Hi. During Feb I was able to see 3 sections of this enormous weapon at an artillery museum here. Thought you might find it interesting. It is huge and made of stainless steel. "The project, if it had been successful, would have created a gun capable of firing a 600 kg (1320 lbs) projectile 1000 km, or, even more threatening, a rocket assisted projectile into orbit. From orbit it is possible to hit a target anywhere on the planet, and if it were equipped with a nuclear warhead, one can imagine the consequences. Another purpose for the gun would have been disabling spy satellites. Project Babylon was not successful, however, because Gerald Bull was assassinated outside his apartment in Brussels, Belgium in 1990. The assassin was never found, but the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad (Hebrew for "institution"), is suspected to be responsible."
It is not clear that this weapon would work. If you look at the guns used on US battle ships, you will see that thery have as much steel outside the shell as the width of the shell. This is needed inorder to contain the explosion of the propellent with the precision necessary to seal the bore while accelerating the projectile towards its target. These Tubes are about a factor of 5 to thin to be used in a gun with conventional explosive propellents.
I think this concept has been tried many times by nations with much more $$ to invest than Iraq and it's never worked. Luke.
Kinda like the Paris gun of WW1. Also I believe America or someother country actually tried launching a satellite into orbit with a big gun like this. I dont know how it went though. I dont think it worked. We also did some test with one with Nuclear warheads but the whole idea was scrapped I believe since it was worthless. We had the money and technology just to use Balistic Missiles. Yea but anyways People have been using huge rail guns like that since WW1.
these were referred to as " rail guns" as they were on and moved by rails. they were used somewhat by Germany in ww2 and fire shells similar to or larger than the 16 inch battle ship guns.( i think they were MUCH larger but i am not sure ) modern metals and technologies would make this a bad MOFO if developed properly. much as the V2 rockets ( german ww2)? they are a terror weapon where as they are fired at a target to hit in a general area and kill / terrorise as many as possible. nothing against our German fchaters, just recalling some of my firearms knowledge / history. you guys think thats scary!!!! there is a satellite in orbit that can shoot titanium rods accurately from space at a ground target. gravity does most of the work, though i dont know how the heck you would keep it from burning up in the atmosphere!!!( angle of attack???) i love big guns, though thats a little TOO big and where you you keep it!!!!!
I think one of hte "biggest" kills in War World 1 from a rail gun was when one of hte shells hit a French Monastary or something. It took out a lot of civilians if I remember correctly. The V-2's were easily preventable by jsut using a SPitfire or other fighter to tip the wing of the rocket with its wing and send it harmlessly into the countryside. I heard Botht eh V-2 and the Paris rail gun and the such were very terrifying to hear coming down on you. On a side note asome of those guns were so big they needed a superstructure to keep them up. Like a bunch of cables and the such. (I love reading about Military history, and watching the History channel.)
i love those channels too impalaSS!! my grandfather was in the 8th airforce and was there during the bombings. he has a piece of a V2 rocket that almost got him. those big guns were bad news. seems odd that IRAQ would go retro with something like that. i am glad i did not take that job with Lockheed Martin as a mechanic over there. ( $15k a month!!!) the " safe house " the aircraft mechanics were staying in was the one the car bomb blew up last week. that where i would have been had i gone in january like i was offered. makes you think!!!!!!!!! glad to be here, still poor but alive!!! forza ferrari!
My Grandfather was in the 8th airforce as well he was a Bombadier on a B-17g got shot down and spent a while in Stalif Luff(spelling?) 1 I think.
I can't imagine the delicate electronics in a satellite surviving the G's involved in such a launch. I'm not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV, but that would be several hundred, or even thousands of G's involved. Inertia's a *****-
The V-1 buzz bomb could be intercepted in the manner you describe, but not the V-2. The first thing that let the English know that a V-2 had been lauched was when it exploded. The reason that it was better to tip the wing of a V-1, and upset the gyro, instead of simply shooting it down was that when shot at, the thing would explode, and sometimes damage/destroy the plane that shot it down.
It was called a "dooms day gun." And it was very real. In fact... http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0109650/ DrS
My mother can remember hiding under the dining room table (some protection!) in the 1940s listening to the V1 engines stop and wondering where they were going to land. This was in Canterbury, about 20 miles from the English Channel. She would have been about 6 or 7 then. Scarey !
I thought that the Air Force wasn't started until 1946. If my memory serves me correctly it was called the Army Air Corp during WWII
The Air Force was founded in 1947, evolving as a separate service from the US Army Air Corps. The 8th Air Force in WW2 was (and is) a 'Numbered Air Force' (NAF). A NAF is an organizational level roughly equivalent to an Army 'Corps', e.g. V Corps. Hope this helps Aim High rt
Not sure what the G load is but rockets have a lot of vibration & G loads when they go up. They say the Spirit Mars rover took somewhere around 4 Gs I think when it first touched down on Mars
I'm not sure what the current launch vehicles experince, but the atlas and saturn V rockets of the early space programs experienced 7-8g so i would assume that the current day ones are around there. The design criteria would take this into account. As for the space gun, i doubt that it would be able to fire something 100's of miles into the air to a speed of 17,500 mph, which is abuot the speed necessary for orbit. I mean look at the size of the rocket they use to put a satellite into orbit. It is huge, and carries all that fuel, which is necessary to put it in orbit. You think that gun could provide all that energy, even if the projectile is rocket assisted? You couldnt fit a big enough rocket inside of it.