The kinetic energy of a projectile traveling at 5,000 mph is devastating. It’s not just gonna poke a small hole the size of whatever you threw at the ship. Small rocks hitting the earth or moon with no explosives make huge craters from just sheer speed
For funsies, I put in 1.56 MPS into a google search to see what it came to in MPH, came to 5,616 MPH. Then, went MPH to Mach. That sucker is being shot at approximately Mach 7 per google.
Speed + mass. Without mass they wouldn't leave craters. a 20 pound projectile would do some good damage at those speeds, though. I wonder how far those projectiles can go before they've vaporized from atmospheric friction.
The thing about a rail gun, if they could make it viable is that you couldn’t intercept it, and if you have a good targeting system you could rapidly critically damage many ships. Slam engines, weapon systems, bridges, and so on. Not to mention the shock from a projectile going that fast, could shred and warp a ships haul. Any crew members near the point of impacted would be evaporated. Could be a decent crippling weapon.
@@slll9862 yes, but those missiles are much larger and further away. A rail gun isn't shooting from hundreds of miles away. It's a point defense/offense weapon. Not to mention it surely can't go that far before atmospheric friction vaporizes it. We don't have anything that could intercept it except MAYBE CIWS, but being a 20 kilo lump of metal, it's gonna be hard for a 20mm round to do much to alter it's trajectory.
The drawback to ERG is the erosion of the launch platform. And ridiculous prices to machine a piece metal the size of a breadbox. $129M? MIC is not living in our reality.
A rail gun projectile would slice through a ship and suck out the soft fleshy inhabitants out the other side. Early sabot rounds would not only penetrate armor, but would also cause sudden decompression inside armored vehicles. During the Six-Day War the Israelis shot tanks several times before realizing they were neutralized by the first round. They would slice through the tank, killing the crew via sudden compression. Later sabot designs implemented materials which would not only penetrate armor, but would also deflect inside the vehicle, causing internal ammo magazines to explode.
@@bryanst.martin7134 Exactly, the cost per shot an the weapon's excessive rate of wear make it infeasible for the railgun. The original video narrator is just plain wrong with a lot of the info he is claiming.
Reason Railguns aren't used more often now isn't because of power so much as the wear and tear that firing causes on the barrel and components. The sheer amount of heat warps the components out of whack and needs repairs often. It's good tech, just needs more dev time to get it to a state where it's truly feasible. Imagine battleships with no explosive magazines because they don't have a need for it, just lasers and railguns. BTW 5760 mph is over Mach 7. It's BANANAS. There's no dodging it, no intercepting that mid air
Here are some numbers for comparison. The new SR-72 numbers which are being released (actual performance may be in excess of these numbers) is to fly Mach 6 at 80,000 ft. That means the speed of 4,630 mi an hour at an altitude of 15.15 miles. The railgun leaves the ship at 5,616 mph and already has a range of 125 miles. That means in theory the railgun could shoot down the SR-72, but that would have to be one heck of a shot. Good thing no other country has one of these guns.
@@jameswells554 You're thinking of Project Babylon. That wasn't a railgun as much as it was just a huge a*s cannon intended to yeet payloads into low earth orbit to have them come crashing down. And by huge a*s, I'm pretty sure "Baby Babylon" (the one they managed to actually build) was in the realms of I think 50-ish meters in length. "Big Babylon" (what Sadaam wanted) was going to slap an additional 100 meters onto it. It wasn't massive in caliber, though. A modest 13.5 inch (about the same size as naval guns at the very beginning of WWII.) But no Electro Magnetic Propulsion there.
A rail gun round hitting a ship, would be a lot like a sabot round from a tank. At the point of contact, the pressure would be so high, that metal would vaporize causing fires.
I do think that is why the allies of the U.S. are keeping their costs so low while maintaining fairly modern equipment. The U.S. is developing them and their allies are just buying them without needing to spend money on R & D. I think if every country stuck to only it's own technology the U.S. military budget wouldn't be so high in comparison.
They had a rail gun on a small boy in Mayport Navy Base in 2004. The Doyle or Boyd or something. It was gonna be tested in sea trials. It was only about 20 feet long.
I always go back to that line in the movie Independence Day “You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?” ..since it's spot on, when I was in the Army they were being charged an arm and a leg for tank parts... whats even more crazy is some of those parts were the same ones used in the air force and they were being charged a lot less for the same parts..
2nd biggest airforce (by numerical count of all total aircraft) is the US Army. The Navy is now in 4th place after Russia. Isreal's Iron Dome is based on missiles with greater range and less collateral fallout than the Phalanx system. Railguns are not in use on ships because of issues with the capacitor banks; the nuclear power on the ships is capable of supplying the total energy requirement but it has to charge capacitors over time. Railguns also have to limit the projectile speed or the rails that guide the projectile will warp and melt.
A railgun doesn’t seem like it would be a “main” weapon. (IF WE WERE ABLE TO PROPERLY INCORPORATE IT INTO MILITARY TECHNOLOGY) It would probably be a “support” type weapon, use it to weaken & cripple the target, and use the cannons to finish off the target.
The thing about laser weapons is that they don't work instantaneously like kinetic weapons do. It's a high energy beam that has to be held on an exact target for a period of time before they even do anything. No fire and forget capability
I believe the laser weapons will take out the sensitive electronics of plane/ship/directed ordinance with a few seconds blast, it would take a prolonged targeting to explode, bring down planes/missles. It is the electronics that is most vulnerable to high energy weaponry.
Unless a round or a missile can guide itself to the target, then it doesn't have fire-and-forget either. Which are many weapons still used. So, that most likely wouldn't be a major decision-making factor.
@@bobprivate8575 Plus there's atmospheric conditions that effect how efficient that laser is out to a distance and placing them on the most consistently unpredictable meteorological environment on the planet will be just perfect for them. It'll all be fun and games until that squall moves in and then no one gets to use their lasers. Morning mists? Lasers are down, but these old missiles and guns still work.
The main problem with lasers is range. The horizon is only about 3 miles away (a bit more than that because of the height of the ship, maybe as much as 12 miles), so you can't shoot a laser farther than that at surface targets. Unless we can mount one on a plane, but then there's power generation issues.
