via DefenseTech.
BAE Systems officials said an electromagnetic rail gun firing a kinetic energy warhead could be a real option for the Army’s next generation Future Fighting Vehicle, which the service hopes to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.That little blurb on DT got little notice.
Following the cancellation of the Ground Combat Vehicle, Army officials said they want the defense industry to offer a wide range of technologies before the Army decides whether to pursue the Future Fighting Vehicle, or an additional Bradley upgrade.
BAE Systems presented a host of possible technologies at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference last week. Among those was a model of the electromagnetic rail gun the company is developing for the Navy.
The rail gun, which can hit ranges of 100 miles or more, uses electricity stored on the ship to generate a high-speed electromagnetic pulse sufficient to propel a kinetic energy warhead. The result is an inexpensive, high-impact and long-range offensive weapon, service officials said.
BAE has done nothing to shout the news to the roof tops. But if they're right this could place us on the verge of a revolution in warfare that will rival the introduction of gunpowder, jet propulsion for airplanes and nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
This literally could change armored warfare forever. Imagine. Being able to put fire on targets from a tank gun that normally would require rocket artillery! Think about the possibility of miniaturizing it so that IFV suddenly become tank killers with their standard guns. Naval artillery could strike from offshore deep into a continent. Combat on the high seas would see the aircraft carrier revert to a supporting role for modern day battleships.
I'm just spit balling these examples but you get the point.
One little blurb on DT has HUGE implications for the future...and most people missed it.
Ye Olde Brits and their Centurion/Chieftan Design.
ReplyDeleteWhen the day comes when a Tank can carry a battery pack which can allow it to use its electro-magnetic gun about 50-100 times in a single charge where re-charging should not take more than 30 mins and also power other electricals in the Tank.....that is the day even human soldiers will be wearing those Power Assisted Suits of Armor/Utility (PASA/U).
ReplyDeleteAnd a new type of Active protection system will also be in the making if vehicles and humans can carry all that energy with them. The APS detects an incomming projectile and activates a JUMP Protocol allowing you to jump 10 feet in the air and avoid the projectile.
But 2 critical technologies are holding us back. Energy Storage and semi/super-conductor materials research.
i think you're missing the force of connection here. hybrid drive engines are used currently to drive the vehicles quietly and to power onboard systems. why not divert that energy to weapons and even use the normal engine to power weapons? you're talking more like a star trek warp drive feeding lasers than having to develop a new power pak type battery....i think.
Delete^^^ +1
DeleteEnergy storage is critical for something like a tank. Even if you used the full power output from the engine, it just isn't enough to do the job. You will need some really, really great supercapacitors to have a chance of making this work.
Ships and dedicated artillery batteries is where I see this being utilised for quite a while. I can just see a one of our old nuke subs popping up out of the blue and decimating a whole coastline worth of military targets. Or a new sub dedicated for it.
The power just isn't there in the engine, Solomon. Using the engine alone, your projectile would have nearly a tenth of the energy a regular DU round would, basing it off of the pure horsepower to watt/joules. That's with a 2000 horsepower engine, without all the efficiency losses. You can't do it with current battery or capacitor tech.
DeleteSolomon, I would not completly reply on engine power to power up my main gun other wise you will get the old Italian Vespa Scooter Phenomenon. On old scooters the horn of the scooters was linked up with the engine RPM, the faster you went the more the sound of the horn. I know this because I happen to have a old vespa nicely preserved which when i used to drive, i used to rev like a mad man before honking.
DeleteThough I agree with your concept about Hybrid energy and the fact that all energy in an Armored Figthing Vehicle should be linked but should be produced from different sources. The Hybrid engine can take care of Tank Movement and electricals but the gun has have its own dedicated power.
Also, I am not talking about lazers though they could be a possibility. I am talking about the Electro Magnetic Cannon being refered to in the article and as mentioned in my above comment as well.
Requimin and Solomon-
DeleteActually come to think about it..the moment we solve the Energy Storage Problem, there wont be "Tanks" the way we see and imagine them now. Their caterpillar tracks will have been replaced by some hover system and they will be ball shaped hover thingies. Ball shaped because thats the best shape to be in ballistically and to minimize air resistance. Able to hover for a short time enough to get those pesky urban Rooftop Missileers and to jump cross rivers, crevaces and other small gradients. Pop over a tree line.....Boom....pop down the tree line. Hover Balls are hear to stay.
I believe it is dooable, but not in the ludicrous sense, more of a downscaled direct fire version, powered by an electric drive system hooked upto a battery and with a big capacitor on it. The capacitor would only need to hold enough power to fire one round and could potentially take several seconds to recharge. Even if it took 5 seconds to recharge that is still 12rpm which is pretty good since it would bassically be able to kill anything it hits.
DeleteThe munition stowage would be a combination of the nitrogen used to prevent the barrel being destroyed by oxygen igniting into plasma, and the rounds which would be very small. The vehicle would have to have a much more powerfull motor.
@ Everyone!
ReplyDeletelook i'm spit balling. BAE is saying that they can do this! not me! them! i'm a science fiction fan, not a hard science specialist. i'll tell ya what.
I CAN ASK!!!!! but i doubt they'll tell me how it can be done. one thing though. BAE has one of the best design shops for armored vehicles on the planet. they've thrown away more great designs than military forces have in service so i'd doubt them with care.
we got your pint Solomon, even we are spit balling here and like the opportunity to write our thoughts here on your blog. Its just that future tech. is such a imaginative topic that all or non of out ideas could come true. And thats the beauty of speculation which all of us are doing.
