China's rail gun fires smart bomb at Mach 5 nine miles into the air, test declared a failure

FYI the first photo is of the US Navy's abandoned Rail Gun project - not China's.

A successful test would be at escape velocity and actually put into orbit so while it was a failure by these "standards" it certainly would be successful as a shipboard weapon ....

Endymio said:

Sometimes when you paraphrase an original article's text you introduce errors. The projectile didn't accelerate after launch; it decelerated. The Mach 5 figure was back-calculated as the launch velocity, based on the accelerometer data.

I'll note that the first nation to master this technology will dominate all others militarily. Missiles cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollar apiece. An effective railgun can destroy targets from 100+ km away, at a cost of about $1 a shot. Or -- as China tried to do here -- launch guided smart munitions with 1000+ km range far more cheaply than via conventional means.

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Cost doesn't matter when a nation has already stockpiled enough to blow up the world seven times.

Another misleading title from

midian182 said:

However, the test was declared a failure as the bomb did not reach its intended altitude and failed to follow the expected trajectory.

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Another misleading subtitle.

A massive weapon that did not go where you pointed it is automatically a failure. The fact that part of missing the target was its altitude is a secondary detail in how it missed, not why it was deemed a failure.

Failed because it missed Taiwan?

No use if you can't hit your target.

Endymio said:

I'll note that the first nation to master this technology will dominate all others militarily. Missiles cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollar apiece. An effective railgun can destroy targets from 100+ km away, at a cost of about $1 a shot. Or -- as China tried to do here -- launch guided smart munitions with 1000+ km range far more cheaply than via conventional means.

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That doesn't take into account wear and tear, which with current railguns is incredibly high. It's not $1 per shot if you have to replace the very expensive and difficult to manufacture barrel frequently. And yes, China have revealed their wear and tear statistics, but I very much doubt they are better, especially when their metallurgy knowledge is far inferior.

Uncle Al said:

A successful test would be at escape velocity and actually put into orbit so while it was a failure by these "standards" it certainly would be successful as a shipboard weapon ....

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An orbit cannot be achieved with a velocity, Uncle. An orbit requires acceleration, and all acceleration ceased once the projectile exited the railgun. Orbital dynamics aren't that hard to learn.

ScottSoapbox said:

Cost doesn't matter when a nation has already stockpiled enough to blow up the world seven times.

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Oh, it's seven times now? That's a very interesting way of spelling "zero".

Dreadnought class battle ships had guns firing shells faster, farther and more accurately than that with conventional propellants 120 years ago. So as far as lobbing explosive filled projectiles is concerned it's not that special. Railguns have a very long way to go if they are ever going to be effective in naval warfare.

Uncle Al said:

A successful test would be at escape velocity and actually put into orbit so while it was a failure by these "standards" it certainly would be successful as a shipboard weapon ....

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Um, "escape velocity" and "orbit" (orbital velocity) are two different beasts entirely. And both are far above what you want for an effective weapon system striking targets on Earth.

Tams80 said:

That [cost] doesn't take into account wear and tear, which with current railguns is incredibly high. It's not $1 per shot if you have to replace the very expensive and difficult to manufacture barrel frequently.

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Oh, absolutely. Still, there's no theoretical reason the barrel should experience any more wear than a standard artillery gun. With enough control over the magnetic fields involved, in fact, there's no need for a traditional "barrel" at all.

JaredTheDragon said:

An orbit cannot be achieved with a velocity, Uncle. An orbit requires acceleration, and all acceleration ceased once the projectile exited the railgun. Orbital dynamics aren't that hard to learn.

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Eh? An orbit most certainly can be achieved by an initial launch velocity. In fact, linear catapult launch systems were first conceived in the 1940s, and a circular accelerator-based launch system is already being tested by a company called SpinLaunch. The only real issue is the enormous g-forces the payload experiences, which limits sharply what cargoes can be launched.

That's great, end funding with our military projects and give hundreds of billions to other countries instead and also illegals. Let's see if my comment stays up even though it's actually related to this story.

Dimitrios said:

That's great, end funding with our military projects and give hundreds of billions to other countries instead and also illegals. Let's see if my comment stays up even though it's actually related to this story.

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So you’d rather focus on illegal immigrants than fund useless railguns… glad you’re on topic…

Endymio said:

Sometimes when you paraphrase an original article's text you introduce errors. The projectile didn't accelerate after launch; it decelerated. The Mach 5 figure was back-calculated as the launch velocity, based on the accelerometer data.

