Turkish railgun, or ...

23
The Turkish military bravo has reported on the tests of their railgun Şahi 209 Block II. Congratulate, or ...? Probably all the same "or."

It is clear that weapons The Internet began to boil, massively retyping photographs and a video shot by the Turkish military, but I think you shouldn’t draw premature conclusions and enroll Turkey to the “rail club” ahead of time, as some media rushed to do.





Cannon, let's face it, modest. Its caliber is 35 mm. Projectile weight - 1 kg.

"At the same time, the electromagnetic pulse is enough to effectively hit the target at a distance of 50 km."


“Up to 50 km” is both 1 km and 10. Who and how there "effectively" can hit a distance of up to 50 km kilogram little thing, I do not dare say. And how much it will fly.

In general, the experiment was conducted with a claim to success. Like shot, and not once. How about in order to show where and how you got - naturally silent, for military secrets.



By the way, I praise the way Turkish operators have all shown. With some such hint that the gun is mobile, unlike, say, the American monster. Wheeled chassis, all things ...



But here is another photo, not cropped. And on it is clear and understandable that the “battery” of the installation is more than modest.

Turkish railgun, or ...


For comparison, it is worthwhile to see how the railroad case was arranged by the Americans.



It is noticeable that the Americans "battery" case is furnished pretty massively. True, the Americans and the projectile weighs 16 kg against 1, and the caliber is not a toy 35 mm, but quite normal sea 127 mm.

But how much is it worth seriously considering the railgun as a weapon in general?

Many smart people have come to the conclusion that they are not worth it. And the arguments are embedded directly in the design of the railgun.

Here it is worth considering the very principle of this miracle weapon. Physics of the purest water. I will not go into details, they are easy to find, and so, two elements. The power source, which I called the battery (actually it is a capacitor) and the launcher. PU, roughly speaking, consists of two parallel conductors, which is why they called it a railgun.



A powerful current pulse is applied to the conductors-rails. Something like a short circuit occurs, as in welding, and a plasma arc ignites between the rail electrodes.

A current begins to flow through the plasma, from one electrode to another. The current causes the emergence of a powerful electromagnetic field that will affect the entire device.

Since the rails are rigidly fixed in the barrel, the following thing happens: the Lorentz force starts working, which starts to move charged particles by the electromagnetic field. That is - the plasma. Since the plasma in our case - the only thing that can move.

The Lorentz force is not aware of the existence of Newton's Third Law, so the movement will occur with great acceleration. And the plasma begins to move along the channel (if you can put it that way) the trunk.

This plasma clot is also rightly called the "plasma piston," as if it were an analogue of a powder charge in a firearm. Yes, the usual projectile under the influence of such forces would simply evaporate. Therefore, the railgun shells are ordinary blanks of a very refractory material that are designed to hit targets solely due to the accumulated kinetic energy.



Although yes, they accumulate this energy - be healthy.

In addition, there is an analogue of artillery wad - a metal gasket between the plasma and the projectile. It does not allow the projectile to evaporate ahead of time, and evaporating itself under the influence of temperature, it becomes the feed for the plasma.

In general, many experts believe that the railgun and without a blank is a weapon in itself, for it is capable of spitting here with such clots of plasma, accelerated to a tremendous speed - up to 50 km / sec.

And so the speed of the projectile at the exit can be up to 15 km / s. Artillery powder projectile can give a maximum speed of 2 km / s.

But I repeat, we forget about the high-explosive, high-explosive, cluster, shrapnel and other projectiles, because the lot of the railgun is a pig, which has been overclocked to great speed.

With the device figured out, let's talk about the application.

With combat use, we recognize immediately, not very. But first, consider the merits that the Americans once famously painted.

1. Huge projectile speed. In combat conditions up to 10 km / s. It is possible and more, but there is no point, the air and friction about him has not been canceled, so the projectile will be slowed down by the force of friction. Plus overheating.

2. Penetrating power. Yes, due to the speed, the carbide shell will penetrate any armor, it is a fact. And it is quite possible that even an active defense will not save, since the explosive within it will simply not have time to explode.

3. Long range direct shot. It can be 8 – 9 km, and the projectile travels this distance in less than a second. This is impressive, because to dodge such a blow is unrealistic even for an airplane. Pro tank even think sad.

In addition, it seems to me, for a railgun it will be very easy with aiming. Even when shooting long distances. And it’s not at all (it's 3-8 km) and you don’t have to bother with things like preemption and wind correction, for example. Lupi, as it is, do not miss. The speed of the projectile will do its job.

4. Firing range. Experts again believe that the railgun shell can be effectively used at a distance of 300 km. On the one hand, it seems to be a competitor for rockets, on the other hand, it is a tool of point application and the railgun shell is not able to tear apart the shell.

