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From: mes90@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sykes ME)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Rail/Coil guns
Message-ID: <1990Dec15.014458.16688@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Dec 90 01:44:58 GMT
References: <1990Dec7.012346.2212@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
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From: mes90@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sykes ME)
I don't know about the range of the Rail-Gun, but the velocity of the
projectiles it fires is apparently in the ragion of 10Km per sec.
Concerning difficulties with the power supply, I understand work is
being done to remove the engine of the main battle tank and instead
power it off the guns power supply, as the gun would only require the
power for short bursts during combat.  
This would give as far as I know, the worlds first electruc Battle
Tank!
Hope this is of some interest.           


[mod.note:  Not quite the first... the Porsche prototype for the Tiger
tank used petro-electric drive (and this proved highly unreliable at
that time, but should not reflect on its potential today), as did
the later Maus.  - Bill ]