Lighthawk wrote:the more you develop these Superweapon, the more you make them useless. Quite the paradox, actually.
Useless my ass. Even if they never get used (which I doubt, someone somewhere at sometime will be brave/foolish/stupid enough to present a target suitable for this and just about anything else we come up with) if the weapon's very existence makes other people too afraid to pick a fight with us, it is money well spent.
It doesn't make people too afraid to pick a fight with you, it make people too afraid to attack you military, so they decide to attack your citizens abroad or at home instead. It makes the ennemy resort to guerilla tactic and terrorism.
And then you have the gall of calling them "gutless" for using said tactic, when they simply have no other alternatives.
(disclamer: This is by no mean a judgement on wether or no they are fighting for the right reason, motivation, or at the right target. This is only a judgement call on the methods used in an armed conflict, and the public's reaction to said methods)
Also, people, what do you think would be the effectiveness of such railgun if positionned on a Satellite, to do Sat Vs Sat warfare? Could you project a railgun projectile into Extreme Fast Orbit to strike down a satellite on the other side of the globe? (or it's a shot even Luke coudn't suceed?)
Total waste of money. It'd be a big, heavy (remember the rounds get their oomp from our friend mass X acceleration, so they need to have some heft to them, and every pound lugged into orbit is pricey) one shot deal. The recoil would knock the sat out of it'd orbit. If you have a sat with the right stuff to store and release as much energy as a railgun, put a big laser on it. Much more practical.[/quote]
Well, I wasn't thinking of whole rails but maybe pen-sized hyperaccelerated projectiles, fast ennough to take down a sat?
Thing is, you need a LoS for the laser to work. It's a good wepaon, but it lacks a subtle reach that the orbital projectile offers.