Yup. The Rail Gun is the actual "Game Changer". The system's got vulnerabilities but in the interim, if we place a Mount with at least 2 or 3 of them or 3 single's along with Standard Weapons systems we will have Ships that can create a barrier around the entire Country.
The only thing we need to do is start working on Dedicated Platforms that are 100% Tempest protected so nobody can knock out the main weapons systems with some rudy-poop EMP. It looks like we're headed back to the Light to Heavy Cruiser Classes again. Yippie!!!!
The rail gun has hit some hardware problems, though. It uses so much power that it ends up destroying itself when fired. They're going to have to come up with some (likely expensive) new material solutions for it to work.
The laser is the actual game changer because it actually can be built up to the point where no incoming missile can touch our ships, meaning the enemy will have to get extremely close and use guns, which they won't be able to do because we have missiles and they don't have the ability to stop them.
Well there are a number of other factors that come into play in a saturation attack. With anti-missile missile systems it doesn't really matter when the anti-ship missiles arrive on target. Eventually they will cause the target to expend all of its missiles. With a anti-missile laser, there is effectively unlimited ammo, so in order to defeat it with numbers you then need to add a layer of complexity to the attack, which then presents a vulnerability that can be exploited. The missiles would need to arrive at the target at the same time, or thereabouts. That's easy enough if you send a flight of aircraft up and have them fire together. But it's more difficult when you have, say, shore-launched missiles from different locations trying to coordinate with sea-launched missiles from ships at sea. Not a huge issue, but it could potentially come up.
Now, the advantage of the laser is that as long as you have enough power, you can keep adding lasers to your ship. Perhaps you can only build a laser to a certain power threshold, and that might necessitate keeping it on a target for several seconds in order to destroy it. But if you have 4 of them synced up, all hitting the exact same spot, you may only need a second to destroy it, maybe less. Imagine the number of lasers a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier could host. Not only that, but imagine the number of lasers a carrier GROUP could handle. This makes defeating them with numbers a much more difficult thing.
I remember that the supplier for the rail gun rounds was charging (what seemed like) a ridiculous amount per round, so the contract was cancelled or something. Maybe they were so expensive because some proprietary material was being used?
The new """frigates""" are practically the same as our destroyers in terms of size and capability. The LCS ships are more like frigates (beefy ones at that).
because Congress simply wouldn't approve the budget to make or design new ones.
Considering the overbudget turds they've laid recently. I can't blame them.
This is the Zumwalt:
"Originally, 32 ships were planned, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. As costs overran estimates, the quantity was reduced to 24, then to 7, and finally to 3, significantly increasing the cost per ship to $4.24 billion (excluding R&D costs)[1][19][20][2] and well exceeding the per-unit cost of a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine ($2.688 billion).[21][22] The dramatic per-unit cost increases eventually triggered a Nunn–McCurdy Amendment breach and cancellation of further production.[23] In April 2016, the total program cost was $22.5 billion, with an average cost of $7.5 billion per ship.[2]"
Yes. BIG limitation. But, they do take up much less space than standard/traditional Ammo and can be stored just about anywhere without worrying about safety issues. Unlike the British in WW1 and their "Exploding Ships". Guess you can't just pack a ship full of bags of Cordite, and I mean everywhere, and then NOT expect them to go BEWM when German 50 - 100 MM Explosive Shells pepper the snot out of your superstructures and set them off.
I haven't seen any with spin stabilization, so I think there's still work to do. Maybe I should build a little one in my garage with helical rails and try it out.
Sabot rounds are stabilized by fins, not spin. You can't have both unless your fins are what provide the spin, at the cost of a LOT of drag. What is the point of propelling your projectile at 3km/sec just to have it lose velocity for stabilization? The destructive force of a projectile depends on its kinetic energy at the point of impact and due to the potentially high velocity of a railgun-launched projectile, their destructive force may be much greater than conventionally launched projectiles of the same size. rail gun is not rifled; nor does it provide rotation in the projectile through the magnetism propelling it.
Meanwhile, back at the lab...
Yup. The Rail Gun is the actual "Game Changer". The system's got vulnerabilities but in the interim, if we place a Mount with at least 2 or 3 of them or 3 single's along with Standard Weapons systems we will have Ships that can create a barrier around the entire Country.