Regarding missile pricing, I went to university as a Computer Engineering major and many of my professors came from the defense industry, so many of the problems I would solve in class would be similar to those solved by engineers working on missile and targeting systems. The main contributors to missile pricing in defense contracts are the targeting system and manufacturing cost. While parts themselves are a fraction of the total cost, manufacturing can be quite expensive when basically everybody on the line needs to be a top machinist along with full background checks and clearances, plus inspections at every point. Targeting systems though are extraordinarily complex. Lets say you are working with a Fox-3 missile like an AIM-120 which is active radar guiding. Not only do you need to squeeze the radar, IR, etc. sensors into the missile, but then you need to take the raw sensor data, determine what is an anomaly due to the sensor hardware, then determine objects, classify those objects as friend or foe based almost purely on the data from the sensor suite alone, and then use that data that you read in to feed a controls system which modifies things such as engine output, aerodynamic surfaces, gyroscopes, etc. to follow an intercept path. This controls side is complex, but generally a mostly solved problem since the issues also reside in many consumer and civilian industries meaning you can hire standard controls engineers. The sensor to controls link however is extremely complex and requires basically the best mathematicians your country has, and at that point they also need to be extremely proficient with programming and designing and running simulations in order to achieve the system of equations and constants that are required to do this processing which highly skilled programmers can then sit down at and optimize for speed, parallelism, embedding directly onto hardware using ASICs (custom silicon, expensive) or FPGAs, etc. While this whole thing is going on, you are also designing around adversaries who are doing the same thing and using their top tier personnel to try to find ways to minimize their assets appearance to your sensors to make the difference between an anomaly and a good detection even smaller, meaning the entire equation just got even harder while you were working on it. For instance, the F-22A raptor is claimed to appear on radar as roughly the same size as a bird or insect depending on the source you use, meaning that your filters for filtering out wildlife and your filters which define a reading of an enemy are now overlapping and you need to both re-engineer your filters, and come up with additional systems and stages to handle the overlap. All of this processing then has to be done hundreds to thousands of times a second while both your perspective as the missile is moving, and the enemy is also presumably moving at their best skill to try to evade you. Now take into account the salaries of all these technical minds that you've needed to accrue to design this system, the amount of time (often years) they have been working on this one specific product, the training and recruiting costs to find and encourage the next generation of people to replace your current engineers when they retire, the costs of failed prototypes, testing, demonstrations, certifications, etc. and bake them into the price that you sell each missile at based off the initial contract. If the navy wants to only purchase say 500 of your missiles that you've spent billions of dollars developing, you need to sell them at enough of a price to ensure that you still break even, and then ideally make a profit on it as well. Now, if the navy were to come back and say that they want 10,000 more with no additional modifications, you can sell those closer to unit cost, make more profit off them while selling them at a lesser price since you've already recuperated your development costs, however it is rare for this to happen and if the armed forces end up asking for more of a unit, they may ask for certain modifications which you then need to handle the engineering and development costs again for those new variants, however those are typically lower than the initial system depending on what they want updated.
Railgun, no Explosives needed. It does damage on impact purely through its kinetic energy until its lost all that energy. And it has a LOT of energy. If you like that, look for Information to "Rod from God" A Kinetic Satelite Weapon Thats absolutely crazy.
Gerneral Atomics, who designed and developed the electromagnetic catapult system for the Ford class carriers, was working on a gauss rifle (similar to the catapult system) to replace the 5 inch naval guns, but the Navy decided to pull the plug because they've still got plenty of shells. Gauss rifles are different from rail guns because the rails don't erode with use. They were planning on putting these guns on nuclear powered ships, so the energy was "free".
They would need to be near-perfect mirrors which you are not going to be able to make stable outside of a controlled environment. A regular mirror would reflect about 70% of the first few milliseconds of the laser hitting, and then vaporize.
@@RagingPhoenix16661 lol it would protect the plane, but that laser might reflect god knows where and hit something else rofl. Idk what the range on those things are, but that would be comedy
Fun fact, all 3 Zumwalt class stealth destroyers that were built here in Maine at Bath Iron Works in the city of Bath, were specifically designed to generate enough power to power a rail gun. Sadly, the navy completely cut funding for its rail gun program with no plans to resume it. The navy had planned to outfit all 3 Zumwalt class destroyers with rail guns upon the programs completion, but all 3 will now be fitted out with a hypersonic missile system instead.
Consider the shock wave of a rail gun. When Navy ships are shock tested it is done with thousands of pounds of explosive off the stern of the ship to simulate a near hit. This can result in rippled decks, damaged equipment and injured personnel.
6:30 You can see the bullets actually hitting each other where they cross to the right of the telephone pole. 6:38 that puff of smoke in the center of the screen was the target getting hit. 10:30 A lump of metal might not explode, but if you're using depleted uranium, you're going to burn everything around where it hit. DU BURNS when it goes through armor setting anything inside the ship on fire.
Hey Mate! I will tell you what the deadliest thing in the US Navy is. It is the Sailors. I'm proud to have been one active duty, and for life. I met some of you Furriners, in Mildenhall and Torremolinos, Sp. We wound up adjusting some attitudes of the least receptive locals of our friendly, party hungry state of mind. I think 38 fights broke out in the weekend we were there. I don't think anyone was hospitalized. What a blast!
Railguns are a option at super long range but honestly it's the laser weapons that are going to be most used. It's more accurate more controllable and can even be used to destroy engines in battleships.
The three Zumwalt Class Destroyers and one or two Classes of the latest Aircraft Carriers (Nimitz & Ford) are the only Naval Ships w/ enough power to fire a BAE Rail Gun atm. My understanding of the Awesome Rail Gun is that the project has been placed on hold until they figure out a Barrel that can withstand more than one or two firings. The advantages of the Rail Gun far outweigh the disadvantages and I'm sure research is continuing on Barrel development. The Money for the Rail Gun has been sent towards developing Laser Systems. Laser Systems have one major disadvantage, they're dependent on clear weather.
For that railgun, shooting at 1.56 miles per second is equal to 5,616 miles per hour. That's Mach 7.3, and it has about 9,454,367 joules, which is equal to a 1-ton car moving at 48 miles per hour, or 2,300 calories, which is 9.4 Big Macs' worth. 1) That's a lot of energy. 2) Food holds an insane amount of energy. 3) Our bodies consume a crazy amount of energy every day..
I was on the USS Merrill (DD-976) from 87-91. I was surprised to see her mentioned. I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to fire most, if not all, weapon types at one time. Each has a separate control console.
The railgun round fires at a speed of about mach 7.5 Also I agree lasers are more likely than railguns, but keep in mind lasers have to have direct line of sight, so it does have a significant draw back.
You would be shocked how much the parts for the missiles cost. The government wastes so much money on supplies it’s disgusting. I’m a mechanic for F22’s and let’s say a simple air hose coupler started leaking and needed to be replaced. In the sane world you could go to a hardware store buy one for $2.50 and just swap it out. Not on a government installation. You’d have to find a “purchaser” from your supply crib that then has to call the stores to order them. Then that coupler will go through like 4 other avenues with paperwork, certifications and what not. Then the big boss of the building will have to contact maintenance to have them send out 3-4 guys that will drag out a 10 second job out for an hour or 2. By the end of the process that $2.50 coupler is now a $750 coupler. It’s “mental!” Lol
The only nuclear powered ships in our navy are the carriers and the submarines. But hey, we’re Americans, putting a railgun on a carrier wouldn’t be that unusual. If you’re sending aircraft to hit the enemy 200 miles away you might as well start shooting dumbbell weights at them while you’re at it.
The only reason we don't use the rail guns is the maintenance. The actual launch rails literally rip themselves apart when firing. So until we improve the materials they are basically a shelved concept. We can get a few shots out of a set of rails but not much more than that.
