Chris THe Great wrote:
As for gauss weapons:
http://www.anothercoilgunsite.com/nf-portable.htmCheck out the video. I now have one on the to-do list.
One would think a tank would be much more versatile, because you could easily park the tank somewhere where it's hard to see, turn off the engines, and wait silently. Fire a gauss rifle at close range and you just did some mega damage. Since a gauss rifle, if a coilgun, does not produce any sound or flash, you would not be able to find what the hell just hit you. Fire again, have some other concealed tanks hit the mech a couple times.......
Fucking hell, I've written up this post in a more extended version 2 times now, crashing before hitting "post" both times.
No. A coilgun based tank is not going to happen. It is not going to happen because coilguns and all other reluctance based electromagnetic accelerators are inherently inefficient. First of all you have the problem of saturating your projectile, after the saturation point putting more energy into the system is pointless. No, you can't get around this by switching the coil's current polarities ever other coil. And if you attempt this you're just going to have more complex switching which will make the gun more inefficient and prone to failure. Pretending that one can bypass projectile saturation, you still have suckback. I have yet to see documentation of a coilgun that achieved efficiencies >=8%, and those that came close where voltage, low energy systems that could not be applied to weapons. To achieve the same kinetic energy as a simple 9mm round (~516j) at a very generous 8% (really, no one has done that, and I read a lot of naval academy docs) you'd have to dump in around 7kj. Now, that may seem almost reasonable until you consider the
fundamental limits of compact pulsed power (2.8Mb). Electrical energy density is nowhere even close to that of chemical systems. And compulsators don't really fair well with coilguns.
Coilguns are toys, nothing more.
That is not to say that electromagnetic accelerators cannot be used as weapons, both
inductance (not reluctance like above) based disc launchers and railguns (of plasma armature design and insane energies, >20kj) regularly achieve efficiencies over over 30%. They are applicable as weapons systems for ships and such.
Coilgun tanks, no. Railgun tanks, not soon. Tanks are too small. Chemical energy based systems are going to rule the roost for many more years.
Anyway, best tank, US M1A2 Abrams. I have nothing new to add.