The EM ( Electro Magnetic) Gun

If you have ever seen The Eraser you will know what an Em gun is. Is it real?

Please Post Reply

The concept and prototypes are certainly real.

The discovery of electricity came hand-in-hand with the realization that it could be use to harm and kill living things. In 1745, with the invention of the Leyden Jar (the first type of capacitor ever developed, invented in the University of Leiden, Netherlands), high power electrical discharges became a possibility, and with them came numerous salon shows where these discharges would be used to electrocute birds, rats and other small animals. Thomas Edison used AC power to electrocute cats, dogs, a horse, and even a 3-ton elephant. He also created the first electric chair, which ran on DC power and almost set the person to be executed on fire (nowadays they are AC). As our knowledge of electricity expanded so did the uses to which this most versatile form of power has been put to...continues powerlabs.org

sanc

Personally I wouldn't think that that gun on the Eraser exists, wasn’t it some kind of rail gun...
A weapon that would be used to kill someone using electricity wouldn't work because of the power and effectiveness that it would need to attain. In battle you couldn't stand there for a minute or two whilst you fried the enemy...
the resources would be too great too, a massive or really really good and powerful battery or a portable generator of some king would be needed and massive voltages attained to create a decent enough arc to zap the guy from more than a few feet.
Though in the future with the development of better batteries then maybe,,,

Self sustaining generators.

well they are developing Microwave guns to repel rioters and such. Making one that explodes people is a different story. They could make a maser that could fry a person in one qiuck blast, but what would be the point of even creating one. We don't have a mad rush to create laser guns like in starwars becuase a bullet still transfered more energy to the target, kills just as well if not better, is much smaller, and is a whole lot cheaper.

As for a long range tazer gun like laser weapon. We already have those.

They look like a rifle but they are attached to a power supply in a backback. THe rifle shoots out an infered laser beam which ionizes the air in a path for about 300 feet. The ionized air path now can act as a conduit for the electricity to flow down. They apply electricity to the laser beam and it gets carried like it's following a copper wire all the way to the target with little loss of watts. Invisible and probably effective. No huge power supply needed.

Rail guns (which the weapon in Eraser is) do exist but that they are huge. Too big to mount even on a tank (for Now)

To create one small enough to use as a rifle, would require a small sized power generator that could put out huge amounts of wattage. Something we probably can do, but not cost effectively.

Also, there are other problems people are having with the railguns besides how much juice they require. They have found that the magnetic coils burn out after a few fireings of the device. The rail gun is an old concept. The idea has been around for almost 100 years.

Another reason that the military doesn't care about building railguns that are intended to be used as rifles is because.

1. we have 50 cal sabot rounds that have the gun powder of a 50 cal. propelling a bullet that is much, much smaller than .50 cal. These bullets are used by SF for super high accuracy sniping through objects like van wind shields and thick plate glass office windows. They go so fast that they go through the window without loosing accuracy. For the times when the first shot must absolutely hit the target lethaly or innocent people will die.

2. A railgun slug could be travelling so fast that it over penetrates and leaves a clean wound channel that is far from lethal. A 223 round will cause far more damage if it penetrates with all it's tumbling that it does once inside a body.

Originally posted by -0mega-
Self sustaining generators.

How would these work?

Sounds very much like you're describing a perpetual motion machine.

I am wondering, these big rail guns, do they fire a uranium projectile at massive speed?

I agree with the argument that rail guns, if actually possible to be made portable, will have an even lesser effect than a standard metal bullet. though their penetration into hard substances such as walls of a house say.

personally i think that the concept is pointless and a waste of time, there is nothing wrong with the current bullet, in fact there is mant things that could be done to improve it. caseless ammo for instance.
that and the improvement of the weapons that fire them.


taser weapons could however be used for a less-lethal role, so long as they aren't powerful enough to explode someone.

Originally posted by Desert Dawg

Originally posted by -0mega-
Self sustaining generators.

How would these work?

Sounds very much like you're describing a perpetual motion machine.

Well I had a theory in mind.
Which is something like that, except that it STARTS by being driven by an external force. As an extra "bonus" to activate the generator, which from there (with the energy you supplied) activates a process which creates an effect similiar to a perpetual motion machine (preferably to one similiar to "the second kind" but not the same (eg.: heat transferred to energy might add to the big picture, but would not be the essence))

I already had some idea's that "might" technically work. But probably wouldn't work in reality =D

[edit on 11/3/07 by -0mega-]

[edit on 11/3/07 by -0mega-]

Originally posted by funny_pom
I am wondering, these big rail guns, do they fire a uranium projectile at massive speed?

From my own looking up most rail guns are made by universities , research groups or governments so the aquisition of radioactive materials is not easy. Most use small slugs chosen for thier ability to stand high temperatures and conduct electricity (though at a kilovolt most things are conductive lol) If you look up powerlabs you will see a small rail gun they built and he does explain the slug slightly and even shows test firing videos and lots of aquired information.

I agree with the argument that rail guns, if actually possible to be made portable, will have an even lesser effect than a standard metal bullet. though their penetration into hard substances such as walls of a house say.

I dont see rail guns personally being a "Trooper" level weapon, more like a support weapon like on a truck/tank/bipod or even used as artillery due to the need for a generator and large capacitors to store the charge required to send a slug flying for any reasonable distance.

personally i think that the concept is pointless and a waste of time, there is nothing wrong with the current bullet, in fact there is mant things that could be done to improve it. caseless ammo for instance.
that and the improvement of the weapons that fire them.