I'll note that the first nation to master this technology will dominate all others militarily. Missiles cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollar apiece. An effective railgun can destroy targets from 100+ km away, at a cost of about $1 a shot. Or -- as China tried to do here -- launch guided smart munitions with 1000+ km range far more cheaply than via conventional means.

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Uh-huh. Well, you have a creative imagination, if nothing else.

$1 a shot? Really? You know this HOW, exactly? And the barrels that need to be replaced after 12-24 shots are what, $5.99 each?

ddferrari said:

Uh-huh. Well, you have a creative imagination, if nothing else.

$1 a shot? Really? You know this HOW, exactly?

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From the Office of Naval Research, estimates on the energy cost of a 10 MJoule railgun shot.

ddferrari said:

And the barrels that need to be replaced after 12-24 shots are what, $5.99 each?

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As already discussed in the thread, this cost doesn't include wear and tear on the launch equipment, just as the launching a three million-dollar JSM cruise missile from a F-35 in flight doesn't include the wear and tear on the fighter itself. Any more questions?

Endymio said:

Eh? An orbit most certainly can be achieved by an initial launch velocity.

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I thought he was wrong as well, but it turns out for earth specifically this is true.

The power to get to a height to achieve an orbit (without acceleration) would place the object within the suns gravitational hold.

Hey, that’s scientists saying this. I don’t understand the maths.

Aus spot said:

I thought he was wrong as well, but it turns out for earth specifically this is true.

The power to get to a height to achieve an orbit (without acceleration) would place the object within the suns gravitational hold.

Hey, that’s scientists saying this. I don’t understand the maths.

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No scientist that's ever studied astrodynamics said such a thing, certainly. Whomever stated this likely confused orbital velocity (~7.8 km/s) with earth's escape velocity of 11.1 km/s. Toss an object from the earth's surface with the first velocity and it'll enter LEO. Toss it with the latter velocity and it'll enter orbit around the sun. Toss it with a velocity > 600 km/s and it'll escape the sun's orbit entirely. (All figures excluding air resistance and a few other minor factors).

As I said, surface launch systems utilizing just this principle are *already* being tested. See:


Fun fact: launch eastward at the earth's equator and you get a free ~0.5 km/s in launch velocity. This is why the US chose a southern state for Cape Canaveral, and why Russia built its first launch facility in Kazakhstan, rather than its own borders.

Tams80 said:

No use if you can't hit your target.



That doesn't take into account wear and tear, which with current railguns is incredibly high. It's not $1 per shot if you have to replace the very expensive and difficult to manufacture barrel frequently. And yes, China have revealed their wear and tear statistics, but I very much doubt they are better, especially when their metallurgy knowledge is far inferior.

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China couldn't even manufacture ball bearings for pens for a huge time, needed to import them

There latest aircraft carrier has more displacement ( bad ) and slower speed ( bad ) that ones USA built much older than myself and have since retired. Built on old Soviet designs as well. USSR/Russia has it ever won a naval engagement ?? . TBF Russian modern ones are probably very good, much better than the junk China makes , take need a tug boat entow just encase

China properly can make good steel, but you would need to audit 1 in 5 pieces at least, to see not cheated on.

All the top department stores who had clothes made in China, had people 100% on the ground ensuring continuing quality

Squid Surprise said:

So you’d rather focus on illegal immigrants than fund useless railguns… glad you’re on topic…

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Why should we waste money on illegals instead of using that for the military? If rail guns are useless, why is China invested so much into it? Yo are you serious? Why should we spend our tax dollars on illegals? Our military should be on top of the list, look at wars going on?

It was a failure due to the magnetics frying the bombs electronics - Simply put, they EMP'd the bomb during launch, making it a dud.

Dimitrios said:

Why should we waste money on illegals instead of using that for the military? If rail guns are useless, why is China invested so much into it? Yo are you serious? Why should we spend our tax dollars on illegals? Our military should be on top of the list, look at wars going on?

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Apparently I forgot the /s at the end of my post... my bad... pretty sure immigrants (legal or illegal) are not part of this article...

Tams80 said:

No use if you can't hit your target.



but I very much doubt they are better, especially when their metallurgy knowledge is far inferior.

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Are you sure about it? By now, I expect everything we ever knew about it transferred to China and taught anyone who wanted to do a business on it.