Ran the ballistics quick on that railgun cause I was interested. The kinetic energy in foot pounds of that projectile (6.61 lbs traveling at 1.56 miles per second) is 6,968,991.74 foot pounds. That's... that's a lot of energy.
The main issue with railguns isn't even energy consumption anymore, that's only a small problem now. The real issue is longevity of the weapon system. Whenever you fire any gun the barrel receives a little damage which is usually negligible, even artillery guns can fire thousands of rounds before replacement, but railguns suffer immense deterioration from each shot. You'd be lucky to shoot a railgun more than a couple dozen times without catastrophic failure
After hearing that insane speed I looked at some high speed projectiles and here is what I found, "Using an experimental gun about 60 feet long, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have blasted a small projectile(1 gram) to a speed of 10 miles a second, which is thought to be the highest velocity ever reached on earth by any object larger than a speck of dust." This was published in the New York Times Mar 22, 1994.
I've also heard that the 3rd largest Airforce in the world is the decommissioned fleet that the US keeps in storage yards that can be recommissioned into service if need be.
Phalanx has two radars, one to track target, the other to track projectiles. Doesn't work well for close in surface targets like small craft. Surface clutter hinders radar. That's why sailors and marines are also good shooters.
I saw a video a while back where it stated that the rail gun was scrapped because the projectiles damaged the barrels too quickly. Maybe that was incorrect, or perhaps they’ve improved on the design.
If launching an expensive missile prevents a ship from being attacked or sunk, it is probably a good deal. Missiles are a whole lot less expensive that a ship and its crew.
A lot of bad ass weapons. Rail gun 5000 miles per hour, or 325 miles in 3.5 minutes. What if we scaled down the weight to 1/2 pound. This would reduce the overall size of the barrel, the closer the magnetic field the stronger it is.This would reduce the power needed. FYI: at the speed it is traveling, the kinetic force hitting the side of a ship would be turned into Molten metal which would spray out in all directions, also the shockwave would vibrate and break metal fitting on pipes, and engine mounts, as well as bend the hull. The LASER it can't work in rain or fog / mist, it would degrade the beam. one solution is a second wider beam, it vaporizes everything in its path leaving the second beam in a clear "Vaccuum" keeping the power level steady.
A solid projectile can be as destructive as an explosive projectile if it is traveling at a high enough velocity, essentially transferring its kinetic energy through impact force instead of relying on an explosive blast to cause damage; this principle is the basis behind weapons like railguns, which use extremely high speeds to launch solid projectiles with devastating effects.
At that speed, the rail gun projectiles would likely give off a massive pressure wave. So, not only has this thing put a brick of metal through your ship, the pressure wave has vacuumed out the compartment (and any adjacent compartment not sealed via bulkhead) and more than likely fractured your keel. This thing would probably, meme withstanding, snap the boat in half. While I'm not sure where America is with the technology, apparently Japan has one that doesn't rend itself apart while firing. Or, at least, one that's stable enough to be put in the official Japanese Defense Budget.
The rail gun will over pressurize any space that it goes through and as it leaves it will create a vacuum, creating a push - pull effect ripping equipment off of mounts and killing people in those spaces by pulling them through the hole.
I think the new Manta is cool technology, a drone submarine that can stay under water indefinitely, and many can be deployed for surveillance and other activities) in any body of water.
Laser can't be countered xD - nice one. Did you ever heard of white paint? Or mirror coating. If the lasers came to active use we will just get very shiny missiles. It's hard to counter that counter- probably main reason why you don't see more of them on ships.
The rail gun when fired is moving so fast it will put a small hole on one side of the ship and take a full panel off the other side of the ship. Not to manthing evrything it goes through turns into shrapnel moving almost as fast as the round.
Railgun has to replace its barrel basically every shot, otherwise it would already be standard-issue on U.S. naval vessels. The energy requirement doesn't help but it's feasible, anyway - the barrel wear 'n tear is something else entirely though.
23:39 I don’t think you realize how much we pay in taxes. I just did some quick math and it’s less then 30 people paying taxes there whole life to buy the 18m rocket
Laser weapons are already effective against missiles and drones making them ideal as a supplementary close in weapons system to bolster existing ones. Mounted on a nuclear powered vessel it has essentially unlimited ammo making it relatively cheap and versatile. Pretty much all of the existing test systems are powerful enough to be considered overkill for sinking pirates prowling the world's international shipping lanes.
There's a famous photo of a battleship firing all it's cannons broadside. It blew that massive ship a few miles off course lol. But it was able to fire all its cannons at one time in the same direction lol
@freedomefighterbrony9053 i said "off course" not that it moved it a few miles. When later ships like the Iowa or jersey fire it doesn't move at all because of the recoil system they use. If I remember I will try to find the ship I was referring to. Off course doesn't mean it went flying miles sideways lol
Typically they don't fire all exactly at the same time either. They fire in sequence.... a rapid sequence that almost looks simultaneously, but its not
The US Navy has the most ships and boats in the world, I've read, based on how you count them, the US Army has the second largest amount of boats in the world because of all the boats the Corps of Engineers use for dam and canal maintenance and interior search and rescue. China claims they're the largest navy, but they're counting rowboats and barges.
Normally, competition reduces prices. But in military weapon production, quality is more important than price. See Russian and North Korean missiles, rockets, mortars as examples of poor quality. But yes, prices should be less. Every upgrade of a weapon increases future costs. All the older technology has been improved often as electronic enhancements are made every few years.
This is true, but we do overpay these contracts because there is no negotiations going on its just "oh its that much? okay" (oversimplified obviously but you get my point)
Hey buddy just to give you a heads up the real gun doesn't need a warhead for the simple fact that it is a kinetic energy weapon upon impact it will annihilate something for more destructive than even a 2000 lb Warhead
US navy needs to just be a telephone company. With the railgun sending huge objects for miles and the one missle that was a land to air missile that they strap to a f 15 thats control by a separate aircraft. "Collect call for you"
The United States Navy has abandoned the railgun project because it's too hot. You can only fire it twice before it starts to melt its mountain platform. The platform is made of a combination of carbon fiber and tungsten.
@originalHuman There is a small mistake in the air force numbers you mentionned. The 10 largest military branches by number of aircraft's as of 2022 are: 1: USAF (United States Air Force) 5213 aircrafts 2:USAA (United States Army Aviation) 4443 aircrafts 3: Russian air force 3864 aircrafts 4: USN (United States Navy) 2404 aircrafts 5: PLAAF (People's Libreation Army Air Force, China) 1992 aircrafts 6: Indian Air Force 1728 aircrafts 7: USMC (United States Marine Corp) 1240 aircrafts 8: Egyptian Air Force 1069 aircrafts 9: Korean People's Army Air Force (North Korea) 947 aircrafts 10: South Korean Air Force 905 aircrafts If we were to be fair to everyone and include ALL of US aircrarft assets in one single force, it would consist of 13 300 aircrafts. Roughly 3.5 times the aircrafts Russia has and 6.5 times what China has. Both of those being the two "near peer" adversary the USA can envision, things are looking mighty fine on the aviation side. Edit, typo. I added one zero to many to the total aircraft number.