Caseless ammo has been availible for several years, look up the G-11 assault rifle and its ammunition, very interesting rifle and very impressive.
As for rail guns as a concept, you have to understand that many viewed the tank as a "Waste of time" due to its slow speed and vunerability of bad terrain and the fact it could be easily destroyed by a well trained artillery team but look now and you'll see they are a main armourment of most armies and are an effective weapon of war. Rail guns need not be mounted on tanks they can be effectively fitted to a warship since warships already require large generators to run shipboard systems (most civilian ships run a 6.6kv switch board or higher), thus one of the major requirements for a rail gun is met.

taser weapons could however be used for a less-lethal role, so long as they aren't powerful enough to explode someone.

You mean burn right? All a taser does is pass a small current through you , enough to be very painful , but wont make you explode. And an effective measure against tasers is to wear a simple rubber lined or full rubber material underneath or ontop of your clothing. Rubber does not conduct and taser will be rendered useless.

Well I'm thinking we'll probably see rail guns debut in space, where recoil becomes much more of an issue.

Until there is a pressing need for these weapons, the PTB will continue down the road of ABM and DEWs.

[edit on 11-3-2007 by sardion2000]

[edit on 11-3-2007 by sardion2000]

Heh, it'd be fun to see a railgun fly to it's own demise after shooting one "bullet".

Doesn't the AK or another weapon have something that counters recoil though?

Maybe something similiar can be used for the railgun.

[edit on 11/3/07 by -0mega-]

[edit on 11/3/07 by -0mega-]

Railguns use electro-magnetic fields to propel a projectile so the recoil would actually far far less. Since there is no "blast" to push back on the gun/cannon, the amount of recoil is greatly diminshed/eliminated completely. You can eliminate it in space by firing a blast of gas in the opposite direction in time with the firing of the gun. In space this would mean a recoiless Railgun.

Rail guns are probably best suited for ships and artillary roles. Maybe a sniper type weapon, but the fire rate would probably be dismal for a long time, but eventually the rail gun could become widely used. We origionally wanted the rail gun because the projectiles needed to be fired so fast that it would reduce the amount of computing work done to calculate a proper lead on ballistic missiles.

I think for anti personal purposes the rail gun would over penetrate and not transmit most of it's energy to the target. Maybe they are experimenting with different types of material, maybe a type that turns to powder when it hit's an object stransmitting the force more effectively into the target.

I know that the material used to make the slug the rail gun fires is probably important. I heard they were using molydnum, and Tungstun alloys. Maybe for conductance ability coupled with ability to resist shearing or pulverization my the friction with the air.

I know that railguns fired in space have had much higher projectile speeds. and the atmospheric speeds attained are limited to 5 MPS due to friction which destroys the slug. In space it's supposed to be a much higher speed.

Tazers. You are right they only put out a small current. Their voltage is super high to overcome resistance, thick clothes etc. The voltage is so high that wearing a rubber suit won't help. The darts can penetrate the suit and apply current directly to the skin. Second after 50,000 volts the electricity can find natural flaws in the rubber and work their way into the person still. Maybe at reduced voltage but still.

They do hurt, but the total power out put is only something in the range of 26-40 watts. You only need 24-26 watts to overpower nerve impulses to the muscles causing total loss of control in them. The voltage is high enough so that every square centameter of your body gets 29 watts. Probably a very uncomfortable feeling. The tazer would have trouble lighting up a 75 watt light bulb. It's power output is far less. It would get it to glow but thats about it. Maybe ruin the filament cause the voltage is so high, and send out sparks in all directions if the glass doesn't contain it.

True very true I have seen photos of it it is a very complicated system.

Here are some diograms of the rail gun (I don't know if there are real or not)

Rail Gun Basics
A rail gun is basically a large electric circuit, made up of three parts: a power source, a pair of parallel rails and a moving armature. Let's look at each of these parts in more detail. science.howstuffworks.com...

Here is some info on the rail gun

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by sardion2000
Railguns use electro-magnetic fields to propel a projectile so the recoil would actually far far less. Since there is no "blast" to push back on the gun/cannon, the amount of recoil is greatly diminshed/eliminated completely. You can eliminate it in space by firing a blast of gas in the opposite direction in time with the firing of the gun. In space this would mean a recoiless Railgun.

I hate to point this out, but the lack of 'blast' from a rail gun has *nothing* to do with the recoil of the gun. Newton's infamous third law doesn't mention a 'blast effect', it simply (and accurately) states that 'to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction'. If you accelerate a slug of a given weight to a given velocity, the device imparting the acceleration is going to accelerate in the opposite direction, whether that acceleration comes from the combustion of gunpowder (or some other, more exotic chemical compound) or from electromagnetic force.

As a side note, if railguns generate no recoil, why do you need to counteract this (non existent) recoil when they are fired in space? A more practical way to deal with recoil in space would be to simply use the existing thrusters that should already be mounted on a hypothetical space-based railgun to counter the recoil effect, rather than rigging a synchronized gas jet. Not only would that make things mechanically simpler (no additional systems needed), it would eliminate the problem of back-blast and possible self-inflicted damage done by same.

I found this patent for an electromagnetic weapon a while ago, but its definitely not a gun, and it isn't lethal to humans.

patft.uspto.gov...

In today's complex environment there is sometimes a need for military, police, or other entities to disengage or degrade certain hostile electronic equipment, cause premature detonation, or disable hostile explosive devices at a distance. Using conventional weapons or methods to accomplish these tasks may cause unwanted casualties or damage to certain equipment. Currently, there is no weapon or system that will damage electronic systems at a distance without potentially damaging other items or injuring people.

I hope this is of interest.