5. Cheap and easy ammunition. Yes, a tungsten projectile in an aluminum capsule is not very expensive. And the explosive inside is not needed, firstly, it will not survive at the start, secondly, the projectile dispersed to such speed if it hits something, and so it blows - it will not seem enough. It is possible that more effective than any explosives. But the cheapness of shells and ease of storage is easily leveled by the cost of the railgun itself.

What can be said about the shortcomings? It is possible to say about disadvantages that they win advantages over a clear advantage.

1. Power sources. This is a sore point, as the railgun feels best near the power plant. The batteries of the capacitors that organize the shot need to be charged. Considering the capacity of existing installations, and this is “only” 25 MW, we are not talking about mobile power plants at all, but in fact only some fortified areas are drawn on land or the protection of stationary objects as air defense. Next, I stress, with the power plant.

Either we see a ship of class from a destroyer and higher, and generally it is desirable with an atomic reactor.

2. Cost. It is worth noting here about the cost of ammunition, but about the cost of the barrel. It is clear that exposure to plasma almost destroys the trunk. A thousand shots so far is the ultimate dream. But the cost of one shot, taking into account the cost of barrel wear, according to some reports, is about $ 25. Let's just say, not a little, even taking into account the possibility of destroying more expensive equipment such as one shot tank or plane.

3. Disguise. It's all so sad that I’ll say briefly: this thing unmasks itself with the very first shot so that the advanced enemy can only be sent in the direction of the source of EMI-perturbations of the five cruise missiles. It works, who does not believe - ask Dudayev. A rocket flew into the phone there, and here ...

By the way, without EMP, sound effects are also nothing. The heated plasma, when it comes out of the trunk, what does it do? That's right, expanding. And the crash is quite a while.

In general, while it is impossible to consider it as a weapon. Even being very so optimistic. Yes, as experimental models of railgun exist and not just exist, but develop. But talking about real combat use is not yet worth it, as well as making any kind of bet on this type of weapon.

Example? Yes, here he is, "Zamvolt." The railgun was planned for use on this ship. The power plant destroyer allows it. But then what is the essence of the invisibility or invisibility of the destroyer, if after the first shot it will be on all radar screens? And then only the question of how quickly the opponents will react to this shot.

Railgun on a Ford-type aircraft carrier? Well, yes, it will probably be more appropriate. But is it necessary? A miracle cannon that fires miracle-projectiles on 300 or 400 km (we don’t even talk about accuracy and the ability to miss yet) would probably be out of place. If the shock group did not have X / NUMX F / A-50E / F Super Hornet fighter-bombers, each of which is able to transfer 18 tons of different ammunition to 2 000 km and km of them. But with the planes, the idea looks frankly not very.

If we talk about the ground railgun, then here is still more sad. The first unmasking shot may be the last, because the enemy does not need to shoot at the railgun. It is enough to strike the power station that feeds it, and the effect will be excellent at all: the railgun does not shoot, and the whole area is de-energized.

It turns out that if the sea basing of the railgun does not raise special issues (besides efficiency), then the land, with its mobility and vulnerability, does not at all give the slightest opportunity for optimism.

Of course, sooner or later, with the development of appropriate technologies, the railgun can turn into a true weapon. But it is a matter of time, moreover, many believe that it is a question of a very long period of time.



So let's not rush to congratulate the Turkish military on a successful experiment. In the Kurdish problems, railgun will not help them at all.
Our news channels

Subscribe and stay up to date with the latest news and the most important events of the day.

