Navy testing a new gun that makes a big boom

[Midnight Mike]

The Navy’s eventual goal is a ship-mounted railgun that can fire a projectile more than 200 miles at speeds of more than 8,000 feet per second.

(Towards the end of the video, you will see pieces of the slug, disintegrating with such tremendous energy that the air around them bursts into flame)

[youtubetp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1q_rRicAwI[/youtubeMore information about the railguns
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002514.html

With an electromagnetic rail gun pushing the rounds out so quickly, the number of rounds fired per ship would jump from 232 to 5000, Navy planners believe. (Military.com has a great primer on how it works.)

Because they travel so fast -- nearly Mach 7 -- the destructive force those rounds deliver would more than double, from 6.6 megajoules to 17. And they would fly almost five times farther -- up to 300 nautical miles.

[cancidas]

that's awesome, but what applications does it have? is it more acurate that arty? methinks not.

[PhilDernerJr]

I read that i's made for naval ships. Since it does not use gun powder, there will be no secondary explosions on ships anymore due to attacks, or due to mishandling.

[Matt Molnar]

Thursday was a big day for the Navy, not only unveiling their crazy new gun, but they set a new land speed record as well, firing a rocket sled on rails 6,589 mph, breaking the previous record by 136 mph. They refused to say what sort of payload was on the sled, but admitted that they didn't bother building the track long enough for it to slow to a stop: they blew it up at the end instead.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol ... 47543.html