Navy developed and tested a railgun
 

Because science fiction.

Here's the article on Cnet and the Washington post:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-57...?tag=cnetRiver
Cnet made a typo, they actually meant Mach 7.5

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...nTiR_blog.html


Next on the agenda, low orbital ion cannon.

Er, been done before. 32MJ is impressive, but I don't think they've solved the rail erosion problem.

^ This is cool for the same reason induction cooktops > your fins. Magnets.

What magnets? :P

cool stuff...many Sci-Fi movies and multimedia that has had some railgun technology made it seem like the railguns were modern technology today. Not necessarily saying its future technology. Last film i recall to use railguns was Transformers.

+1 on Low Orbit Ion Cannon (id call it Bahamut :bellyroll:)

Where's my Gundam > :T!!!!

been done before, but not in a practical form factor that could be placed on a ship till now.

they show this in transformers-rise of the fallen a few years back. i looked it up after watching the movie in the cinema, and found articles back then referencing BAE developing this for navy ;)
amazing what they leak in movies ey?

The Navy has been posting videos of this stuff on Youtube for years. The video at the bottom of the Washington Post article was shot and uploaded to Youtube in January of 2008.

+1.

well they've had prototypes since the 90s. but the recent prototypes are a lot closer to deployment ready.

Last time I was interested in rail guns I was under the impression that they are basically like a particle accelerator that uses magnetic fields to accelerate plasma that pushed a tiny pellet to ridiculous velocities. And I'm also under the impression that it is magnetic fields that cause the heating in induction cook tops.

Magnets. Electro kind.

(but as mentioned before, my detailed physics knowledge is weeeeaaaak, so..?)

lol yea they use magnetic fields, but there's no magnets :P I was being an ass like usual.

But railguns aren't particle accelerators, they fire solid conducting rounds. The 2 rails are electrically connected (basically shorted out) by the round, and the current creates the magnetic field. The magnetic field pushes the round because the current in the round is flowing perpendicular to the magnetic field induced around the rails.

Old 'Star Wars' book I read in high school(Reagan not Lucas) had them theorizing or testing using the fields to accelerate a plasma that pushed a slug. So 'sort of' like a particle accelerator. I guess it was sort of like a conventional gun, too with the high-pressure propelling too? I think they used 'mass driver' for what is now 'rail gun', fields accelerating a conductive slug.