23 comments
Information
Dear reader, to leave comments on the publication, you must sign in.
  1. 0
    April 3 2019 06: 50
    Well, why do you need such a * monster *?
  2. -1
    April 3 2019 06: 54
    It is believed that this is not a Gauss cannon at all (or, as it was called, a railgun). It is not the electromagnetic force that is used to accelerate the projectile, but the use of magnetized plasma to "lubricate" the barrel bore during a "normal" shot. Experimental square "blanks" and a completely different design of the barrel are shown to the public, but for Zamwolt, the Turkish and the Chinese, as we see the barrel is round (in the movie "Transformers, when they beat the Decepticon from the ship, the futuristic design is closer to the" rail "). More modest "batteries" are also from the same series, the need to create a thin layer of magnetized plasma in the bore is much less than the need to create a powerful EM field, and the range, according to calculations, is practically not inferior to a Gauss cannon (the same 100 km).
    1. +2
      April 5 2019 12: 04
      Do not confuse the railgun (plasma harness firing a metal projectile) and a gauss gun (solenoid ejecting the projectile without heating it)
      1. 0
        April 5 2019 12: 09
        This is not to me, but to the media claim. This is all indiscriminately called railguns.
        Although ... a round casing can be purely for cooling the winding, looked at the detailed pictures, was not quite right.
  3. 0
    April 3 2019 07: 05
    Interesting, instructive, but there are nuances ....
    As far as I remember, ours opened on this part of the development, and in our country it is much smaller and shoots with some kind of dielectric polymer, and not with a tungsten weight. And in terms of dimensions, it can even be put on a boat, but they didn’t say anything about energy.
    I didn’t come up with it, they showed it on the central heating system, so you can find it in the Internet.
    1. +2
      April 3 2019 08: 53
      The railgun shoots anything. In the case of conductive ammunition, the electric circuit closes through it, in the case of a conductive projectile an arc ignites, which begins to evaporate the projectile, and that projectile has already flown ... by flying.
      "Magnetic plasma" - what is this wonderful miracle?)
      All electromagnetic accelerators as weapons are not applicable due to their large size and huge energy costs. Cheaper and easier to burn gunpowder in the chamber. Although science may come to something interesting, studying these whoppers ...
  4. 0
    April 3 2019 07: 10
    A railgun shell is not necessarily a blank. With all the consequences. To go far: https://topwar.ru/112282-unificirovannyy-artilleriyskiy-snaryad-hyper-velocity-projectile-ssha.html
    1. +1
      April 3 2019 08: 56
      The trouble is that the filling will not survive such a sharp acceleration. Electronics will simply fail, and explosives can explode.
      1. 0
        April 3 2019 20: 01
        Well, what it will survive there (or not) - it will be seen when it will be adopted (and if it will). In the plans / in theory, for the same HVP, it was not to use cast blanks, but still a projectile with a guidance system and some supply of cc for fragmentation. Probably, not quite fools calculated such things. Again, there is a video showing the "detonation" of a projectile released by a railgun. Although I will not tell you how fast it was launched in that test.
  5. -2
    April 3 2019 08: 14
    Well, hurry, don't hurry ... but ... "a fairy tale is a lie; but there is a hint in it, a lesson for good fellows!"
    ... I repeat, we forget about the high-explosive, high-explosive, cluster, shrapnel and other projectiles, because the lot of the railgun is a disc that has been dispersed to great speed. But "blanks" are also distinguished by their "variety" ... a). "Armor-piercing" ... b) "explosive" ...
    And escho: The Americans, through many years of calculations on a supercomputer, accompanied by "speculations" under whiskey and pivasik, came to the conclusion that the benefits of "blanks" ("simple") are like "goat-milk ..." Now the concept is as follows : only adjustable "blanks"!
    Power sources. This is a sore point, as the railgun feels best near the power plant. The batteries of the capacitors that organize the shot need to be charged. Considering the capacity of existing installations, and this is “only” 25 MW, we are not talking about mobile power plants at all, but in fact only some fortified areas are drawn on land or the protection of stationary objects as air defense. Next, I stress, with the power plant.
    Well, "no need to be sad ... the whole life is ahead ..."! Ionistors ... what are they? Storage drives! "Purely theoretically", you can also "collect" the necessary charge to fire the railgun by rubbing an ebonite stick ... well, yes ... a long time .. but, most importantly, start! In fact, the "engineer" has long been offered to use a combination (no ... not this
    ), and "MHD generator + storage (maybe even on" cold ", superconducting, ceramics ... <superconducting inductances ...
    >?) ... Probably there are chances to place an electrical facility for 1-2 trucks (m. Containers ...)? And there was one more interesting proposal: to revive the railway "art installations"! The agramad number of the railway is electrified ... so ... the source of electrical energy is "close at hand" ... (thus, "laser cannons" will also be useful for air defense!)
    Maybe this way the problems of disguise will be solved.! Shoot down and ... raking on the rails (the gun is a rail!) In the distant viaduct.!
    The main thing is to be optimistic! Roman looks and says: the glass is half empty! I answered him: the glass is half full! wink
    1. 0
      April 3 2019 13: 49
      Quote: Nikolaevich I
      Maybe this way the problems of disguise will be solved.! Shoot down and ... raking on the rails (the gun is a rail!) In the distant viaduct.!

      ----------------------
      We are peaceful people, but our railgun stands on a siding! Until the Death Star is invented. laughing laughing
  6. 0
    April 3 2019 08: 34
    Research is needed and development work in this area, now it’s a crude construction, and what will happen in a few years with the new technologies? We cannot be left behind in any way. This threatens with the loss of statehood and the destruction of the Russian people as a nation, the enemies only sleep and see how to tear our country to pieces
    1. 0
      April 3 2019 10: 40
      Quote: Graz
      Research is needed and development work in this area, now it’s a crude construction, and what will happen in a few years with the new technologies?

