Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[RAM]

Jet turbines and the power of lolawesome. Also, stick to fairly small railguns and fairly large vehicles at first. Like, we could start with an 8mm on a salamander for a proof of concept and sniping-by-outranging effect. There is a certain amount of liberty granted to projects in an arms-race game afterall so not everything needs to be quite completely plausible.

[Madman198237]

Railguns will not work with our present level of technology, and are generally infeasible barring about eight turns of dedicated development. You need computers (2-3 turns), high-power, fast-discharging capacitors (1 turn...maybe), probably NUCLEAR power (3-4 turns), and actual time into developing railguns (One turn, if the roll is good). In order to get a functioning prototype, that is. Combat deployment might take ten. And it won't be THAT useful even at ten turns' investment.

[RAM]

Why computers? And nuclear power is not that crazy, it is still just turbines... So long as we are modest in our expectations of projectile weight it shouldn't need that much power. And capacitors have been around a fair while, improved ones shouldn't be that crazy and you can probably make up a lot of that with numbers... And again, this is a game, we are meant to do things a little bit on the extreme side, especially considering that we represent an extremely focused design team rather than what actually happened historically.

[Madman198237]

You ever tried to do, by hand, the calculations required to send a projectile a hundred miles?

How about doing complex simulations for said projectile's firing system?

Keeping a nuclear reactor from melting down is EASY, right? No, you need computers for rail guns and their usual power sources. And a nuclear power plant is, of course, just the most effective way to power a rail gun.

Oh, and you need powerful capacitors that are highly stable, quick to recharge, and incredibly fast to discharge.

[Kot]

A lot of this railgun wank relies on the German theoretical design for AA railgun. Post-war the Americans actually were checking feasibility, and IIRC it was something around "half of Chicago power required to fire one", and while I'm not sure about how much power Chicago output in 1950s, I am pretty sure it's way more than we'd be able to shove into a compact package.
And even then, still, the power isin't actually the biggest problem - the biggest problem is wear. Even today US Navy claims they made a railgun capable of firing few hundred rounds without switching the barrel, and that claim is a bit disputed - they didin't specify if it was on full power. Railguns barrels wear out very, very fast.
The result would be an incredibly power-hungry immobile monster (national effort AA gun? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP EH) that is complex and expensive and has very little actual combat use.

[Madman198237]

It wouldn't be AA, but it would CERTAINLY be VE AT BEST, and I would be highly unsurprised if it didn't make NE on the cost of its oil needs ALONE. Also, it would have to be an anti-shipping weapon, anything else is somewhat less than useful.

Anyway, the point is that railguns are generally not effective enough for the purposes of a WWII army and navy.

[RAM]

The half-Chicago thing was for a half-kilogram of explosives alone, no mention of other elements of the projectile, compatible with a 12cm gun's mount. For a land vehicle I would suggest something much smaller, thus barrels would be cheaper and easier to convey, power requirements would be lower, and the technology could be scaled up after that. My initial proposal called for a bullet that weighs significantly less than 50 grams in total...

Also, reality has a strict "no fun allowed" policy. Games are different, this is a game...

And people can totally do extreme-range artillery calculations by hand. Not that it is easy, but people had freakishly long-ranged artillery before they had computers...

[Madman198237]

And?

Your point does not apply to 100-mile range.

Also, a 50g projectile isn't going to pack enough size to really hurt a warship, making it useless. It might, MIGHT, shoot straight through, but honestly, a five-centimeter hole is pretty negligible for most ships you'll be able to hit with this thing.

[RAM]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun

8mm is for land-vehicles, and the attraction is primarily to negate cover. It would be mounted on a converted salamander and be used to break morale as trees, brick walls, A.P.C.s, hiding behind other people, and likely trench-periscopes all start to become irrelevant from a range that is largely direct-fire but still beyond the effective range of most tanks. Against aircraft the lacking rate-of-fire would indeed leave it as a suboptimal choice, but the range and trajectory would make it a matter of (admittedly extremely difficult) aiming rather than just not being able to do anything at all as one would see from small arms.