It could fire all weapons at once. Every weapon has its own crew. Some even have their own radar and targeting computers. So in theory, yes. But, would it be effective?
Everything in America is stupid expense. Hell, the gooberment was paying 27,000 dollars for a hammer anybody could buy at Sears for under 30 bucks. I got a midget right angle ratcheting screw driver with a specialty but that's 3&1/2 inches long, 3/8 of an inch wide, and gooberment price tag of 12,000 dollars. It's absolutely ridiculous what politicians pay for when it's not their money being spent.
A huge problem with the rail gun is a hypersonic projectile is going to bleed speed at a much higher rate, so while the muzzle velocity may be high, it won't be nearly that fast at 150mi. It's the same reason why the Russians claimed the Kinjhal missile was hypersonic but could still be shot down by Patriot systems. And Aegis is even better at target tracking and interception than Patriot is. Also, in terms of profits, the US mil-industry has one of the slimmest profit margins of any industry. If you were to combine all of the profits of the top 5 biggest US military contractors for 2023, it's ~50 billion dollars. If you compare to other big US companies That number really isn't very impressive. For example, with Apple: 169 billion, Amazon: 270 billion, Walmart: 157 billion, Microsoft: 171 billion, Google(Alphabet): 174 billion.
Problem they have with the rail gun is, it only takes a few rounds to essentially melt the internal components of the gun itself. So, long-term use of the system is not yet viable.
Sir, you need to take a look at the U.S.A.F.’s new weapon called the Quick Sink, delivered by the B2. Another weapon system is called Rapid Dragon though this one is not so much an anti ship it’s still a scary one.
US Navy has a weapon that is top secret. I cannot tell you what it is, but I can tell you what it does. If an enemy fleet was to attack ally.... They can fire this weapon, it will go to the bottom of the ocean, under the fleet, and explode, creating a giant air bubble. Now if you know about water and pressure, imagine what size this bubble will be, by the time is gets to the surface. Depending on the depth, the air pocket it creates, will be the size of the fleet. Now think about what happens to a ship, if all of a sudden, all the water under the ship, is gone. Yah, entire fleet sunk, in a blink of an eye. Ships just falling and water crashing in on all sides. 100% effective. One shot, all killed. This is a secret weapon, but very very real.
Nothing is free. You don't carry ammo for a laser....but you do carry fuel to generate the electricity to fire it. At least with conventional ammo you'll recognize your magazines are empty before you've burned your ability to skedaddle.
That is a true fact. The largest airports in the world is the US Air force, and the second largest is the US Navy. Mainly because the US Navy comprises not only the Navy but the Marine Corps as well.
So, the US Air Force is the strongest with the Navy at number two. However, the Army is number 4 and the Marines are number 5. The rail gun isn't being used because of power consumption. The problem is that the shots stress the barrel to the point where it wears out way too fast.
Laser weapons would only be able to be used as anti-materials. “Article 1 of the 1995 Protocol IV to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons provides: It is prohibited to employ laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision, that is to the naked eye or to the eye with corrective eyesight devices. The High Contracting Parties shall not transfer such weapons to any State or non-State entity. Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, Vienna, 13 October 1995, Article 1.”
Don't get hung up on the dollar cost of these weapon systems. It doesn't mean what you think it does. It's a measure of the economic activity that goes into the finished product, starting with the cost of mining the raw materials, cost to develop designs, fabrication of all the parts, assembly and testing, then delivery and emplacement in the firing platform. Most of this is wages of all the people who contributed to the process, so it's really the cost of labor. All those wages and services are taxed, so a large portion of the cost returns to the tax pot. A portion is profit which is also taxed. Of course all those people who had a hand in making the weapons have good jobs and create economic activity and growth within their communities. Money isn't real, it's just an idea that enables people to work together on a common goal in return for food and all the other necessities of life. The US is the largest economy in the world which is why they are the only ones with the resources to put into very advanced weapon systems.
I love when people doubt the rail gun lol. The US gov isnt dumping billions into the project because its not gonna be viable. Once a weapon reaches stage 3, the odds of the US keeping it and using it is 80%. The issue with the railgun is the amount of times you can shoot it without it being reusable. If you can only shoot 10 times, its not practicle to use on a ship that will require far more than 8 shots, so they would rather use other weapon systems till then. But once we figure out a metal composition that wont warp, its game over...
@@rubenrangel973 thanks for letting me know. im more into movies like Nobody (personally my favorite movie) so i did not realize its from a movie. thanks for letting me know
Watch a video on the new anti consumer drone weapons platforms coming out, if you could. Thinking specifically of the Leonidas. I forget if it was Warfronts (previously warographics) that had a recent video on it, or one of Simon's other channels. But that thing is F'ing mad lol.
The kinetic energy of a projectile traveling at 5,000 mph is devastating. It’s not just gonna poke a small hole the size of whatever you threw at the ship. Small rocks hitting the earth or moon with no explosives make huge craters from just sheer speed
I was just about to type this! Great way of explaining
For funsies, I put in 1.56 MPS into a google search to see what it came to in MPH, came to 5,616 MPH. Then, went MPH to Mach. That sucker is being shot at approximately Mach 7 per google.
Speed + mass. Without mass they wouldn't leave craters. a 20 pound projectile would do some good damage at those speeds, though. I wonder how far those projectiles can go before they've vaporized from atmospheric friction.
same as apfsds, no warhead, still makes target go boom
@@Jason_Lallathin Similar for sure. Overpressure will definitely blow out a few compartments.
The thing about a rail gun, if they could make it viable is that you couldn’t intercept it, and if you have a good targeting system you could rapidly critically damage many ships. Slam engines, weapon systems, bridges, and so on. Not to mention the shock from a projectile going that fast, could shred and warp a ships haul. Any crew members near the point of impacted would be evaporated. Could be a decent crippling weapon.
I doubt it couldn't be intercepted there are missiles that are faster
@@slll9862 yes, but those missiles are much larger and further away. A rail gun isn't shooting from hundreds of miles away. It's a point defense/offense weapon. Not to mention it surely can't go that far before atmospheric friction vaporizes it.
We don't have anything that could intercept it except MAYBE CIWS, but being a 20 kilo lump of metal, it's gonna be hard for a 20mm round to do much to alter it's trajectory.
The drawback to ERG is the erosion of the launch platform. And ridiculous prices to machine a piece metal the size of a breadbox. $129M? MIC is not living in our reality.
A rail gun projectile would slice through a ship and suck out the soft fleshy inhabitants out the other side.
Early sabot rounds would not only penetrate armor, but would also cause sudden decompression inside armored vehicles. During the Six-Day War the Israelis shot tanks several times before realizing they were neutralized by the first round. They would slice through the tank, killing the crew via sudden compression. Later sabot designs implemented materials which would not only penetrate armor, but would also deflect inside the vehicle, causing internal ammo magazines to explode.
