Guns! Guns! Guns! and GURPS

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by GURPS Fox

Well, the guns are railguns (of the Gatling kind) flinging rounds at 5km/s, but the biggest problem is that using the standard electric consumption rate, .

I'd ahve thought that the biggest problem was that above 2200 meters per second your projectiles are behaving like meteors buring up from air friction and exploding when they hit the target.

If you can get coilguns into this speed range they might still be attractive in vacuum due to their relatively low amont of waste heat.

Your projectiles are probably excessively heavy too.

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I'd ahve thought that the biggest problem was that above 2200 meters per second your projectiles are behaving like meteors buring up from air friction and exploding when they hit the target.

That only works if your projectiles are low in density, when your projectiles have a high density (like, oh, somewhere between 15g/cc to 20g/cc), you have an upper limit of 15km/s (where atmospheric friction is so great that the projectile instantly explodes) or at least from what I can tell.

If you can get coilguns into this speed range they might still be attractive in vacuum due to their relatively low amont of waste heat.

Your projectiles are probably excessively heavy too.

That's what happens when you need as much kinetic energy as possible and have your projectiles be tungsten/DU dense (at a minimum) outside of artillery shells. In addition to the anti-tank projectiles having a Width-to-Length ratio of 40 (aka the best for long-dart APFSDS).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I'd ahve thought that the biggest problem was that above 2200 meters per second your projectiles are behaving like meteors buring up from air friction and exploding when they hit the target.

The problem is mostly that above a certain velocity your projectiles are unable to remain solid, and once you're looking at a fluid penetrating a fluid increasing velocity doesn't do much for you.

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The problem is mostly that above a certain velocity your projectiles are unable to remain solid, and once you're looking at a fluid penetrating a fluid increasing velocity doesn't do much for you.

However, you need that increase in velocity if you want to hit anything in space with kinetics. Even then, at around 5km/s, the kinetics stop acting like liquids and more of becoming solid-state explosions.