Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: ccplumb@lion.waterloo.edu (Colin Plumb)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: future weapons
Message-ID: <15588@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Apr 90 04:11:44 GMT
References: <15376@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: University of Waterloo
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: ccplumb@lion.waterloo.edu (Colin Plumb)
Well, I recall reading in a very low-grade information source (I think
it was Popular Science) that the U.S. army was playing with railguns as
tank guns.  Solid shells (anything fancier gets squashed by the firing
acceleration) with twice the muzzle velocity (and thus 4 times the
kinetic energy) are hard to defend against; tricks don't
work very well against brute force.

Anyway, it was at least 2 years ago and the article mentioned that
there was going to be a shoot-off between various manufacturers
in about a year.  Does anyone know if anything came of it?
--  
	-Colin

[mod.note:  Perhaps it's my focus on WWII, but it took me several
minutes to realize that the "railguns" referred to were not large
railway cannon.  Although the image of an 11" gun on a tank *was*
intriguing... 8-)   - Bill ]