Chinese Outflank US Navy, Develop First Railgun for Ready for Warships

a reply to: Beowolfs

Phalanx has been in service close to 40 years. It works against small boats, but its primary mission is air defense.

We’re worried about rail guns when their subs have repeatedly avoided radar detection, stalk, and pop up within striking distance to our carriers since 2006.

a reply to: CajunMetal

Radar won't detect any sub. And there's a big difference between "we're sailing between here and there" and "we're at war with someone". Even if they detect the subs, there's not much they can do to keep them from coming up near the group, beyond some sonar harassment.

originally posted by: Power_Semi
This is ATS, the answer is simple:

We is AMERIKI - WE IS THE BEST AT EVERYTHING - WE HAS THE BEST OF EVERYTHING>

AMERIKI can NEVER LOSE - BECAUSE WE IS AMERIKI.

WHOOP HOLLER - AMERIKI.

ETC.

Sadly delusion does not equal reality.

Your entire fleet was wiped out in 30 minutes by speedboats in one war games, the answer to this monumentally game-changing conundrum?

Reset the game and make it against the rules to use the same tactics.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Unfortunately in a real conflict you can't do that, and firing $100 million dollar missiles from $120 Billion dollar warships is useless if 50 $10K speedboats can wipe you out in 30 minutes.

But hey - THIS IS AMERIKIII !!!!!!

Drinking the IRGC mighty swarm attack kool-aid are we?

a reply to: BigDave-AR

Millennium Challenge 2002.

originally posted by: WarPig1939
a reply to: JDmOKI

and a rail gun can tear a ship in half if given the right aim and enough velocity long before the chance to return fire. Those 15 carriers could be reduced to less than 10 before the Chinese could be neutralized.

Never underestimate your adversary

No they cant you are way overestimating the force of a rail gun. Missile impacts do far more damage and using a rail gun to kill an aircraft carrier would take a huge amount of hits. This is why the navy leeps putting off wail guns because they can pack a missile with explosives and hit an object with much greater force. Rail guns are cool bit even things like shore bombardment the impact isn't what's important its the boom afterwards that counts. The advantage of a rail gun was supposed to be the same as shells but smaller meaning you could store more. But reality is HE rounds still do more damage. Another major disadvantage is hit a hull at to much an angle and your rail gun does almost no damage as it deflects off it. With HE rounds even a glance causes them to go boom.

originally posted by: Beowolfs
a reply to: Zaphod58

Seems like a shame to have spent millions of $$ creating that machine, when a good ole guided missile suck as the Raytheon Pike 40 mm would have done the trick.
www.youtube.com...

You must be joking that is a light weapons system and 2kms or range? Yeah that’s going to be able to replace a rail gun able to fling projectiles with much more energy over 100x the range. Not to mention half the advantage of the rail gun is being totally inert no warhead explosive filler and no propellant which makes safe logistics many times easier and makes for a more survivable ship. Any ship hit in its weapon storage magazine is going to be in a world of hurt. 40mike mike give me a break.

a reply to: dragonridr

Killing carriers isn't as hard as people claim. You don't have to sink them to kill them. A rail gun projectile has the advantage of being small and impossible to shoot down, unlike missiles. They'll pretty easily punch holes in the deck too.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: BigDave-AR

Millennium Challenge 2002.

I remember this but I have serious doubts of Iran’s capability in the real world with a wall of CWIS to be able to sink US warships. It seems to me that even their seamines didn’t sink a US warship thanks to some very good damage control it was taken out of the battle but loses were minimal. And I seem to remember them getting their come-upens when we made control retaliatory strikes.

originally posted by: CajunMetal
We’re worried about rail guns when their subs have repeatedly avoided radar detection, stalk, and pop up within striking distance to our carriers since 2006.

In a conflict active sonars would be used meaning no sneaking up. Right now they only use active sonar during tests do to the fact its harmful to wildlife. So even during excersizes they only use passive sonar. Meaning a Chinese sub can sit and wait until fleet is above them and pop up. Dont think they are moving there they arent they just sit and wait. If they moved would be detected.

originally posted by: dragonridr

originally posted by: CajunMetal
We’re worried about rail guns when their subs have repeatedly avoided radar detection, stalk, and pop up within striking distance to our carriers since 2006.

