Can magnetically-accelerated weaponry be scaled down into small arms? Can these weapons be made fully- or semi-automatic?
And for you Econ nerds, do you suppose they could push conventional firearms out of the market and into antiquity?
Can magnetically-accelerated weaponry be scaled down into small arms...
Charles Brooks
Adam Sanchez
bgr.com
This dude built himself a portable railgun. Not sure how reputable the source is.
newatlas.com
Here is the US Navy's idea of a railgun. Their goal is to turn ships inside out so it much larger.
I don't think a portable railgun will ever be used outside of anti armor. Also, I really doubt it will ever replace conventional firearms. The AK-47 works too well to ever be replaced. It truly is the pinnacle of handheld kill.
Justin Perez
I was going to build one years ago that fired nails with the heads cut off. Thought about building a condenser for liquid nitrogen, and having some means to optionally use a canister of it that lowers the temperature of the projectile. Never figured the means to actually do that without rendering the rest of it unusable from a human standpoint. That gets into all kinds of complexity as far as controlling heat transfer, and at that point I'm deluding myself as far as manufacturing capability / skill. It's not like I have a lathe or mill kicking around.
Lincoln Jenkins
conceivably yea they could just become the dominant form of firearm at all levels but it would take some extremely large leaps relative to where we are now in engineering to solve some of the problems anons already mentioned primarily heat disposal, energy source, shielding. Additionally we would need to design a projectile that can reliably quash itself when hitting the target because putting a small hole through something is generally fairly useless unless the KE of the projectile is so great that what energy it does transfer before over penetrating is already lethal
Noah James
I don't see why any of these things can't eventually be done, but there's no real incentive to try. Chemically driven rounds are very simple, very reliable, and meet every need that needs to be met. Outside of situations where the storage of propellants are a significant risk (like on a warship), or muzzle velocities need to exceed the limits of chemical propellants (also warship), railguns don't have intrinsic advantages over conventional firearms.
Camden Flores
It's doable, the only problem is where you put the capacitors because they take up so much space and are heavy. One way is to have them in a backpack but you won't be very mobile with that, and if there's a spark it can hit you and go through your body. (although normaly this shouldn't happen).
The big problem with coilguns is the efficiency. They can only transfer about 1 to 10% of their stored energy into KE. Which means a lot of the energy is wasted and gets dumped into some resistor.
But even with that, you can get a homemade coilgun to give the same output KE as a .22 rifle or more (9mm or even 7.62).
And of course there will be recoil from the shot, and a bit of noise. It won't be as loud as an actual gunshot though, so that's a plus.
Christian Mitchell
Another time I asked about this idea somebody said I'd need a plot device like 'a room-temperature superconductor'
Aaron Gomez
>AK-47
Has not been produced or used anywhere for decades, also has a heap of flaws. What the fuck are you on about. The basic mechanics of a firearm are likely to never change, however they will continuously be refined for as long as humanity exists.
Never man-portable small arms but a small mounted railgun on vehicles, maybe. The benefit of railguns is the muzzle velocity, for vehicle-to-vehicle combat it makes it hard to defend against, like you could against a missile. But to be effective it needs to be rapid-fire. Eventually it might have really effective application as Anti-Air.
Alexander Adams
>Can these weapons be made fully- or semi-automatic?
No. Batteries and chemical explosives really don't compare in that sense. There will always be a charge time to bring the weapon up to enough total energy (it has to be much higher than the explosive too because of the inefficiency). It's especially problematic for military situations where 1000's of rounds need to be sprayed just for suppression.
Ian Watson
[math]\msquare \psi= \partial_{\mu} \partial^{\mu} \psi=0[/math]
Adam Baker
Yes.
Dominic Cox
Won't be useful. The best way to move a projectile in a small platform like that is with explosives.