DeleteAs a post about a Tank of the Future, the way past history has shown here....this post will recieve many many more comments i am sure.
Sorry. :P
Deleteno problem guys. quite honestly i was just a bit embarrassed by how quickly my thoughts were getting shot down on possible solution. its beyond good, i was just saying that i'm a know nothing on the topic but would ask the experts!
Delete"BAE Systems officials said an electromagnetic rail gun firing a kinetic energy warhead could be a real option for the Army’s next generation Future Fighting Vehicle, which the service hopes to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle."
ReplyDeleteBAE officals are full of it, ill tell you that right now.
Rail guns are fundamentally flawed in almost every conceivable way. Their usefulness on a naval ship is very questionable for a wide variety of reasons, but the main two problems are: Recoil and energy requirements.
On an armored vehicle, these two problems completely undue ground application from the beginning.
Examining what rail guns are, they theoretically propel a ferrous rod at hyper velocity, like an magnetically propelled sabot round. The problem with this is that sabots/rail gun ferrous projectils are very good at penetrating things, which means the only application they are useful for is penetrating hardened structures and enemy armor, which existing tank projectiles already succeed at. The railgun is literally a rube goldbergian way to punch holes in things.
Second, it is a physical impossibility to have any kind of other munition besides a penetrator. No HEAT, HE, or any other type of munition is possible, due to the ferrous material requirement for propelling the damn thing. Since tanks are more likely to be used against enemy infantry postions, softer skinned vehicles, and emplacements, where HE and similar anti-personnel or anti-obstacle munitions excel, the rail gun's usefulness on a tank is limited.
Last, the recoil. They produce enormous recoil that keeps them from being used on ships like the Zumwalt, which automatically rules out their feasible application on a armored chassis.
The future is not in rail guns. traditional tank munitions will continue to evolve and become more effective while railguns will continue to be revealed for the inapplicable wet dream that they really are.
your main argument seems to be recoil. recoil mitigation has been an issue since the 18 inch gun mounted on the Yamato class battleships. its always been successfully overcome. next you're talking about basically a hyper velocity round. aim that at a truck and hit it and the truck will be obliterated. not because of explosives in the shell but because of the speed of the round hitting an object.
Deletelike i said i'm not a science guy but the Navy and now the Army appear to be heading in this direction. last but not least if they can get even a 2 pound 8x8 piece of metal moving fast enough then you're talking about a huge supply of "ammo" AND the added benefit of carrying around munitions that are inert.
this is worth pursuing.
This addresses the problems more elaborately http://elpdefensenews.blogspot.com/2014/04/floating-rail-gun.html
DeleteMain main arguments are
1.) Energy requirements
2.) Recoil (equal and opposite reactions dont end with rail guns)
3.) Ferrous-metal only rods (lack of aluminum, tungsten, DU, and GPS or laser guided projectiles)
4.) Astronomical complexity and expense
5.) Inherently delicate
6.) Short service life
and finally, the fact that their existence is purely theoretical. If they were indeed applicable, they would only be useful for a handful of purposes, except with the problem being that guns and missiles can do more jobs more effectively while having a minimal of those aforementioned problems on the list.
Like stealth and electronic armor, they are the engineer woo of military technology.
but its good to discuss things. I just see them as another nail in the coffin of the US military overwhelmed and bankrupted by needless complexity and expense.
Bae say that like LM saind in 2001 we can do the F35...
ReplyDeleteZumalt are litterally electric central... don't expect to do this on tanks.
Perhaps they coun on an MBT that fire little dart, less than 7.62 ??
well for anti-vehicle/armor fighting that would be enough if the round is dense enough and goes fast enough.
DeleteGentlemen, all arguments against a futuristic vehicle seem to based on a fact that its the lack of electric storage capacity in current battery tech to power up such a weapon system and vehicle systems. That argument was I am sure given in WW1 for portable Radio Sets, assorted batteries and other electronic devices. We all know what the status of electronics and electricity storage is in the current world.
ReplyDeleteI guess the point we are all missing here and Solomon is trying to point out here is that before most of us take our last breaths on this planet, these futuristic weapons and their "Enabling" technologies will effect us somehow.
@these futuristic weapons and their "Enabling" technologies will effect us somehow.@
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. This is photo of one of the first electro-mobiles(- La Jamais Contente, 1899 г.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Jamais_contente.jpg/250px-Jamais_contente.jpg
So after more the 100 years how many electrocars you watch in your window? I’m in my current window the center of Moscow see no one electro-car. “Civilization of sea” , which now firmly rules our God-forsaken world -is not interested at all in electro-energy as main source in the world – because this kind of energy has extremely another terms of storage and supply – you can’t transport electro-energy as such with a ship, only land based infrastructure.
So I guess for the next hundred years we do not find electro-tanks on the battlefield.
By-the-by, Russian prototype of BTR (“Krymsk”) with electro-transmission and hybrid engine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdD2pDVFMho
They haven't shown where they'll put the nuclear power plant it needs to fire, right?
ReplyDeleteSo this is vaporware.
Not to mention the effect of the magnets on the computer hard drives of the weapons suite.
DeleteYeah, for now to use a prototype MAC gun on ship we need to use a ship class power plant, this is still on the level of "not technically possible".
DeleteO. K. if this tank has such a kill-o-zap rail gun and is super bad ass why does it need two barrels?
ReplyDeleteBecause the Mammoth Z'... THE Mammoth :D
DeleteAnd this is just some graphic not a real concept. And you remember this sob? http://www.g2mil.com/hd-40front.jpg