@@bryanst.martin7134 Exactly, the cost per shot an the weapon's excessive rate of wear make it infeasible for the railgun. The original video narrator is just plain wrong with a lot of the info he is claiming.
2:02 the most modern that is declassified!
Reason Railguns aren't used more often now isn't because of power so much as the wear and tear that firing causes on the barrel and components. The sheer amount of heat warps the components out of whack and needs repairs often. It's good tech, just needs more dev time to get it to a state where it's truly feasible. Imagine battleships with no explosive magazines because they don't have a need for it, just lasers and railguns.
BTW 5760 mph is over Mach 7. It's BANANAS. There's no dodging it, no intercepting that mid air
Here are some numbers for comparison. The new SR-72 numbers which are being released (actual performance may be in excess of these numbers) is to fly Mach 6 at 80,000 ft. That means the speed of 4,630 mi an hour at an altitude of 15.15 miles. The railgun leaves the ship at 5,616 mph and already has a range of 125 miles. That means in theory the railgun could shoot down the SR-72, but that would have to be one heck of a shot. Good thing no other country has one of these guns.
no country has them period. they've never been installed on a ship and are no longer under development for the USN.
Sadaam tried to have one built. He hired a Canadian engineer for the project if I remember correctly.
@@jameswells554 that wasn't a rail gun, that was his super cannon, where they tried to import cannon barrels claiming they were pipes for something
@@jameswells554 You're thinking of Project Babylon. That wasn't a railgun as much as it was just a huge a*s cannon intended to yeet payloads into low earth orbit to have them come crashing down. And by huge a*s, I'm pretty sure "Baby Babylon" (the one they managed to actually build) was in the realms of I think 50-ish meters in length. "Big Babylon" (what Sadaam wanted) was going to slap an additional 100 meters onto it. It wasn't massive in caliber, though. A modest 13.5 inch (about the same size as naval guns at the very beginning of WWII.) But no Electro Magnetic Propulsion there.
A rail gun round hitting a ship, would be a lot like a sabot round from a tank. At the point of contact, the pressure would be so high, that metal would vaporize causing fires.
I think a ship that was hit would have an ocean of problems over their hole in their hull being vaporized due to a railgun shot.
I do think that is why the allies of the U.S. are keeping their costs so low while maintaining fairly modern equipment. The U.S. is developing them and their allies are just buying them without needing to spend money on R & D. I think if every country stuck to only it's own technology the U.S. military budget wouldn't be so high in comparison.
They had a rail gun on a small boy in Mayport Navy Base in 2004. The Doyle or Boyd or something. It was gonna be tested in sea trials. It was only about 20 feet long.
I always go back to that line in the movie Independence Day “You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?” ..since it's spot on, when I was in the Army they were being charged an arm and a leg for tank parts... whats even more crazy is some of those parts were the same ones used in the air force and they were being charged a lot less for the same parts..
2nd biggest airforce (by numerical count of all total aircraft) is the US Army. The Navy is now in 4th place after Russia. Isreal's Iron Dome is based on missiles with greater range and less collateral fallout than the Phalanx system. Railguns are not in use on ships because of issues with the capacitor banks; the nuclear power on the ships is capable of supplying the total energy requirement but it has to charge capacitors over time. Railguns also have to limit the projectile speed or the rails that guide the projectile will warp and melt.
A railgun doesn’t seem
like it would be a “main” weapon.
(IF WE WERE ABLE TO PROPERLY INCORPORATE IT INTO MILITARY TECHNOLOGY)
It would probably be a “support” type weapon, use it to weaken & cripple the target, and use the cannons to finish off the target.
Welcome back to the age of the Dreadnought.
The thing about laser weapons is that they don't work instantaneously like kinetic weapons do. It's a high energy beam that has to be held on an exact target for a period of time before they even do anything. No fire and forget capability
Oh nice take, I thought it will be just like flash lights aimed at air
I believe the laser weapons will take out the sensitive electronics of plane/ship/directed ordinance with a few seconds blast, it would take a prolonged targeting to explode, bring down planes/missles. It is the electronics that is most vulnerable to high energy weaponry.
Unless a round or a missile can guide itself to the target, then it doesn't have fire-and-forget either. Which are many weapons still used. So, that most likely wouldn't be a major decision-making factor.
@@billyhndrsn4542 Lasers are impractical in an antiship role. Curvature of the Earth would limit their range to about 3-5 miles.
@@bobprivate8575 Plus there's atmospheric conditions that effect how efficient that laser is out to a distance and placing them on the most consistently unpredictable meteorological environment on the planet will be just perfect for them. It'll all be fun and games until that squall moves in and then no one gets to use their lasers. Morning mists? Lasers are down, but these old missiles and guns still work.
The main problem with lasers is range. The horizon is only about 3 miles away (a bit more than that because of the height of the ship, maybe as much as 12 miles), so you can't shoot a laser farther than that at surface targets. Unless we can mount one on a plane, but then there's power generation issues.
Regarding missile pricing, I went to university as a Computer Engineering major and many of my professors came from the defense industry, so many of the problems I would solve in class would be similar to those solved by engineers working on missile and targeting systems. The main contributors to missile pricing in defense contracts are the targeting system and manufacturing cost. While parts themselves are a fraction of the total cost, manufacturing can be quite expensive when basically everybody on the line needs to be a top machinist along with full background checks and clearances, plus inspections at every point. Targeting systems though are extraordinarily complex. Lets say you are working with a Fox-3 missile like an AIM-120 which is active radar guiding. Not only do you need to squeeze the radar, IR, etc. sensors into the missile, but then you need to take the raw sensor data, determine what is an anomaly due to the sensor hardware, then determine objects, classify those objects as friend or foe based almost purely on the data from the sensor suite alone, and then use that data that you read in to feed a controls system which modifies things such as engine output, aerodynamic surfaces, gyroscopes, etc. to follow an intercept path. This controls side is complex, but generally a mostly solved problem since the issues also reside in many consumer and civilian industries meaning you can hire standard controls engineers. The sensor to controls link however is extremely complex and requires basically the best mathematicians your country has, and at that point they also need to be extremely proficient with programming and designing and running simulations in order to achieve the system of equations and constants that are required to do this processing which highly skilled programmers can then sit down at and optimize for speed, parallelism, embedding directly onto hardware using ASICs (custom silicon, expensive) or FPGAs, etc.
While this whole thing is going on, you are also designing around adversaries who are doing the same thing and using their top tier personnel to try to find ways to minimize their assets appearance to your sensors to make the difference between an anomaly and a good detection even smaller, meaning the entire equation just got even harder while you were working on it. For instance, the F-22A raptor is claimed to appear on radar as roughly the same size as a bird or insect depending on the source you use, meaning that your filters for filtering out wildlife and your filters which define a reading of an enemy are now overlapping and you need to both re-engineer your filters, and come up with additional systems and stages to handle the overlap. All of this processing then has to be done hundreds to thousands of times a second while both your perspective as the missile is moving, and the enemy is also presumably moving at their best skill to try to evade you.
