The Gauss Rifle (Question)

Gauss Rifles (as a 'coil gun') are some things I've built a few times and messed around with.

The problem they have, though, is control. You need very high speed, high power, high-voltage switching. That's expensive.

They can be fairly efficient if you can match the expansion and collapse of the field with the motion of the projectile. You have to watch 'ringing' in the coil - inductors are power storage devices, and that can cause problems when you don't want any power to be in the coil.

The other big problem is back-EMF creating a voltage spike on par with a tesla coil. That really makes use of semiconductors tricky.

I actually do not expect much from coil guns until the inherent problem with an inductor can be resolved. The inductor resists changes in the state of its magnetic field - and since you need the magnetic field to go from 'zero' to 'max' (and back to 'zero') as quickly as possible, this makes effective use a very difficult problem.

Room temperature superconductors is where it's at, with this one. Your actual coil may or may not be of superconducting material (probably best if it is not), but rather than using capacitors to store your power, you would use a superconducting inductor that you would drain into your firing coil(s). Since the current through the superconductor is nearly infinite (and an inductor converts its magnetic field into voltage necessary to maintain the current in the system) - you get almost instantaneous response from your firing coil, and the voltage with which you supply your system is irrelevant.

Then all of it will come down to switching control and preventing arcing.

A 'rail gun' on the other hand has its own problems. Notably is the corrosion of the rails. That will not be able to be solved until a physical connection with the rails is no longer necessary.

Both designs would function better in a vacuum - as has already been mentioned, the various atmospheric forces that come into play when you are sending a projectile down a barrel at mach 4+ can easily destroy your toy.

well still theres the act of reloading witc is a hastle and could get you killed on a battle feild so i would go for a rechargeing act of reloading so if your desprite you can over heat it and throw KABOOM and ether youve won or your out a gun and your screwd

COWlan
Railguns use a EM burst to fire projectiles, am I right? Wouldn't that fry the electronic equipments nearby? E.g. Walkie Talkie, Nightvision, infared vision, ATGMs and others?

If you want to get technical, a railgun does not use a EM burst, or magnets for that matter. A Railgun uses to parallel rails that have a very high current running to them, when the conductive projectile enters the chamber, it completes the circuit allowing the current to pass from one rail to the other propelling the projectile out of the muzzle.

A gauss gun uses very powerful electromagnets to create a magnetic field to pull the iron based projectile to "fire" it. The problem with either system is the power requirements for one. A practical rail gun has never been made small enough to be hand-held by a soldier, and a Gauss rifle would require a battery pack at least to give the operator a very limited number of shots before having to recharge the pack.

The US Navy has a Railgun mounted on a destroyer for testing, and it does get incredible speeds (around 10 miles a second), but the rails have to be replaced every 100 shots (give or take 100), so it is not to feasible for combat operations.

Milburnt55

COWlan
Railguns use a EM burst to fire projectiles, am I right? Wouldn't that fry the electronic equipments nearby? E.g. Walkie Talkie, Nightvision, infared vision, ATGMs and others?

If you want to get technical, a railgun does not use a EM burst, or magnets for that matter. A Railgun uses to parallel rails that have a very high current running to them, when the conductive projectile enters the chamber, it completes the circuit allowing the current to pass from one rail to the other propelling the projectile out of the muzzle.

A gauss gun uses very powerful electromagnets to create a magnetic field to pull the iron based projectile to "fire" it. The problem with either system is the power requirements for one. A practical rail gun has never been made small enough to be hand-held by a soldier, and a Gauss rifle would require a battery pack at least to give the operator a very limited number of shots before having to recharge the pack.

The US Navy has a Railgun mounted on a destroyer for testing, and it does get incredible speeds (around 10 miles a second), but the rails have to be replaced every 100 shots (give or take 100), so it is not to feasible for combat operations.

Dang ,
Really?
Only get technical if you know what your getting on about.
A gauss gun is a fictional item, from a video game none the less.
In principal there is no difference between a "gauss gun", a rail gun or a coil gun, they all work on the basic principles of electro magnetism.
The projectile is charged, positive ,negative doesn't matter.
An electro magnetic field is generated within a magnet, that is part of a series of switchable magnets, the first charge is opposite of the projectile. As it passes the first magnet it polarity is switched to like polarity. Then the second magnet is switched to opposite polarity which pulls the projectile towards it, while the like charged magnet pushes the projectile away from it, and so on down the " barrel".
I know such things because an engineering proffessor of mine worked on the initial rail gun project at Lawrence Livermore labs, for several summers in the '80's.
He kept a piece of armor plate on his desk, that was pierced by a 10 mm lexan projectile at 23,000 feet per second. Atmospheric friction was enough to turn the lexan plug into a charged plasma as it left the barrel.
There has been several sticking points in the progress of EM launchers,
Power supply
Mechanical integrity of the barrel
Magnet switching
And lastly heat dissipation.
Power supplies have been a huge hurdle, in the early days each shot used enough power to light a small city.
There have ,,been major advances in capacitors in the last couple decades, that make it possible for
a ship to be able to support a weapon of that sort.
There is no way such a weapon will ever be man portable, and until a fundemental breakthrough is made in power supply, it will never vehicle mounted.
The only real difference between systems is the basic arrangement of magnets .
A coil gun uses a series of donut magnets , and the electro magnetic repulsive forces of like charges supports the projectile as it travels down the barrel.
A rail gun uses magnets imbedded in the rails themselves, early on there were four rails in a square configuration, the current incarnation uses 2 rails.
One of the hardest things to overcome is the tremendous forces of repellent like charges.
The first barrels would literally rip themselves apart as the projectile moved down the barrel.
The other thing that has been a roadblock is heat, not only the heat generated by air friction, but the heat generated within the magnet system, from the increadably high current loads involved.