The only thing we need to do is start working on Dedicated Platforms that are 100% Tempest protected so nobody can knock out the main weapons systems with some rudy-poop EMP. It looks like we're headed back to the Light to Heavy Cruiser Classes again. Yippie!!!!
The rail gun has hit some hardware problems, though. It uses so much power that it ends up destroying itself when fired. They're going to have to come up with some (likely expensive) new material solutions for it to work.
The laser is the actual game changer because it actually can be built up to the point where no incoming missile can touch our ships, meaning the enemy will have to get extremely close and use guns, which they won't be able to do because we have missiles and they don't have the ability to stop them.
Or they pull a Missile Massacre and just throw all the missiles at the ship.
I assume it takes time for the laser to charge for each shot.
So you have chargeing, Colmating the beam and staying on target, then discharging until the target is knocked out, and then doing it all over again.
Either way, the laser is STILL far cheaper than the alternatives.
Well there are a number of other factors that come into play in a saturation attack. With anti-missile missile systems it doesn't really matter when the anti-ship missiles arrive on target. Eventually they will cause the target to expend all of its missiles. With a anti-missile laser, there is effectively unlimited ammo, so in order to defeat it with numbers you then need to add a layer of complexity to the attack, which then presents a vulnerability that can be exploited. The missiles would need to arrive at the target at the same time, or thereabouts. That's easy enough if you send a flight of aircraft up and have them fire together. But it's more difficult when you have, say, shore-launched missiles from different locations trying to coordinate with sea-launched missiles from ships at sea. Not a huge issue, but it could potentially come up.
Now, the advantage of the laser is that as long as you have enough power, you can keep adding lasers to your ship. Perhaps you can only build a laser to a certain power threshold, and that might necessitate keeping it on a target for several seconds in order to destroy it. But if you have 4 of them synced up, all hitting the exact same spot, you may only need a second to destroy it, maybe less. Imagine the number of lasers a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier could host. Not only that, but imagine the number of lasers a carrier GROUP could handle. This makes defeating them with numbers a much more difficult thing.
I remember that the supplier for the rail gun rounds was charging (what seemed like) a ridiculous amount per round, so the contract was cancelled or something. Maybe they were so expensive because some proprietary material was being used?
The new """frigates""" are practically the same as our destroyers in terms of size and capability. The LCS ships are more like frigates (beefy ones at that).
Considering the overbudget turds they've laid recently. I can't blame them.
This is the Zumwalt:
"Originally, 32 ships were planned, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. As costs overran estimates, the quantity was reduced to 24, then to 7, and finally to 3, significantly increasing the cost per ship to $4.24 billion (excluding R&D costs)[1][19][20][2] and well exceeding the per-unit cost of a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine ($2.688 billion).[21][22] The dramatic per-unit cost increases eventually triggered a Nunn–McCurdy Amendment breach and cancellation of further production.[23] In April 2016, the total program cost was $22.5 billion, with an average cost of $7.5 billion per ship.[2]"
I assume the rail gun bolts still need to be manufactured and stored so that is one limitation.
Yes. BIG limitation. But, they do take up much less space than standard/traditional Ammo and can be stored just about anywhere without worrying about safety issues. Unlike the British in WW1 and their "Exploding Ships". Guess you can't just pack a ship full of bags of Cordite, and I mean everywhere, and then NOT expect them to go BEWM when German 50 - 100 MM Explosive Shells pepper the snot out of your superstructures and set them off.
There you go again, using common sense derived from -- dare I say -- scientific knowledge...
I haven't seen any with spin stabilization, so I think there's still work to do. Maybe I should build a little one in my garage with helical rails and try it out.
Sabot rounds are stabilized by fins, not spin. You can't have both unless your fins are what provide the spin, at the cost of a LOT of drag. What is the point of propelling your projectile at 3km/sec just to have it lose velocity for stabilization? The destructive force of a projectile depends on its kinetic energy at the point of impact and due to the potentially high velocity of a railgun-launched projectile, their destructive force may be much greater than conventionally launched projectiles of the same size. rail gun is not rifled; nor does it provide rotation in the projectile through the magnetism propelling it.
Obviously you’ll need both a rail gun and a laser...on every side. They should fire out of steel carved eagle mouths. Just to make them more accurate.