Now take into account the salaries of all these technical minds that you've needed to accrue to design this system, the amount of time (often years) they have been working on this one specific product, the training and recruiting costs to find and encourage the next generation of people to replace your current engineers when they retire, the costs of failed prototypes, testing, demonstrations, certifications, etc. and bake them into the price that you sell each missile at based off the initial contract. If the navy wants to only purchase say 500 of your missiles that you've spent billions of dollars developing, you need to sell them at enough of a price to ensure that you still break even, and then ideally make a profit on it as well. Now, if the navy were to come back and say that they want 10,000 more with no additional modifications, you can sell those closer to unit cost, make more profit off them while selling them at a lesser price since you've already recuperated your development costs, however it is rare for this to happen and if the armed forces end up asking for more of a unit, they may ask for certain modifications which you then need to handle the engineering and development costs again for those new variants, however those are typically lower than the initial system depending on what they want updated.
Railgun, no Explosives needed. It does damage on impact purely through its kinetic energy until its lost all that energy. And it has a LOT of energy. If you like that, look for Information to "Rod from God" A Kinetic Satelite Weapon Thats absolutely crazy.
Gerneral Atomics, who designed and developed the electromagnetic catapult system for the Ford class carriers, was working on a gauss rifle (similar to the catapult system) to replace the 5 inch naval guns, but the Navy decided to pull the plug because they've still got plenty of shells. Gauss rifles are different from rail guns because the rails don't erode with use. They were planning on putting these guns on nuclear powered ships, so the energy was "free".
I’d say the only way to defend against a laser would be a mirror, can you imagine all planes covered in mirrors 😂
They would need to be near-perfect mirrors which you are not going to be able to make stable outside of a controlled environment. A regular mirror would reflect about 70% of the first few milliseconds of the laser hitting, and then vaporize.
@@kg4wwn I was just thinking of flight of the navigator style coating on planes and having a laugh
@@RagingPhoenix16661 lol it would protect the plane, but that laser might reflect god knows where and hit something else rofl. Idk what the range on those things are, but that would be comedy
Awesome stuff brother! Keep it coming!!!
We couldn’t share that $1.87M. You’re too popular. What is that? About $2.25 each or something 😂😂
The EU the UK Germany we all need each other we need to heavenly invest in military weapons to be strong
Fun fact, all 3 Zumwalt class stealth destroyers that were built here in Maine at Bath Iron Works in the city of Bath, were specifically designed to generate enough power to power a rail gun. Sadly, the navy completely cut funding for its rail gun program with no plans to resume it. The navy had planned to outfit all 3 Zumwalt class destroyers with rail guns upon the programs completion, but all 3 will now be fitted out with a hypersonic missile system instead.
Consider the shock wave of a rail gun. When Navy ships are shock tested it is done with thousands of pounds of explosive off the stern of the ship to simulate a near hit. This can result in rippled decks, damaged equipment and injured personnel.
6:30 You can see the bullets actually hitting each other where they cross to the right of the telephone pole.
6:38 that puff of smoke in the center of the screen was the target getting hit.
10:30 A lump of metal might not explode, but if you're using depleted uranium, you're going to burn everything around where it hit. DU BURNS when it goes through armor setting anything inside the ship on fire.
Hey Mate! I will tell you what the deadliest thing in the US Navy is. It is the Sailors. I'm proud to have been one active duty, and for life. I met some of you Furriners, in Mildenhall and Torremolinos, Sp. We wound up adjusting some attitudes of the least receptive locals of our friendly, party hungry state of mind. I think 38 fights broke out in the weekend we were there. I don't think anyone was hospitalized. What a blast!
Railguns are a option at super long range but honestly it's the laser weapons that are going to be most used. It's more accurate more controllable and can even be used to destroy engines in battleships.
I was on a US Navy destroyer in the late 80’s with a vertical launch system. We could launch all our tubes within minutes.
The three Zumwalt Class Destroyers and one or two Classes of the latest Aircraft Carriers (Nimitz & Ford) are the only Naval Ships w/ enough power to fire a BAE Rail Gun atm. My understanding of the Awesome Rail Gun is that the project has been placed on hold until they figure out a Barrel that can withstand more than one or two firings.
The advantages of the Rail Gun far outweigh the disadvantages and I'm sure research is continuing on Barrel development. The Money for the Rail Gun has been sent towards developing Laser Systems. Laser Systems have one major disadvantage, they're dependent on clear weather.
The Railgun can be used on ships with nuclear power. Barrel wear is an issue, so it is still mostly a test weapon.
For that railgun, shooting at 1.56 miles per second is equal to 5,616 miles per hour. That's Mach 7.3, and it has about 9,454,367 joules, which is equal to a 1-ton car moving at 48 miles per hour, or 2,300 calories, which is 9.4 Big Macs' worth.
1) That's a lot of energy.
2) Food holds an insane amount of energy.
3) Our bodies consume a crazy amount of energy every day..
I was on the USS Merrill (DD-976) from 87-91. I was surprised to see her mentioned.
I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to fire most, if not all, weapon types at one time. Each has a separate control console.
The railgun round fires at a speed of about mach 7.5 Also I agree lasers are more likely than railguns, but keep in mind lasers have to have direct line of sight, so it does have a significant draw back.
You would be shocked how much the parts for the missiles cost. The government wastes so much money on supplies it’s disgusting. I’m a mechanic for F22’s and let’s say a simple air hose coupler started leaking and needed to be replaced. In the sane world you could go to a hardware store buy one for $2.50 and just swap it out. Not on a government installation. You’d have to find a “purchaser” from your supply crib that then has to call the stores to order them. Then that coupler will go through like 4 other avenues with paperwork, certifications and what not. Then the big boss of the building will have to contact maintenance to have them send out 3-4 guys that will drag out a 10 second job out for an hour or 2. By the end of the process that $2.50 coupler is now a $750 coupler. It’s “mental!” Lol
The only nuclear powered ships in our navy are the carriers and the submarines. But hey, we’re Americans, putting a railgun on a carrier wouldn’t be that unusual. If you’re sending aircraft to hit the enemy 200 miles away you might as well start shooting dumbbell weights at them while you’re at it.
The only reason we don't use the rail guns is the maintenance. The actual launch rails literally rip themselves apart when firing. So until we improve the materials they are basically a shelved concept. We can get a few shots out of a set of rails but not much more than that.
Ran the ballistics quick on that railgun cause I was interested. The kinetic energy in foot pounds of that projectile (6.61 lbs traveling at 1.56 miles per second) is 6,968,991.74 foot pounds. That's... that's a lot of energy.
The main issue with railguns isn't even energy consumption anymore, that's only a small problem now. The real issue is longevity of the weapon system. Whenever you fire any gun the barrel receives a little damage which is usually negligible, even artillery guns can fire thousands of rounds before replacement, but railguns suffer immense deterioration from each shot. You'd be lucky to shoot a railgun more than a couple dozen times without catastrophic failure
After hearing that insane speed I looked at some high speed projectiles and here is what I found, "Using an experimental gun about 60 feet long, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have blasted a small projectile(1 gram) to a speed of 10 miles a second, which is thought to be the highest velocity ever reached on earth by any object larger than a speck of dust." This was published in the New York Times Mar 22, 1994.