Dang , Really? Only get technical if you know what your getting on about. A gauss gun is a fictional item, from a video game none the less.

A gauss gun is not a fictional item from a video game.
en.wikipedia.org...

It uses electromagnets to fire the projectile, and is also called a coilgun, and there is no need for the projectile to be charged.

In principal there is no difference between a "gauss gun", a rail gun or a coil gun, they all work on the basic principles of electro magnetism.

Not true, a railgun does not use magnets in its operation.
science.howstuffworks.com...

You may want to wipe some of that egg off your face.

reply to post by e 2 e k 1 a 7


The technical problem with gauss cannons is the switching speed of the magnets.

You have a line of magnetic coils, and as the projectile moves through the first one, it has to immediatly switch polarity and start pushing the projectile... and the next one has to turn on quickly and start pulling the projectile...

All th eway down the barrel, faster and faster, these magnets must switch.

Not too much of a problem, except for the following problem.

In order to generate the type of magnetic fields nessecary for REALLY putting the muscle power behind the magnets, they have to be superconductive....

And superconductive magnets do NOT like being switched quickly.

Because of their lack of resistance to current flow, eddy currents (Back EMF induced current flow that creates counter magnetic fields) are incredibly strong...

And so, expanding or contracting the magnetic field is painfully slow.

If you know someone who does MRI work.... ask them how long it takes to fully warm up the MRI machine... it's not quickly, I can guarantee you that.

Just thougth I would throw this out here for you lads..

en.wikipedia.org...

The Emals system is one slated for the new Gerald Ford class aircraft carriers.

What this means is that any power requirements are already built/designed into carrier..verses the older steam catapult systems. Meaning the power source is more readily there if the gun can be refined and difficulties overcome.
If not sufficient ..a dedicated generating source will be fitted in if the wrinkles are ironed out of this gun.

This means it is true of certain surface ships being built as well as submarines. The power sources are already there.

There have been significant advances in the last 20 years in power designs..motor designs etc. Some of them have been posted here on ATS. More or the same work being done and accomplished with less power. Better motor effeciency better bearinigs/less friction..less power requirements. Batteries too have made significant progress...very significant progress.

Just some informations for some of you to consider along with the title of this thread.

I found this thread to be interesting in view of some of the gear I have seen on the power generating side.

I am also asking myself if the businesses invested in gunpowder and todays explosives would even want this type of system to be perfected?? Politically..meaning economically..ie..profits.

Also thinking that with those acceleration rates/velocities/delta/rate of change..would the fusing in some of todays projectiles need a major refit to be reliable??
Those numbers quoted indicate some very very rapid rates of acceleration.
Would conventional explosives even be needed or even desired?? Just some rabid wild thoughts.

Thanks,
Orangetom

reply to post by orangetom1999


Your comments concerning EMALS pretty well sum up why Gauss / Rail / Coil guns (yes, I know they're not the same, but this applies to all of the above) aren't all over the battlefield has less to do with some odd conspiracy, and more to do with the fact that the technology simply is not battlefield ready. Anything a current-technology Gauss / Rail / Coil gun can do, a conventional gun can do in full Daft Punk mode (Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, hour after hour! ). Until that changes, there's no reason to go to the trouble and expense of establishing a whole new logistical "tail" to support the technology. Once the new tech gives a significant advance over the current tech, you'll see it move into general military use.

On a side track...why in Neptune's name would a submarine need a rail gun?

Aren't Gauss guns fundamentally weak to electromagnetic shielding?

An electromagnetic shield that had some ability to deflect the path of incoming ordinary bullets, should work much better on the projectiles fired by Gauss rifles, coil guns, etc, shouldn't it?

punkinworks10
Dang ,
Really?
Only get technical if you know what your getting on about.
A gauss gun is a fictional item, from a video game none the less.

First time I read about a gauss rifle it was in a book titled The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge published in 1970, probably older than whatever videogame you were thinking of (unless pong used one, even then that was 1972).

Gauss rifles were also in the RPG Traveller which (I think) was published in 1977.

Recoil of a Gauss Rifle, cannon or gun needs to be dampened. Lengthening the barrel helps but that backwards force of a projectile being pushed out of the barrel and Mach 7 + generates a lot of recoil.

On a rail gun, the recoil is at the breach but also along the rails. The field pushes back and out as the projectile moves forward. This would warp the rails making it a one trick pony.

I'll have to find the article, but I remember reading something about a tank mounted Gauss cannon flipping the tank over upon firing.

reply to post by 11andrew34


Gauss rifle shots are no more (or less) vulnerable to being deflected by E-M shielding than conventional slugs based on their composition. If anything, due to their much higher velocity, they'd be harder to deflect, thanks to a combination of higher kinetic energy and less time for the shielding to have any impact (no pun intended, there) on the round.