RE: Rail guns (was: US SOCOM desires...)

["Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

<Kenneth: I've cleaned up your English some.  No offense--I understand
English isn't your native language--but it makes it far easier for us to
read.>

> But doesn't this mean that, with equal training, a low-power
> optic gives you an edge?

Not necessarily--see my sidebar about the Navy's experience with laser
sights.  Low-power optics are useful in certain situations, yes, but they
aren't going to revolutionize warfare the way self-contained cartridges, the
Maxim gun, etc., did.

The thread is about revolutionary technologies--not evolutionary ones.

> Would you turn down an edge if you were the commander?

When Cortez arrived in the New World, he burned his ships.  So did the
Emperor Julian in his war against the Medes.  These guys had very serious
naval advantages and they turned them down, because there were other factors
which made them more of a liability than an asset.

> If all the valid tech trouble that has been raised here were to
> be solved, would it not be possible to use small variations in
> the magnetic field and very small flechette to produce a close
> range shotgun type wound, at ANY distance.

If all the valid tech trouble raised here were to be solved, we'd have
man-portable particle accelerators.  That may sound like a flip statement,
and it sort of is.  The point is, though, that sure, *anything* can be done
assuming a high enough level of technology exists.  If you're going to
assume we have tremendously energetic and compact power sources, plus room
temperature superconductors, plus this, that and the other, then you can do
a hell of a lot.

Personally, I prefer to stick to either our current tech level, or what may
be reasonable in the next ten years.

> If you have two bullets with equal energy the smaller calibre will
> have the best armour penetration, Simply because it has to make
> the smallest hole. It of course also helps to be very pointy.

Not true.  The determining factors in armor penetration are sectional
density and velocity.  At equal energies, the round with the higher SD will
tend to penetrate more.  Sectional density is found by dividing the bullet
mass by its cross-sectional area.

Re: pointed noses.  During WW2, a field expedient antitank round was made by
removing the spitzer from an 8mm Mauser cartridge and reseating it,
reversed, in the cartridge.  For some reason, wadcutters or blunt-nosed
rounds tend to have better penetration than pointed rounds.