Will we live to see the advent of handgun-sized railguns?

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simonrichter

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I've read somewhere that the Navy is planning to already install a railgun (a elctromagnetic driven kinetic wepon) on one of their warships. Although this is still experimental, it seems that the thechnology is progressing faster and faster - as it is true for all digital and eclectronical technology in recent times (think e-cars, microelectronic).

So my question: Will we live to see railguns rendering the current firemarms technology obsolete? I mean, with weapons of this type, the average semiauto would become outdated like a muzzle-loader in the late 19th century.

I konow we can merely speculate about this issue, nevertheless it seems worth discussing...
 
It's one thing if you have a nuclear reactor on a ship supplying more power than you could ever use. And even then, there's issues with rail wear and all kinds of stuff.

To get things down to handheld size, you would probably need scifi-level ultracapacitors.

It's very difficult to beat the energy density of smokeless gunpowder. It's going to be a while before battery or capacitor technology gets there.
 
Many years ago, too many to recall, I read an article in one of the rags about a caseless cartridge that was being prototyped. The propellant held the bullet in place and was essentially the case. The cartridge was discharged electronically. If I recall correctly it was a 223 and was being developed for the military. They were looking at things such as making the cartridges water proof and finding ways to improve accuracy. I think the development rifle was an autloader. The cartridge was very lightweight. It sounded very promising, no brass discharge. I haven't heard much since though seem to recall maybe stumbling over something in production. Should something like that take hold and penetrate the market quickly like striker fired weapons did, and you are young enough, it may be possible.
 
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Probably not, although maybe soon we'll be able to strafe each other with our drones. Would be kinda cool to call in air support for a burglary...
 
Will we live to see railguns rendering the current firemarms technology obsolete?
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Yes/no/maybe - - it doesn't matter.
You and I and everyone else not wearing a badge or a uniform won't be able to get our hands on one anyhow.......
 
Many years ago, too many to recall, I read an article in one of the rags about a caseless cartridge that was being prototyped. The propellant held the bullet in place and was essentially the case.
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HK was developing something like that in the '80's. I don't think it went anywhere....and it's not likely to come back anytime soon.
 
I don't think anyone is even thinking about developing non artillery sized rail guns. Even in science fiction movies and video games they aren't there, so no one has the imagination or desire to even conceive of them, let alone develop them.
 
You can already see them being built by hobbyist on youtube.
problem is they're just not powerful enough.

They'll probably be banned from civilian ownership if one powerful enough is ever developed.

The government does not want us to have anything that threatens their superiority.
 
Yes it can be built but the power supply is killer. Right now only a large liquid sodium battery or perhaps a lithium ion bomb weighing maybe 200 lbs would give you one shot.
Not true actually. It depends on how little velocity you are willing to accept, and size of projectile. Perhaps a gun powder fired generator. Still weight would be rather hefty and noisy and reloading exciting too.
I' sure some mechanical engineer/physicist is crunching some numbers.
The Navy and DARPA have concentrated on ship killer projectile systems, because small, handheld and practical: knowledge on the subject is just not there.
 
No. A cartridge arm uses an enormous burst of energy to fire that projectile. Can you get that enormous bust of instantaneous energy from any compact power source?

Can any power source create such a powerful magnetic field that it can push that projectile at sufficient speed?

Could a six, or even twenty inch magnetic rail be enough to allow that acceleration needed to reach sufficient velocity?

Can we create such a thing in a piece of equipment that can be Carr by something smaller than a Bradley?

Can you store all of the energy generation source? An average soldier can carry an ar and maybe a half thousand rounds of .223. Could that same soldier carry the power cell and gun?
 
We will never use lasers or Ray guns, either. What kind of radiation can incapacitate a person? How convenient would the weapon be for carry? How would the energy be stored and carried? Can we ever create a device that is capable of disrupting a living person's system, and still work on a car, yet still be suitable for carry, and use a power source that provides lots of cycles that is also portable?

This stuff isn't going to happen. Personal weapons Wil almost certainly be based on explosive base projectile weapons.

Everything about electric systems of propulsion violates every rule of technology, and the rules of physics.

Think about the rail gun. That magnetic pulse is wasted by being used only for a single small projectile.

The navy's gun is powered by a nuclear reactor. It uses superconducting coils cooled by liquid hydrogen. It's the size of a moon lander and weighs many tons. The projectiles are guided, iirc, and probably cost more than we all make in a year. The old reliable, cruise missile, air power,and big guns are still going to be the weapon of choice, maybe forever.
 
"Will we live to see the advent of handgun-sized railguns?"

Many have already answered the question, but I will say that I believe you will indeed see a handgun sized railgun at about the same time you see an actual "Mr. Fusion" power supply on the back of cars.

It's fun to speculate, but the reality is that a railgun with any reasonable capability and capacity takes more energy than any hand-held device can contain.
 
One SF author armed his heroine with a pistol sized railgun. He stated the mass and velocity of the projectile. Disregarding the problem of energy storage, I figured out the ballistics. Turned out she had the equivalent of a .338 Win Mag elk gun in her purse. I bet THAT would put a run in her stockings.

My early days on the net, there was a concept for a laser rifle allegedly under development for production ca 2025. Surely just a gedanken experiment. It was a gas dynamic laser generating an IR pulse with delivered energy comparable to say a .45 ACP +P. But the surge of hot (radioactive) gas through the lasing tube would generate recoil comparable to a .458 Win Mag.

As the Yorkshireman said, you don't get aught for naught.
 
The rail guns that the navy is now testing and the fiber optic lasers that the military (multiple branches) is now testing are a huge jump from what was imagined in the Reagan years. The rail guns shoot a block of teflon at close to 15000 mph that will penetrate a ships hull at 20 miles. It is not a guided munition because with the EMF and physical acceleration any electronics would be destroyed before the projectile left the rails. The fiber optic lasers are good enough to burn the warhead off a missile or guided bomb as small as a mortar round and as large as a ballistic missile. The fiber optic laser is easier to cool so it can be fired hotter and longer than anything we have had before. The old airborne laser in the giant 747 is being defunded because it was using electro-chemical lasers that are antiques compared to the new fiber optic lasers.
We might live to see hand held incapacitation lasers that temporarily blind an opponent but not a hand held rail gun. Even if you could develop a lightweight power source the recoil of a rail gun is just as likely to kill you as the projectile. Consider the recoil of a small (2 ounce) projectile would produce accelerating to say 10000 fps in a set of 20 inch rails. I don't want to fire it - it was your idea, you fire it! :)
 
Maybe...I lived long enough to see a handgun and a rifle that fired self propelled rockets !

Now you would think that would be earth changing and revolutionary ! It fired Rockets !
But for some reason the Gyrojet arms just didn't prove to be all that practical and faded away.
I have a big feeling it can be done , but in the end will prove impractical .
The government will spend Billions of tax dollars on it and then , like the Gyrojet , it will just fade from memory.
Think about how long powder has been used to propel a projectile down a barrel to a target....improvements have been made but nothing has really changer to the basic principal .
Firearms came to be about 900 years ago...900 years and not much has changed ?
Gary
 
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