. . . . when can I buy one?

For "home secutiry" purposes naturally.

I'll take 4, drop the top on mine and does it come in black?

If this is a railgun why is there flame coming out of the back of the projectile?

My confusion makes Paris Hilton cry.

To spook the Russians into another arms race? And more funding for these boffins with nothing better to do.

Ballmer for firing better cannons.

I have a vague recollection of the RN making a careful distinction between "fire" and "shoot" as commands.

In any case, there seems to be more than enough flame for "fired" to be a valid word.

But don't name the railguns after the research centre: it's named for a US Naval officer whose name has already been attached to the guns he designed, around 150 years ago.

And there's also a rather famous book with that title.

I know of a project like this in late 90's, developed for czech army at CTU FEE Prague. They got to Mach 5 or so muzzle velocity, the supervising officer was VERY pleased, and decided to move the project to military development facility. The gun was able to fire about two times, before the "barrel" (two rails, actually - hence the "railgun" moniker:-)) fused together.

The "flame" (flash) is actually plasma emission, aka lightning; the gun works by two means - mainly Lorentz force induced by a spike current in the rails pulling the slug, and a plasma discharge (a small lightning, actually) induced by an artificial short circuit (very thin wire between the rails, which at the time of "firing" vaporizes instantly and induces a lightning arc) behind the slug.

It is called it "plasma cannon". And the tech is already nearing battlefield deployment, the USofA being the obvious technology leaders.

Mach 7.5 sounds a lot more impressive than 2400 metres per second, which is what this is.

It's worth noting that modern tank guns firing APFSHS-DU penetrators routinely achieve 1600 metres per second, that tweaked APFSHS-DU has tested out to 1900 metres per second, and that it's generally agreed that it should be possible to push conventional explosive-driven projectiles to 2000 metres per second in the next generation of guns. So what they've got here is maybe a 15-20% improvement over where the state of the art is with explosive-driven guns at the same level of development.

Meanwhile, did you notice the sparks flying from the underside of the railgun? Serious arcing -- always a problem when you're throwing millions of joules around in under a millisecond -- tends to wreck railguns. And you get arcing when you mix that kind of current with air. Especially damp, salt-laden air (hello, paging the Navy: you are aware that your ships sail on top of seawater which is (a) conductive and (b) tends to splash everywhere? There's a reason naval guns on real warships come with protective caps which are only removed just before firing ...)

Railgun technology isn't new; it's been a hangar queen ever since the Nazis scratched their heads over it in the 1940s. Now DARPA have got it to work about as well as the conventional alternative, in a demo. Nothing to see here, move along ...

The flames coming out the back are actually plasma caused by the intense heating of the slug.

10MJ is tiny, BAE already have a 32MJ railcannon-

http://www.dailytech.com/BAE+Sports+Most+Powerful+Railgun+Ever/article9791.htm

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,160195,00.html

All you need is 3,000,000 amps to fire it :)

Seems to have been removed. Maybe it was classified?

How secret was this test??

IIRC, "Nock" in terms of archery is the term associated with putting the bow string in the notch in the arrow. The actual sequence is Nock, DRAW, Loose. (I am no expert, but I do read a lot of heroic fantasy and they tend to research such things, due to pedants complaining if they get details wrong)

Back to the article, this is a seriously cool gun. Where can I get one? :D

Mine's the very expensive coat, with pockets stuffed with cash. Honest.

@Charlie Stross

The tampion (muzzle cover) that you see on ships in harbour is a ceremonial version - usually polished brass or chromed steel - while tampions used at sea are quite different. They're not removed "just before firing" but rather for a given state of readiness. Given the barrel interior withstands many hot blasts of propellant as well as a projectile scraping past it's rifling, you should be able to see that a bit of salt water isn't really much to worry about. But barrels get cleaned anyway, to maximize their life and minimize cost to the taxpayer. If it comes to it, the round can be fired straight through the tampion, anyway.

Other weapon systems (I won't go into details) use weatherproof membranes which are punctured on firing - it's quite harmless as far as the ordnance is concerned.

Whereas, the experimental 'railgun' may not sound fantastic yet, keep in mind that its muzzle velocity already exceeds even the fastest conventional projectiles. Future iterations will be increasingly impressive. Consider that 12-pound cannon were pretty lame compared to a modern 4.5" naval gun, yet they rely on the same basic principle - an explosive propellant and round.

We may yet see a hybrid weapon using a (relatively small and gentle) conventional propellant followed by a railgun acceletator to maximise the benefits of the new technology and improve barrel life.

Argh, beaten by my own pedantry! I should have know this one too, they had that exact phrase in Ash: A Secret History which I only just finished reading.

