Rail Gun

**Roybatty** · 12-12-2010, 07:54 PM

As a former Mechwarrior fan; this is friggin cool.

:Excited:

**akotten** · 12-12-2010, 08:18 PM

How is the fire that you see in the video generated? I thought it was entirely electromagnets. Pretty awesome stuff though! We thought about making a scaled down version in our sophomore design class.

**NickS VR4** · 12-13-2010, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by akotten

How is the fire that you see in the video generated? I thought it was entirely electromagnets. Pretty awesome stuff though! We thought about making a scaled down version in our sophomore design class.

Could be air friction.

**Roybatty** · 12-12-2010, 08:29 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...net_video.html
Yes electromagnet...should've added the link prior. Sounds like an interesting college life!

**R/T93** · 12-12-2010, 09:19 PM

Lol it looks like they are shooting piston rods.

**green-lantern** · 12-12-2010, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by R/T93

Lol it looks like they are shooting piston rods.

Oh yeah

**x2percentmilk** · 12-12-2010, 09:47 PM

looks like they could be :P

heres some closer shots of the projectiles and workings of the gun

**green-lantern** · 12-12-2010, 10:33 PM

Wild!!!!!!

**ZeroAU** · 12-13-2010, 02:17 AM

Yeah, its doing 7 times the speed of sound. SR-71's used to do Mach 3 (at altitude mind you where the air is thinner!) and parts of their airframe would heat up to 300degrees Celsius. So doing it at a lower altitude and a bit over twice as fast you're probably looking at a lot more heat.
Plus, they're throwing 33 megajoules of electricity into that son of a bitch... or 33kw-hours into i,t in the space of a split second, which equals a LOT of heat that has to go somewhere!

Time to recommission the Missouri

**Telionis** · 12-13-2010, 02:17 AM

That's awesome. Considering how small the projectile appears to be, I wonder how the energy compares to that of a 16" gun. As I recall, the retired Iowa class battleships remain by far the most cost effective way to deliver a pounding.

My favorite quote in the youtube comments:

Originally Posted by xvideogamekingx

damn look at that son of a bitch go. it try to come around my house i kill it

Poorly paraphrased, but close enough.