rail gun can fire 6 rounds per minute, park the sub 100km away from the carrier, fire 12 shots in two minutes, each at a different arc/velocity so that they all approach the carrier to hit nearly simultaneously.

1. So, is this a turret or a fixed mount? Both have big problems on a sub.
   • A turret on a sub presents an insolvable sealing problem that restrict operation depth from the barrel, elevation mechanism, and rotating mechanism if you are going to keep it dry inside. Heavy recoil is bad for pressure seals. And major corrosion and fowling problems if you allow seawater in.
   • A fixed mount within the hull will require a large sub to accommodate the length of the barrel, a converted boomer, not an attack sub, a certainly not a cheap conventional design.
2. High power electrical systems and saltwater are a very bad mix.
3. Bad shape for recoil. Look at the cross-sections, modern subs are round, so they roll real easy.
4. You have to surface to fire the gun. There goes your stealth advantage.
5. Missiles can be nearly as fast, designed to be fired while submerged, pack more powerful warheads, can seek the target, and they have a higher rate of fire. Any sub big enough to mount a railgun is big enough to mount several dozen.

Now targets:

• Against immobile targets there is no particular problem, they cannot evade.
• Against a mobile target, your time of flight at 100km, assuming an average velocity of 2.5kps, will be around 60 seconds. A carrier at 30 knots moves approximately 3x its length in that time, a TOT salvo of 12 rounds would give them nearly 3 minutes, call it 2.8 km / 1.5 nautical miles, for evasive maneuvers, more than enough.

Terminal energy of the round from a 50GJ system are about equal to a 6”/155mm inert round. It will take a LOT of hits that size to cripple a carrier, though flight deck damage could render it out of action for a while.

It sounds like these long and thin darts have an awesome ballistic coefficient if they can strike their target still going mach 5 (leaving at mach 7). That seems to be another huge advantage over a conventional projectile, as the bore diameter has to be larger with a conventional for an equivalent energy and to keep chamber pressure within limits, reducing ballistic coefficient.

Railguns don’t have use propellant pressure to fire the projectile. They are a form of electric motor using the interaction between an electric arc between 2 rails and the magnetic field generated by the power in the rails to propel the projectile. The projectile is in a specially designed sabot to protect it from the electric current in the rails while providing the propulsive force. The rails also repel each other with nearly the same force as on the projectile, so you need special (load bearing) insulation around the whole thing, and a restraining system (basically a gun barrel) around that to keep the thing together. A railgun with the same energy equivalent to an 8” gun will have a gun weighing nearly the same, not counting the power conditioning equipment.

It seems that other than the potential heat of the rails there is no obvious limit on the velocity/power that can be obtained (in theory). Would like to see a mach 12+ projectile. They keep mentioning mach 7 in all the articles. I wonder what is the practical limits of the velocity?

Technically velocity is limited by c in a vaccum.

Hydrodynamics predicts maximum penetration around 3 kps. I believe that it is because when the projectile is moving faster than of the speed of sound in the materials involved, then the material can no longer be pushed aside, but must be vaporized instead. Anyway, what happens is the energy dissipates perpendicular to the project instead of pushing ahead. That is why meteors produce wide shallow craters.

 

[TACTICIAN]

1. So, is this a turret or a fixed mount? Both have big problems on a sub.
   • A turret on a sub presents an insolvable sealing problem that restrict operation depth from the barrel, elevation mechanism, and rotating mechanism if you are going to keep it dry inside. Heavy recoil is bad for pressure seals. And major corrosion and fowling problems if you allow seawater in.
   • A fixed mount within the hull will require a large sub to accommodate the length of the barrel, a converted boomer, not an attack sub, a certainly not a cheap conventional design.
2. High power electrical systems and saltwater are a very bad mix.
3. Bad shape for recoil. Look at the cross-sections, modern subs are round, so they roll real easy.
4. You have to surface to fire the gun. There goes your stealth advantage.
5. Missiles can be nearly as fast, designed to be fired while submerged, pack more powerful warheads, can seek the target, and they have a higher rate of fire. Any sub big enough to mount a railgun is big enough to mount several dozen.