As for larger railguns. I really don't know how nuclear power stacks up in terms of power output, but our current ships largely run on electricity, and have power plants, and nuclear-powered ships were made for chemical-powered guns. Most electronics have gotten much more efficient over time. The power needs of a late-WWII vessel are probably not that far off from a nuclear-powered vessel and railguns are, to the best of my knowledge, mounted onto vessels with no modifications to their power-plant. so, in short, the power was already available. Unless someone can actually cite the power usage of a railgun, or at least nuclear power plant from a military vessel, compared to the powerplant of our current vessels, it seems to be blind assumption that we cannot currently power such things from naval vessels, especially if we are looking at lighter projectiles than are currently being proposed for a very very different battlefield.

[Kot]

8mm is for land-vehicles, and the attraction is primarily to negate cover. It would be mounted on a converted salamander and be used to break morale as trees, brick walls, A.P.C.s, hiding behind other people, and likely trench-periscopes all start to become irrelevant from a range that is largely direct-fire but still beyond the effective range of most tanks. Against aircraft the lacking rate-of-fire would indeed leave it as a suboptimal choice, but the range and trajectory would make it a matter of (admittedly extremely difficult) aiming rather than just not being able to do anything at all as one would see from small arms.

20mm autocannon is enough to render trees, brick walls, APCs, hiding behind other people and trench periscopes irrelevant anyway, with higher rate of fire and explosive capabilites. Heck, 12.7mm M2 Browning does the job completly fine too, for a fraction of the cost of a railgun.rai
Also, such small projectiles might actually have lower ranges than conventional ones, since at the railgun speeds air resistance could very well be enough to cause the projectile to burn up.

The power needs of a late-WWII vessel are probably not that far off from a nuclear-powered vessel

Lol, no.

and railguns are, to the best of my knowledge, mounted onto vessels with no modifications to their power-plant. so, in short, the power was already available.

There was one ship (short of the Aircraft Carriers) in US Navy capable of mounting their railguns shooting 10kg projectiles, the Zumwalt, and while they theorize they could get the Arleigh Burke to shoot it, it would require very significant upgrade of it's power systems.

Unless someone can actually cite the power usage of a railgun, or at least nuclear power plant from a military vessel, compared to the powerplant of our current vessels, it seems to be blind assumption that we cannot currently power such things from naval vessels, especially if we are looking at lighter projectiles than are currently being proposed for a very very different battlefield.

25 megawatts, previous ones took a lot more, and the main problem is actually the capacitors (the actual power needed to fire a railgun is much higher than what your powerplant needs to supply due to the capacitors), which even today are not developed well enough for the US Navy railgun to meet it's requirements and move from the prototype stage into combat usefulness. There is a reason why nobody seriously looks into using them for ground forces even with today's tech.

[Madman198237]

Why would you link the Paris Gun? It's not a railgun, and it's not a useful idea anyway. It's not accurate enough to hit a ship with---they literally pointed these things at a target from a set distance, a target that was LITERALLY the size of a city, and fired for as long as they wanted to.

You aren't going to get enough power or power-generation out of a Salamander for even a small railgun.

Nuclear power is incredible, it is far, FAR more efficient than coal or oil or gas.


RAM, I don't know what you know and what you think you know about railguns, but it's not enough.

As got said, an 8mm projectile would literally be vaporized into a fine plasma-y mist.

So, 10kg requires 25 MEGAwatts. That's 25000000 watts of power. A railgun firing a 50g projectile would require, assuming LINEAR power/weight (And this is ENTIRELY false and just for raw comparison ONLY)  125000 watts. That's 125 kilowatts. That's a darned lot of power. And it's probably fairly low.

RAM, just don't make assumptions, alright? Rail guns are ENORMOUSLY hard to power, use, and build.

[Kot]

IIRC it's actually closer to 11kg's (because >Pounds), the 10kg was from the top of my head.

[RAM]

20mm autocannon is enough to render trees, brick walls, APCs, hiding behind other people and trench periscopes irrelevant anyway, with higher rate of fire and explosive capabilites. Heck, 12.7mm M2 Browning does the job completly fine too, for a fraction of the cost of a railgun.
Also, such small projectiles might actually have lower ranges than conventional ones, since at the railgun speeds air resistance could very well be enough to cause the projectile to burn up.

At shorter ranges and thinner walls/trees/A.P.C.s/etc... An autocannon is ultimately in the mess of everything and its shells get stopped by plenty of stuff. A railgun could park outside of the battle and start rendering terrain irrelevant to one side. And that is just the proof of concept design an not one of the ambitious ones.
As to whether the air-pressure prevents them from functioning, that is a matter of whether the G.M. wants us to play with this sort of thing or not. I think that we are supposed to do interesting things rather than endlessly repeating historical designs in order to create a cherry-picked military of all the most lauded military equipment of the period.