I've also heard that the 3rd largest Airforce in the world is the decommissioned fleet that the US keeps in storage yards that can be recommissioned into service if need be.
Kinetic energy on impact is unbelievable. At those speeds .
For anyone curious. A projectile going 5,760 is roughly traveling at mach 7.6. Just thinking about that is INSANE
Phalanx has two radars, one to track target, the other to track projectiles. Doesn't work well for close in surface targets like small craft. Surface clutter hinders radar. That's why sailors and marines are also good shooters.
I saw a video a while back where it stated that the rail gun was scrapped because the projectiles damaged the barrels too quickly. Maybe that was incorrect, or perhaps they’ve improved on the design.
If launching an expensive missile prevents a ship from being attacked or sunk, it is probably a good deal. Missiles are a whole lot less expensive that a ship and its crew.
A lot of bad ass weapons. Rail gun 5000 miles per hour, or 325 miles in 3.5 minutes. What if we scaled down the weight to 1/2 pound. This would reduce the overall size of the barrel, the closer the magnetic field the stronger it is.This would reduce the power needed.
FYI: at the speed it is traveling, the kinetic force hitting the side of a ship would be turned into Molten metal which would spray out in all directions, also the shockwave would vibrate and break metal fitting on pipes, and engine mounts, as well as bend the hull.
The LASER it can't work in rain or fog / mist, it would degrade the beam. one solution is a second wider beam, it vaporizes everything in its path leaving the second beam in a clear "Vaccuum" keeping the power level steady.
A solid projectile can be as destructive as an explosive projectile if it is traveling at a high enough velocity, essentially transferring its kinetic energy through impact force instead of relying on an explosive blast to cause damage; this principle is the basis behind weapons like railguns, which use extremely high speeds to launch solid projectiles with devastating effects.
At that speed, the rail gun projectiles would likely give off a massive pressure wave. So, not only has this thing put a brick of metal through your ship, the pressure wave has vacuumed out the compartment (and any adjacent compartment not sealed via bulkhead) and more than likely fractured your keel. This thing would probably, meme withstanding, snap the boat in half.
While I'm not sure where America is with the technology, apparently Japan has one that doesn't rend itself apart while firing. Or, at least, one that's stable enough to be put in the official Japanese Defense Budget.
The sheer velocity would be far more destructive than simply putting holes in ships.
The rail gun will over pressurize any space that it goes through and as it leaves it will create a vacuum, creating a push - pull effect ripping equipment off of mounts and killing people in those spaces by pulling them through the hole.
A Laser can be countered by a rainy day, clouds, fog, smoke ^^ Its well.... light.
I think the new Manta is cool technology, a drone submarine that can stay under water indefinitely, and many can be deployed for surveillance and other activities) in any body of water.
The thing to understand about costs is that the US Military Industrial complex takes in more money annually than most nations total GDP.
Laser can't be countered xD - nice one. Did you ever heard of white paint? Or mirror coating. If the lasers came to active use we will just get very shiny missiles. It's hard to counter that counter- probably main reason why you don't see more of them on ships.
You can find CIWS decorated with minion or R2D2 graphics. Generally around Halloween.
The rail gun when fired is moving so fast it will put a small hole on one side of the ship and take a full panel off the other side of the ship. Not to manthing evrything it goes through turns into shrapnel moving almost as fast as the round.
Railgun has to replace its barrel basically every shot, otherwise it would already be standard-issue on U.S. naval vessels. The energy requirement doesn't help but it's feasible, anyway - the barrel wear 'n tear is something else entirely though.
23:39 I don’t think you realize how much we pay in taxes. I just did some quick math and it’s less then 30 people paying taxes there whole life to buy the 18m rocket
Laser weapons are already effective against missiles and drones making them ideal as a supplementary close in weapons system to bolster existing ones. Mounted on a nuclear powered vessel it has essentially unlimited ammo making it relatively cheap and versatile. Pretty much all of the existing test systems are powerful enough to be considered overkill for sinking pirates prowling the world's international shipping lanes.
lol love that the railgun design that was used for the thumbnail was from Transformers 2😅
There's a famous photo of a battleship firing all it's cannons broadside. It blew that massive ship a few miles off course lol. But it was able to fire all its cannons at one time in the same direction lol
It moved it 3 feet not a fucking mile
@freedomefighterbrony9053 i said "off course" not that it moved it a few miles. When later ships like the Iowa or jersey fire it doesn't move at all because of the recoil system they use. If I remember I will try to find the ship I was referring to. Off course doesn't mean it went flying miles sideways lol
Typically they don't fire all exactly at the same time either. They fire in sequence.... a rapid sequence that almost looks simultaneously, but its not
A railgun round goes through a ship like a bullet through a human. It would mess up so much just from the force of the impact.
Atmospheric conditions effect laser performance greatly
The US Navy has the most ships and boats in the world, I've read, based on how you count them, the US Army has the second largest amount of boats in the world because of all the boats the Corps of Engineers use for dam and canal maintenance and interior search and rescue. China claims they're the largest navy, but they're counting rowboats and barges.
TY and really enjoy your content and expertise on the videos.
A railgun on a tank would be a massive advantage in tank vs tank warfare. I mean APFSDS is allready just a metal dart.
Normally, competition reduces prices. But in military weapon production, quality is more important than price. See Russian and North Korean missiles, rockets, mortars as examples of poor quality. But yes, prices should be less. Every upgrade of a weapon increases future costs. All the older technology has been improved often as electronic enhancements are made every few years.
This is true, but we do overpay these contracts because there is no negotiations going on its just "oh its that much? okay" (oversimplified obviously but you get my point)
@@sologamer3122 true
Hey buddy just to give you a heads up the real gun doesn't need a warhead for the simple fact that it is a kinetic energy weapon upon impact it will annihilate something for more destructive than even a 2000 lb Warhead
US navy needs to just be a telephone company. With the railgun sending huge objects for miles and the one missle that was a land to air missile that they strap to a f 15 thats control by a separate aircraft. "Collect call for you"
The United States Navy has abandoned the railgun project because it's too hot. You can only fire it twice before it starts to melt its mountain platform. The platform is made of a combination of carbon fiber and tungsten.
The CIWS is also know as the Angry R2-D2.