Oh well.

Anyone remember that classic scene in Hunt the Bismark where they intercut between the British gunery officer shouting "SHOOT!" and the german one shouting "FIRE!". When I was a kid that amused me greatly for some reason...

or does that look like an upright piano...?

NOW!

"Is it just me... or does that look like an upright piano...?"

that would explain the Great Balls of Fire...

To those who cleared up my confusion! I hadn't considerd plasma.

Paris is ok now.

If you go shooting with a bow you would loose a few arrows.

unless soemone shouts fast!

et tu boffin?

Did anyone else notice that the first shot of the projectile shows it nosing downward, then in the next shot it's flat, then moves to nosing down again?

How did they do that? How can the projectile change orientation while in flight?

Wonder how hardened they are against EMP.

Just imagine if they aren't, and no conventional guns are aboard.

Floating target?

so the warmongers want to continue to spend ridiculous sums of money for something that has no other application than destruction (please correct me if I am wrong, maybe firing chunks of metal at high velocity actually has a benefit to humanity) if they have to insist on developing means of killing others perhaps they might consider something to prevent them killing their own allies

its not been a good day, can you tell!

All you have to do is build a meson-gun battery on the other side of the planet.

(Yes, I still have my Tukera Lines crew ID card....)

Maybe if they fire the projectile at the inhouse nuclear plant they obviously use to power the thing they could kill two turkeys with one bolt.And this is going on at the same time as civilians are being chivvied about saving power...

Just imagine if the resources squandered here were put to intelligent people-friendly use, and the "scientists" deployed to create and prioritize such beneficial usages for deprived areas in both rich and poor countries. It isn't hard to do.

Well, flying chunks of metal have been known to clean up the gene pool

Absolutely no argument regarding content and attitude but until we all learn to get along (human nature undergoes substantial change) I want to be on the side that owns the latest model Death Machine.

Cool video. Wish they'd used a pumpkin for a target.

Paris because I loved the video and wished they'd used a pumpkin.

"please correct me if I am wrong, maybe firing chunks of metal at high velocity actually has a benefit to humanity"

Railguns are awesome. There you go.

be quiet and enjoy the fireworks ya feckin hippy.

Perhaps the verb for this type of weapon should be "discharge". It works for both the electrical side of things and for the act of expelling the projectile itself.

...but the slow reload time means that you'll be toast in 1v1 if the other guy has the red armor and a rocket launcher.

One of those things on the George Washington, or the Nimitz, or even the Enterprise. Any carrier would have the ability to create to power to fire one of those things, I think. Or, they will once out wonderful scientists fix the bugs with it.

Almost makes me wish I was an FC rather than an IT. Almost.

Nice a modern variant of the old infamous Paris gun from WW1 !

Sadly the EMP effect from shooting the beast would stand out like a very bright beacon to any passing satellite or long range scanning EMR/AWAC's plane fitted with a standard MAD from the usual ASW aircraft traversing the battlefield every time it fires , oh so sorry we unleashed another battlefield area nuke what a pity !

There are two basic scenarios - defensive fire and offensive fire. In the defensive case, the enemy already knows where you are ... umm, that's why you're shooting, OK? In the offensive case, the enemy is about to know where you are ... and they sure ain't goin' to need a satellite to figure it out.

Remaining undetected is a nice idea, but quite impracticable once the shooting starts even with current weapons. You may even have heard of 'manoeuvres'? They're necessary on account of it being a bad idea to stay still once you've announced your presence with an opening shot!

Ok.. so mission plan..

1. Choose enemy target..(say a T72)

2. Drive 30 tonne articulated lorry up to target, reverse to face target and open rear doors.

3. Tap on turret of tank, ask them were the nearest electrical socket is, and ask them if they mind waiting for gun to charge up.

4. Plug in, charge up and fire...

The above can be repeated 4 x then back to base for a new barrel..

Hmm.. and the man portable feasability of this is ??

PS built something similar out of solenoids at high school. It could fire a six inch nail through 3 telephone directories (the old thick ones not the new thin ones). Never suffered barrel wear (did suffer appauling jam problems). But at least it was men portable (one for the solenoid assembly one for the batteries)

There's a clear and present benefit to humanity.

The secret to world peace is more weapons rather than fewer. Once it reaches the stage that everyone has a half-dozen nuclear tipped ICBMs buried in silos in their backyards, you'd better believe that we're all gonna get along just fine. Either that or the cockroaches are one day going to become intelligent enough that they're gonna wonder what became of all the monkey kind of people who used to spray stuff on their distant ancestors.

Either scenario results in world peace.

// Paris knows all about world peace.