In a conflict active sonars would be used meaning no sneaking up. Right now they only use active sonar during tests do to the fact its harmful to wildlife. So even during excersizes they only use passive sonar. Meaning a Chinese sub can sit and wait until fleet is above them and pop up. Dont think they are moving there they arent they just sit and wait. If they moved would be detected.

Hiding in the prop wash of those huge screws makes a nice way to track a carrier BG. Also your generally going to have a attack sub as part of the carrier group for any real world op we could have had a firing solution on their sub and just chose not to advertise it, let them have their little victory while you know chances are good the enemy sub would be smoked before getting amongst the CBG.

originally posted by: dragonridr

originally posted by: CajunMetal
We’re worried about rail guns when their subs have repeatedly avoided radar detection, stalk, and pop up within striking distance to our carriers since 2006.

In a conflict active sonars would be used meaning no sneaking up. Right now they only use active sonar during tests do to the fact its harmful to wildlife. So even during excersizes they only use passive sonar. Meaning a Chinese sub can sit and wait until fleet is above them and pop up. Dont think they are moving there they arent they just sit and wait. If they moved would be detected.

Thank you for the explanation! And for not calling me out for saying radar instead of sonar haha

I was replying to a comment made by "Toysforadults" about the Phalanx CIWS.
Without question, one cannot even compare the guided missile I suggested to a rail gun.

a reply to: BigDave-AR

a reply to: BigDave-AR

CIWS has its own issues. One of the big ones is simply its range. A missile hit close enough is still going to throw debris into the ship, and some of that debris is going to do a good bit of damage to the ship.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: dragonridr

Killing carriers isn't as hard as people claim. You don't have to sink them to kill them. A rail gun projectile has the advantage of being small and impossible to shoot down, unlike missiles. They'll pretty easily punch holes in the deck too.

They are not made of paper either of course the deck can be damaged. The odds of sinking one just using a rail gun not good. It would take more hits then a missile that would be tracking the ship doing the firing. The only advantage to a rail gun is the it cant be stopped in flight. Its disadvantage is it needs a straight firing solution. It does not and cannot effectively fire over the horizon.

Ill have to see if i can find that report i read from the navy again. But in it they compared the HE rounds and rail guns. And determined that HE rounds were more effective in shore bombardment. This is truly the only purpose left for mounting guns on a ship .

a reply to: dragonridr

A carrier is a bitch and a half to put under. But unlike almost every other type in the fleet, you don't have to put one under to soft kill it. If you're willing to risk big, you can pop a torpedo or smart mine near the screws. Take out a couple screws and she's not going fast enough to launch aircraft.

Pop a few railgun rounds into the deck, and do enough damage to the deck, and she's not launching aircraft. Getting through the defenses around her isn't an easy task, but it can be done, and all you have to do is prevent her from launching aircraft, and she's effectively useless.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: dragonridr

A carrier is a bitch and a half to put under. But unlike almost every other type in the fleet, you don't have to put one under to soft kill it. If you're willing to risk big, you can pop a torpedo or smart mine near the screws. Take out a couple screws and she's not going fast enough to launch aircraft.

Pop a few railgun rounds into the deck, and do enough damage to the deck, and she's not launching aircraft. Getting through the defenses around her isn't an easy task, but it can be done, and all you have to do is prevent her from launching aircraft, and she's effectively useless.

Im mostly trying to point out rail guns arent magic and one shot is going to sink a carrier most likely take hundreds of shots. People tend to over estimate the power of rail guns because they believe its high tech. I dont think most people truly realize just how big carriers are and giw much they can be compartmentalized.

a reply to: dragonridr

Which you're right on. One shot isn't going to do much. I'm simply pointing out that you don't have to put one under, railgun or not.

Railguns only have a range of around 100 miles which is not far at all in modern naval warfare. Supersonic or hypersonic anti-ship missiles on the other hand can have a range of 1,000 miles or more.

The battleship became obsolete in WW2 and so did big guns.

Long range guided anti-ship missiles launched from ships, subs and aircraft are the primary naval weapons, not short range guns shooting unguided projectiles.

If you could shoot some kind of powered guided projectile it might be more useful but then it is starting to become a guided missile, which don't need to be shot out of a big gun.

Don't worry. For anyone who's ever owned a Chinese made product knows, their products always break down just 1 week past the warranty expiration date.