"cost of projectiles
high rate of fire"
Neither of those things allows you to swat aircraft at Standard Missile type ranges, though. And the new weapon development cost alone will far exceed the cost of the number of Standard Missiles the USN is likely to blaze through in the next 20 years.
The rate of fire thing is still a huge issue too, I believe.
"when I can shoot hundreds of rail gun projectiles for less than the cost of a single missile."
Shame they take up so much more room and weigh more.
"guided munitions from rail guns are within the realm of possibility. but a frangible projectile that became hundreds of hypersonic pellets after being fired would do massive damage on an air craft - sort of a super phallanx. or CiWS"
We've yet to build guidance that can handle that kind of acceleration, AFAIK. And frangible projectiles aren't going to have a 10nm range due simply to basic ballistics.
I like railguns, but they aren't a magic wand or super-weapon. They aren't really anything yet, especially a rival to guided munitions - either air or surface launched.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