The power needs of a late-WWII vessel are probably not that far off from a nuclear-powered vessel

Lol, no.

Nuh-ah!

and railguns are, to the best of my knowledge, mounted onto vessels with no modifications to their power-plant. so, in short, the power was already available.

There was one ship (short of the Aircraft Carriers) in US Navy capable of mounting their railguns shooting 10kg projectiles, the Zumwalt, and while they theorize they could get the Arleigh Burke to shoot it, it would require very significant upgrade of it's power systems.

We are talking about a fictitious weapon. I never said anything about ten kilograms. Please try to be relevant. It is nice that you found data that something much more ambitious is not feasible for designs without them being specifically engineered for the purpose, but it really adds nothing to the conversation.

Unless someone can actually cite the power usage of a railgun, or at least nuclear power plant from a military vessel, compared to the powerplant of our current vessels, it seems to be blind assumption that we cannot currently power such things from naval vessels, especially if we are looking at lighter projectiles than are currently being proposed for a very very different battlefield.

25 megawatts

Great! We now have a quote for what a large railgun requires, now we need to know what the power output of period-appropriate naval vessel's power-plants was and we can get cracking!

RAM, just don't make assumptions, alright?

You assume that I am shooting ten kilogram projectiles at 100kilograms. I never suggested anything like that. I know that it is natural for humans to be hypocritical and that it is extremely difficult to avoid, or even notice, but some effort would be very nice if we want to have a remotely coherent conversation. I am making speculation, in a speculative wargame, avoiding such feel really stupid to me. Should this game perhaps be relegated only to people with current professional qualifications in military engineering?

Why would you link the Paris Gun? It's not a railgun, and it's not a useful idea anyway. It's not accurate enough to hit a ship with---they literally pointed these things at a target from a set distance, a target that was LITERALLY the size of a city, and fired for as long as they wanted to.

And yet they hit it, and they did aim, and their spotters were not all that great. The fact is that they have methods for doing so and those methods can be refined. And we already have basic computers at that! The Paris Gun proves that guns can be aimed at such ranges, which is enough for the purposes of the game...

You aren't going to get enough power or power-generation out of a Salamander for even a small railgun.

Nuclear power is incredible, it is far, FAR more efficient than coal or oil or gas.

By what metric?
The only relevant metric is per volume. And my proposed fuel is jet fuel, into jet turbines, which are, as I understand it, more volume efficient than steam turbines, although I could be wrong on that. Fuel efficiency would be very sad, but then it doesn't need to be turned on all the time, and I also proposed capacitor banks much larger than the weapon itself. Instead of a truck with a gun on it, it would be about 40-70% gun-by-volume once one factors in the electrical systems. And we could probably revise better capacitors if they are the only things stopping us.

RAM, I don't know what you know and what you think you know about railguns, but it's not enough.

As got said, an 8mm projectile would literally be vaporized into a fine plasma-y mist.

Granted I don't know the subject well enough to say for certain what would happen. On the other hand, given that we do not have leading experts from every relevant field and people who served in every relevant role during the entirety of the relevant time-period I think that a certain level of reduced expectations of realism ought to be expected. If you happen to have the equipment to perfectly model all of the game's aerodynamics in all potentially-relevant atmospheric conditions, then I guess we should have you run everything through the super-computer that you have this perfect physics simulation running on and then we don't need to have any inaccuracy at all.
 I feel that the projectile completely vaporising feels a little pessimistic, but it would be a matter of G.M. fiat. Either it does or it doesn't, nd I doubt that reality will be the deciding factor.

assuming LINEAR power/weight (And this is ENTIRELY false and just for raw comparison ONLY)
RAM, just don't make assumptions, alright? Rail guns are ENORMOUSLY hard to power, use, and build.

Entirely false you say? Well that is no good, and I don't want to make assumptions. So what is the EXACT Power to weight ratio?
Do the projectile's dimensions modify the outcome? What about altitude? Aid density? Air composition? Suspended particle granularity? Interference from sonic stimuli? What is the error of margin on our capacitor output? We gotta factor in minimum and maximum input rates...

[evictedSaint]

I think enriching uranium might be a better use of our time, honestly.

[10ebbor10]

Just use a graphite moderated reactor. what's the worst that could happen...