Now targets:

• Against immobile targets there is no particular problem, they cannot evade.
• Against a mobile target, your time of flight at 100km, assuming an average velocity of 2.5kps, will be around 60 seconds. A carrier at 30 knots moves approximately 3x its length in that time, a TOT salvo of 12 rounds would give them nearly 3 minutes, call it 2.8 km / 1.5 nautical miles, for evasive maneuvers, more than enough.

Terminal energy of the round from a 50GJ system are about equal to a 6”/155mm inert round. It will take a LOT of hits that size to cripple a carrier, though flight deck damage could render it out of action for a while.

Railguns don’t have use propellant pressure to fire the projectile. They are a form of electric motor using the interaction between an electric arc between 2 rails and the magnetic field generated by the power in the rails to propel the projectile. The projectile is in a specially designed sabot to protect it from the electric current in the rails while providing the propulsive force. The rails also repel each other with nearly the same force as on the projectile, so you need special (load bearing) insulation around the whole thing, and a restraining system (basically a gun barrel) around that to keep the thing together. A railgun with the same energy equivalent to an 8” gun will have a gun weighing nearly the same, not counting the power conditioning equipment.

Technically velocity is limited by c in a vaccum.

Hydrodynamics predicts maximum penetration around 3 kps. I believe that it is because when the projectile is moving faster than of the speed of sound in the materials involved, then the material can no longer be pushed aside, but must be vaporized instead. Anyway, what happens is the energy dissipates perpendicular to the project instead of pushing ahead. That is why meteors produce wide shallow craters.

Excellent response :ar15

 

[Beatmaster]

Railgun technology will have a significant impact to the military across the board as i believe that if they can fit it on a ship they eventually will be able to make some sort of artillery platform for it as well.

However one serious question here, what about radiation? As for example high amounts of energies can cause serious harm to people just working with it.
I assume that the applications and risk factors to humans will be significant.
Also imo rail tech will also have its limits because the huge power plant which will obviously create a huge heat signature which can be detected by the enemy.
So does the rail gun not bite its own tail?
Specially with electronic warfare in mind..EMP, Cyber attacks, Computer jamming and crippling tactics will be a key factor that the USN will have to overcome before they can successfully apply the rail gun on the battle field.
Also Imo Missiles might have limited use compared to the rail gun on the other hand a rail gun will fire in a direct line while for example A2A Missiles have the ability to chase the target..... So eventually for a rail gun equipped frigate or destroyer its going to be hand in hand with conventional weapons otherwise there would be to much of a gap between different weapon systems in terms of defense and offense.
Or am i mistaken here?

 

[My2Cents]

Railgun technology will have a significant impact to the military across the board as i believe that if they can fit it on a ship they eventually will be able to make some sort of artillery platform for it as well.

However one serious question here, what about radiation? As for example high amounts of energies can cause serious harm to people just working with it.
I assume that the applications and risk factors to humans will be significant.

Radiation produced will be about the same as a lightning strike, except that nearly all will be confined by the gun barrel. Inhaling vaporized rail and sabot material will probably pose a greater risk, depending on their compositions.

Also imo rail tech will also have its limits because the huge power plant which will obviously create a huge heat signature which can be detected by the enemy.

The railgun uses a pulse power system. A weapon with a 50MJ output firing every 10 seconds would only require a 6 to 8 MW input, depending on inefficiencies, probably less than an AEGIS system. A Burke class destroyer has 81 MW equivalent in the main engines alone so at worst it would only need to slow a little to have the power needed for the weapon. The next generation of warships is supposed to use electric drive instead of gearboxes to transmit power to the screws, so integration will be simple.

So does the rail gun not bite its own tail?
Specially with electronic warfare in mind..EMP, Cyber attacks, Computer jamming and crippling tactics will be a key factor that the USN will have to overcome before they can successfully apply the rail gun on the battle field.

