And enemies all exposed together in a fixed place, but somehow not reachable by normal weapons of mass destruction. That’s the real reason hillgun is noncredible at this point, even if you could figure out a way to protect the muzzle end well enough.
I said in another thread here that I’d go for coilgun first, so I don’t disagree. More for the resistance to wear or mechanical failure than because explosives are hard to come by, though.
I’m thinking of something like the Ukraine War, where neither side has air superiority, and both have capable air defenses. The primary long range attack option is rocket attacks, but rockets are expensive. A railgun just needs electricity, replacement rails, and something conductive to launch. As a fixed weapon, they should be pretty effective, especially if they can adjust their aim a few degrees.
Germany had air superiority vs UK, so they could use conventional bombers. But today, they’d need to contend with the US, so I don’t think that strategy would work today. Launching heavy objects at incredible speed almost always works though.
Coilguns are awesome though. I think they’d make awesome anti-tank guns, but they probably wouldn’t scale well enough for long range bombardment.
I mean, you can make most of the gun underground, but the muzzle always has to stick out. If you don’t have air superiority I’d think that would make it pretty vulnerable.
A giant, underground gun that that can also aim a few degrees is straight up an experimental concept. I guess you could put it all on a giant turn-table?
I’m thinking of a situation where neither side has air superiority, and both have solid air defenses. In that case, I don’t think the gun needs to be underground, just the expensive electrical bits, so the barrel can be exposed. The electrical bits could be anywhere in the area, as long as they connect to the rails, which should be pretty cheap.
I’m sure there area million reasons it wouldn’t work, but I think it checks out on paper.
And enemies all exposed together in a fixed place, but somehow not reachable by normal weapons of mass destruction. That’s the real reason hillgun is noncredible at this point, even if you could figure out a way to protect the muzzle end well enough.
I said in another thread here that I’d go for coilgun first, so I don’t disagree. More for the resistance to wear or mechanical failure than because explosives are hard to come by, though.
I’m thinking of something like the Ukraine War, where neither side has air superiority, and both have capable air defenses. The primary long range attack option is rocket attacks, but rockets are expensive. A railgun just needs electricity, replacement rails, and something conductive to launch. As a fixed weapon, they should be pretty effective, especially if they can adjust their aim a few degrees.
Germany had air superiority vs UK, so they could use conventional bombers. But today, they’d need to contend with the US, so I don’t think that strategy would work today. Launching heavy objects at incredible speed almost always works though.
Coilguns are awesome though. I think they’d make awesome anti-tank guns, but they probably wouldn’t scale well enough for long range bombardment.
I mean, you can make most of the gun underground, but the muzzle always has to stick out. If you don’t have air superiority I’d think that would make it pretty vulnerable.
A giant, underground gun that that can also aim a few degrees is straight up an experimental concept. I guess you could put it all on a giant turn-table?
I’m thinking of a situation where neither side has air superiority, and both have solid air defenses. In that case, I don’t think the gun needs to be underground, just the expensive electrical bits, so the barrel can be exposed. The electrical bits could be anywhere in the area, as long as they connect to the rails, which should be pretty cheap.
I’m sure there area million reasons it wouldn’t work, but I think it checks out on paper.