      What for? What is better than a regular howitzer with plasma, rails, capacitors and generators? The howitzer has a whole range of shells, including propaganda laughing , but here only "kinetic intercept" without homing.
    2. 0
      April 3 2019 22: 22
      Quote: Graz
      Research is needed and development work in this area is now a crude design, and what will happen in a few years with the new technologies

      The first handgun was inferior to bows with arrows ... Let's see what it is evolutionary now?
      I completely agree with you, you need to study, in a few years there will be something useful and suitable for work!
  7. 0
    April 3 2019 08: 41
    The fact that they do not give up work suggests that they see the future. Of course you can talk about drank and all that, but rather people just have test data, and plans on how to do it all.
    The United States is actively working, China, Turkey. Even in Russia, in my opinion, some ball was shot, in my opinion, but everything is modest in our country.
  8. +1
    April 3 2019 10: 50
    There can be many specific variants of constructions of application of the "rails" method.
    The essence is simple - to reach a new level of use of kinetic shells, because with gunpowder already close to a standstill. It is possible that the recharge of shots will also be disposable, like a cartridge case with gunpowder.
    One of the main ideas is to radically increase ammunition by reducing requirements for dimensions.
    This is especially interesting for hand guns that would water like a hose.
    1. 0
      April 3 2019 13: 23
      Quote: yehat
      This is especially interesting for hand guns that would water like a hose.
      It is much easier to shoot 1-2 grams of blanks ... only you can’t get far from the outlet.
  9. 0
    April 3 2019 11: 23
    So let's not rush to congratulate the Turkish military on a successful experiment. In the Kurdish problems, railgun will not help them at all.
    Why not congratulate ?! and shoots and mobile)))
    In fact, it seems to me that the Turks have chosen the format of the gun very well, in contrast to, say, the Americans. The fact is that the main railgun tsimes (we will call it that way) can be realized precisely at short distances. Up to 10 km. and it is in the caliber "something about 30 mm". The point is that the railgun can be very flexible in its application. It can shoot often and with a low initial speed (for example, in this case, the explosive in the projectile will easily survive the start, which will not differ much from the usual "powder" cannon) or rarely, but already with an armor-piercing blank and with completely different energies.
    And here, as the author correctly noted, there was nothing left to do, bring the device to mind and stuff it into the tank))))))))
  10. +1
    April 3 2019 11: 49
    okay, well done, they are testing new weapons, keep up with the times
  11. 0
    April 3 2019 17: 17
    "But then what is the essence of stealth or stealth of a destroyer, if after the first shot it will be on all radar screens?" ////
    ----
    The point is in surprise. In the first salvo.
    Any masked sniper after his first shot becomes noticeable -
    acoustic detection. Well, are snipers pointless? Self-propelled guns from an ambush?
  12. 0
    April 3 2019 17: 22
    "Up to 50 km" is both 1 km and 10. "////
    ----
    This is 50 too.
    If you use a gun like a howitzer, then the shell will fly at maximum
    trajectories of 50 km. And get on the cumpole with such a blanket, flying from the blue sky,
    it will hurt, and more often - mortally.
  13. +1
    April 3 2019 17: 26
    Here is a diagram closer to reality than that given by the author:
  14. 0
    April 3 2019 23: 30
    The power of Lorentz is not aware of the existence of Newton’s Third Law,

    Very even in the know if you take into account the momentum of the field itself. Again, the current causes a magnetic field, and not an electromagnetic field, you write more carefully. Waiting for comments by Gridasov

"Right Sector" (banned in Russia), "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (UPA) (banned in Russia), ISIS (banned in Russia), "Jabhat Fatah al-Sham" formerly "Jabhat al-Nusra" (banned in Russia) , Taliban (banned in Russia), Al-Qaeda (banned in Russia), Anti-Corruption Foundation (banned in Russia), Navalny Headquarters (banned in Russia), Facebook (banned in Russia), Instagram (banned in Russia), Meta (banned in Russia), Misanthropic Division (banned in Russia), Azov (banned in Russia), Muslim Brotherhood (banned in Russia), Aum Shinrikyo (banned in Russia), AUE (banned in Russia), UNA-UNSO (banned in Russia), Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People (banned in Russia), Legion “Freedom of Russia” (armed formation, recognized as terrorist in the Russian Federation and banned)

“Non-profit organizations, unregistered public associations or individuals performing the functions of a foreign agent,” as well as media outlets performing the functions of a foreign agent: “Medusa”; "Voice of America"; "Realities"; "Present time"; "Radio Freedom"; Ponomarev; Savitskaya; Markelov; Kamalyagin; Apakhonchich; Makarevich; Dud; Gordon; Zhdanov; Medvedev; Fedorov; "Owl"; "Alliance of Doctors"; "RKK" "Levada Center"; "Memorial"; "Voice"; "Person and law"; "Rain"; "Mediazone"; "Deutsche Welle"; QMS "Caucasian Knot"; "Insider"; "New Newspaper"