Capacitors simply can't carry, convert, and transfer energy to a projectile as well as a smokeless charge
Levi Davis
It works in practice. At core levels at least. It will take a lot of improvements and refining to increase the apeed of projectiles, hence increasing their range too. All of that requires more power, I suppose. In this case, electricity.
Solve the electricity storage part and you're pretty gucci desu.
Michael Scott
Railguns might be better.
adsabs.harvard.edu
1 meter barrel gets 4g projectile to mach2.3
Nathaniel Jones
I think we'll see them used more in long-range gunfights (i.e. snipers) before short range ones. That's their main advantage currently so I could see a fast projectile needing less of an upward or ahead aim being quite useful.
Evan Perry
First and foremost there isn't really a reason for small arms to need an electro-magnet firing system because the metals that are used are very expensive as well as it has the potential to fuck up other more valuable equipment like, nightvision goggles, GPS, and radio to name a few. Second Economically speaking the markets would only care if they could make them cheaper and sell them for more which neither of those things they can do and thus it isn't a worthwhile invention.
Charles Davis
You can't combine high discharge speed with high energy density. Your railgun power system gonna be a battery weighing 1kg with 100 shots in it and a capacitor bank weighing 20 kg that must be recharged after every shot.
Logan Martinez
>difficulty of reloading (ammo+propellant isn't self contained)
>projectile has to be rotationally accelerate
>current capacitor charge/discharge rate outclassed by rifles
>complex cycling mechanisms needed to load in rounds
>unknown unique modes of failure
>regular gun is simple in comparison, easier to maintain and less likely to fail
>disassembly more involved than a rifle, potentially dangerous due to charge
benefits/applications:
>recoilless, although any trained soldier should be able to deal with small arms rifle recoil
>subsonic rounds would be extremely quiet
>ejection failure literally impossible, there's no casing to eject
right now probably not. the navy was mostly interested in them as high speed anti-armor cannons
Hudson White
Yeah pretty much, there isn't a good power supply with the required energy density to make a railgun really man portable. ETC weapons are probably the closest we can get without some really exotic stuff like RT superconductors or nanoflywheel batteries or some shit.
Railguns aren't recoilless, and I don't think a very complex feed would be required, but otherwise I agree with your criticism.
Carter Richardson
Maybe for antitank rifles or if people happen to get super good energy absorbing body armour. For fleshy humans though, probably not lead is just too cheap.
Owen Miller
I wonder how itd fair in a mud test? You'd still have to have an action and magazine, plus I dont think magnets take to kind to being covered in mud and gravel while something runs past at 4000fps
Dominic Fisher
Could you just have the magnets move the projectile out of the magazine?
Jackson Clark
With the coming advent of solid state batteries, it is very likely to be feasible.
Connor Lee
It's partially an issue of power and energy density of pulsed power systems. So the shit we have for dumping like a couple of joules VERY FAST, ends up being big and heavy. IE we need a fuck huge capacitor bank because although capacitors can release energy fast, in order to store a as much energy as a bullet we need an assload of them. Without pulsed power systems that are lightweight, then there is really no benefit.
I'm not even talking about batteries here, just the stuff for making a nice big pulse of joules
>> recoilless
Oh hell no
>> subsonic
Then you need a bigger bullet. Soviets made a conventional gun like this.
Eli Brooks
once/if a room-temperature superconductor is synthesised, all bets are off when it comes to electromagnetic anything.
if you could make wire loops out of a room-temperature superconductor, you'd have some very scary magnets at your disposal, and the projectiles you fire are as fast as the magnets are strong.
if such a device were to emerge, combustion based weaponry would fall out of use as you'd only have to load the bullet, rather than the bullet and the cartridge, meaning higher caliber in smaller magazines
Noah Richardson
I think lighter, compact railguns would be popular amongst snipers. the faster you can get your round to go, the further you can hit and the less you have to worry about wind, dropoff, timing etc
Chase Cooper
can't imagine being able to generate an appropriately strong magnetic field and remaining light enough to be carried in your arms without room temperature superconductor or other memery.