Navy Tests Mach 8 Electromagnetic Railgun

hargrand writes "Wired magazine has a story and publicly released video of the Navy test firing of a 32 megajoule electromagnetic railgun: 'Reporters were invited to watch the test at the Dalghren Naval Surface Warfare Center. A tangle of two-inch thick coaxial cables hooked up to stacks of refrigerator-sized capacitors took five minutes to power juice into a gun the size of a schoolbus built in a warehouse. With a 1.5-million-ampere spark of light and a boom audible in a room 50 feet away, the bullet left the gun at a speed of Mach 8.'"

Yay!

[Rix]

You'll finally dominate the USSR militarily, ending the Cold War.

Civilian version?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I'm still trying to get them kids off my lawn. But kids on bikes are quick, wily and seem to move in Brownian Motion tracks. Mach 8 could give me a good tactical advantage . . .

Re:Mach 8 to Orbit?

[DirePickle]

You win again, gravity!

Re:50 feet away?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should consider exercise and less food.

Re:I've heard that before

[Hal_Porter]

Sadly I think your joke just hit the nail on the head of one of the things that is seriously fucked up about this country. I mean here we are, factories shuttered all over the place, people losing their homes left and right, over 22,000 factories offshored since 2001, and debt climbing like there is no tomorrow and

BOOM

stupid Osprey turkey while we are at it. We already have the most tech heavy military on the planet but as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan all that means exactly jack and squat against the enemies of today. quit blowing money on stupid weapons already, Sheesh.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear you over the sound of how awesome my 32MJ rail gun is.

Re:Yay!

[Dunbal]

such as against a rogue country who would suddenly decide to conquer the world.

I fail to see how the US can use this technology against itself.

Re:Yay!

[mcneely.mike]

And, i think it is that something like 90% of Canadians live within 100 km of the U.S. border..... man, they could shoot us all, 1 bullet at a time.
(That is, until we learn to duck just in time while holding the beer bottle just so and the bullet spins the screw cap off. Oh, yeah. Beer. Mmmmmm.)