These issues apply as much or more to most other weapon systems as as well as they do to a railgun, and are key factors in a future conflict for land/sea/air/space. In fact, except for EMP, they have already become important factors in Iraq and Afghanistan, though maybe not as you meant them.

Also Imo Missiles might have limited use compared to the rail gun on the other hand a rail gun will fire in a direct line while for example A2A Missiles have the ability to chase the target..... So eventually for a rail gun equipped frigate or destroyer its going to be hand in hand with conventional weapons otherwise there would be to much of a gap between different weapon systems in terms of defense and offense.
Or am i mistaken here?

Not mistaken in the slightest. In fact, you see more clearly than some on this board.

 

[Beatmaster]

Radiation produced will be about the same as a lightning strike, except that nearly all will be confined by the gun barrel. Inhaling vaporized rail and sabot material will probably pose a greater risk, depending on their compositions.

The railgun uses a pulse power system. A weapon with a 50MJ output firing every 10 seconds would only require a 6 to 8 MW input, depending on inefficiencies, probably less than an AEGIS system. A Burke class destroyer has 81 MW equivalent in the main engines alone so at worst it would only need to slow a little to have the power needed for the weapon. The next generation of warships is supposed to use electric drive instead of gearboxes to transmit power to the screws, so integration will be simple.

These issues apply as much or more to most other weapon systems as as well as they do to a railgun, and are key factors in a future conflict for land/sea/air/space. In fact, except for EMP, they have already become important factors in Iraq and Afghanistan, though maybe not as you meant them.

Not mistaken in the slightest. In fact, you see more clearly than some on this board.

Btw just thinking about it, to quote my own words here, as i said about A2A missiles that can give chase to a moving object, there would be one other possible way for the rail gun to achieve a similar effect and that is using the same strategy as the Goalkeeper, firing a rapid succession of shots at multiple directions that would deny a target the ability to evade incoming rounds but how far this would be possible i dunno.

So the real question here is will the rail gun be able to become the next best thing to hit targets? or will it only be used versus stationary targets and as finishing off tool?
Because given the limitations so far i believe that the rail gun will have its great benefits but without backup of conventional systems it might still be a fancy toy.

Example if the rail is going to be used to hit a big surface combatant then a guiding computer might be able to plug some solutions that would allow the system to track or predict which evasive actions a target might have and anticipate on it by firing a series of rounds at those locations enabling the gun to sort of catch the target in transit from location a to b (More or less like a sniper trying to hit a moving target or like a goal keeper trying to intercept a sea skimming object) also a question i have does the energy charge fired by the RailG give of a destructive AOE because then it does not have to be a direct hit but a indirect hit could have the same effect.

Now perhaps i am talking to Sci-fi here but as has been mentioned the rail gun hits with great kinetic power however would that not bring back the days of high armored ships? so effectively nullifier the effects of a direct hit? and what else does the rail gun bring into combat? as i could see that electrical charge carry some sort of Emp effect upon the target.

 

[Beatmaster]

Also imo rail tech will also have its limits because the huge power plant which will obviously create a huge heat signature which can be detected by the enemy.

The railgun uses a pulse power system. A weapon with a 50MJ output firing every 10 seconds would only require a 6 to 8 MW input, depending on inefficiencies, probably less than an AEGIS system. A Burke class destroyer has 81 MW equivalent in the main engines alone so at worst it would only need to slow a little to have the power needed for the weapon. The next generation of warships is supposed to use electric drive instead of gearboxes to transmit power to the screws, so integration will be simple.

I am actually not talking about stationary heat signature but i am talking about the burst signature that happens seconds before releasing a series of shots.
Obviously for the system to come online and " summon" the amount of energy needed to deliver its series of shots it will sort of charge the weapon.
Similar to the Russian heat-blooms from their old boomer's when they are about to leave the harbor for patrol back in the old cold war days when the US was able to see by satellite which boomer was about to set sail based upon their increasing heat signature, now perhaps i am wrong here but i could imagine that seconds before the rail gun becomes operational in terms of actually engaging a target that it would light up like a candle in the dark on a IR/Heat Radar/Sat.