@originalHuman There is a small mistake in the air force numbers you mentionned. The 10 largest military branches by number of aircraft's as of 2022 are:
1: USAF (United States Air Force) 5213 aircrafts
2:USAA (United States Army Aviation) 4443 aircrafts
3: Russian air force 3864 aircrafts
4: USN (United States Navy) 2404 aircrafts
5: PLAAF (People's Libreation Army Air Force, China) 1992 aircrafts
6: Indian Air Force 1728 aircrafts
7: USMC (United States Marine Corp) 1240 aircrafts
8: Egyptian Air Force 1069 aircrafts
9: Korean People's Army Air Force (North Korea) 947 aircrafts
10: South Korean Air Force 905 aircrafts
If we were to be fair to everyone and include ALL of US aircrarft assets in one single force, it would consist of 13 300 aircrafts. Roughly 3.5 times the aircrafts Russia has and 6.5 times what China has. Both of those being the two "near peer" adversary the USA can envision, things are looking mighty fine on the aviation side.
Edit, typo. I added one zero to many to the total aircraft number.
It could fire all weapons at once. Every weapon has its own crew. Some even have their own radar and targeting computers. So in theory, yes. But, would it be effective?
Everything in America is stupid expense. Hell, the gooberment was paying 27,000 dollars for a hammer anybody could buy at Sears for under 30 bucks. I got a midget right angle ratcheting screw driver with a specialty but that's 3&1/2 inches long, 3/8 of an inch wide, and gooberment price tag of 12,000 dollars. It's absolutely ridiculous what politicians pay for when it's not their money being spent.
A huge problem with the rail gun is a hypersonic projectile is going to bleed speed at a much higher rate, so while the muzzle velocity may be high, it won't be nearly that fast at 150mi. It's the same reason why the Russians claimed the Kinjhal missile was hypersonic but could still be shot down by Patriot systems. And Aegis is even better at target tracking and interception than Patriot is.
Also, in terms of profits, the US mil-industry has one of the slimmest profit margins of any industry. If you were to combine all of the profits of the top 5 biggest US military contractors for 2023, it's ~50 billion dollars. If you compare to other big US companies That number really isn't very impressive. For example, with Apple: 169 billion, Amazon: 270 billion, Walmart: 157 billion, Microsoft: 171 billion, Google(Alphabet): 174 billion.
At a certain point it’s just easier to say a projectile going that fast is just moving at Mach fuck.
That projectile moves 11x faster than a fighter jet.
Problem they have with the rail gun is, it only takes a few rounds to essentially melt the internal components of the gun itself. So, long-term use of the system is not yet viable.
What if they design the system to be modular so you could switch out new components quickly
15:04 ……. A mirror will counter a lazer lmao 😂
Sir, you need to take a look at the U.S.A.F.’s new weapon called the Quick Sink, delivered by the B2.
Another weapon system is called Rapid Dragon though this one is not so much an anti ship it’s still a scary one.
US Navy has a weapon that is top secret. I cannot tell you what it is, but I can tell you what it does. If an enemy fleet was to attack ally.... They can fire this weapon, it will go to the bottom of the ocean, under the fleet, and explode, creating a giant air bubble. Now if you know about water and pressure, imagine what size this bubble will be, by the time is gets to the surface. Depending on the depth, the air pocket it creates, will be the size of the fleet. Now think about what happens to a ship, if all of a sudden, all the water under the ship, is gone. Yah, entire fleet sunk, in a blink of an eye. Ships just falling and water crashing in on all sides. 100% effective. One shot, all killed. This is a secret weapon, but very very real.
Lasers are cool. But they don't like mirrors or slippery surfaces regardless of power
Can't you just deflect the laser with a mirror. Imagine an aircraft covered in mirrors lol
The Gerald R. Ford was built with extra nuclear reactors to prepare for the laser and rail gun. They are getting ready.
Dissepointed that the Norwegian NSM Naval Strike Missile was not mentioned.
Nothing is free. You don't carry ammo for a laser....but you do carry fuel to generate the electricity to fire it. At least with conventional ammo you'll recognize your magazines are empty before you've burned your ability to skedaddle.
"So, relatively old then. 1982."
Ya, that's me.
Ain't that some sh*t? hahaha
That Rail gun can literally shoot into space.
The CIWS used to be nicknamed R2D2 .
go watch "battleship" and youll see a Arleigh Burke class destroyer shoot all of its ordinance at once lool
That is a true fact. The largest airports in the world is the US Air force, and the second largest is the US Navy. Mainly because the US Navy comprises not only the Navy but the Marine Corps as well.
What does a meteor do when it impacts earth, even just all metal ones, metal at high speed explodes.
So, the US Air Force is the strongest with the Navy at number two. However, the Army is number 4 and the Marines are number 5.
The rail gun isn't being used because of power consumption. The problem is that the shots stress the barrel to the point where it wears out way too fast.
We don’t call the CIWS a Minion. We call it R2D2.
The US should prioritize improving their navy now more than ever.
Laser weapons would only be able to be used as anti-materials.
“Article 1 of the 1995 Protocol IV to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons provides:
It is prohibited to employ laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision, that is to the naked eye or to the eye with corrective eyesight devices. The High Contracting Parties shall not transfer such weapons to any State or non-State entity.
Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, Vienna, 13 October 1995, Article 1.”
Don't get hung up on the dollar cost of these weapon systems. It doesn't mean what you think it does. It's a measure of the economic activity that goes into the finished product, starting with the cost of mining the raw materials, cost to develop designs, fabrication of all the parts, assembly and testing, then delivery and emplacement in the firing platform. Most of this is wages of all the people who contributed to the process, so it's really the cost of labor. All those wages and services are taxed, so a large portion of the cost returns to the tax pot. A portion is profit which is also taxed. Of course all those people who had a hand in making the weapons have good jobs and create economic activity and growth within their communities.
Money isn't real, it's just an idea that enables people to work together on a common goal in return for food and all the other necessities of life. The US is the largest economy in the world which is why they are the only ones with the resources to put into very advanced weapon systems.
A laser cannot shoot over the horizon only in a straight line. So at just a couple dozen miles it's ineffective.
I love when people doubt the rail gun lol. The US gov isnt dumping billions into the project because its not gonna be viable. Once a weapon reaches stage 3, the odds of the US keeping it and using it is 80%. The issue with the railgun is the amount of times you can shoot it without it being reusable. If you can only shoot 10 times, its not practicle to use on a ship that will require far more than 8 shots, so they would rather use other weapon systems till then. But once we figure out a metal composition that wont warp, its game over...
Watch the video over the rail gun… it explodes without explosives lol
i personally never trust these videos with the AI thumbnails with the insane sci fi images.
Fun fact: the weapon in the thumbnail is a rail gun from transformers revenge of the fallen haha.
the thumbnail used is the railgun from transformers revenge of the fallen
@@rubenrangel973 thanks for letting me know. im more into movies like Nobody (personally my favorite movie) so i did not realize its from a movie. thanks for letting me know
@@T0X1C-WA5TE thought it was AI too XD
they missed the M2 as well as the AGM-88 Harpoon if that ones still in use so yeah
Watch a video on the new anti consumer drone weapons platforms coming out, if you could. Thinking specifically of the Leonidas. I forget if it was Warfronts (previously warographics) that had a recent video on it, or one of Simon's other channels. But that thing is F'ing mad lol.
Also the US Navy has an Army that has an Airforce that’s larger than most other Nations Airforce!