206 replies to this topic

[Wecx]

Znail, on 09 October 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

The sabot HEAT round that video talks about is a multi-purpose round for taking out lightly armored targets like APCs, Helicopters and people. I understand that the PR video makes it sound like it's totally awesome, but it's actually less powerfull then much older tank rounds even. The only advantage it has over older tanks HEAT rounds is a higher velocity making it easier to hit harder targets like Helicopters, wich is not an insignificant advantage, but it's on the other hand totally unsuited at damaging something like a tank. Wich isn't a major problem as the normal APFSDS round is ment for tanks.

Your not correct, I used to be a Armor Crewmen in an M1A1, we only used Heat Rounds on Lightly armored targets because our APFSDS would go right through. An example would be a time we shot an APFSDS at a light truck and it just went right through, Also using an APFSDS on APCS does the same thing. And your kind of right about the Helicopter thing but wrong,M830 is the HEAT Round and the round used against Helicopters is the MPAT or M830A1, Basically you take a HEAT Round and twist the top to set a timed fuse, doesn't have anything to do with higher velocity. Your completely wrong about old tank rounds being better, they were made out of crappy tungsten and would Mushroom our new rounds use depleted uranium.

Edited by Wecx, 09 October 2016 - 02:12 PM.

[Alek Ituin]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

Your not correct, I used to be a Armor Crewmen in an M1A1, we only used Heat Rounds on Lightly armored targets because our APFSDS would go right through. An example would be a time we shot an APFSDS at a light truck and it just went right through, Also using an APFSDS on APCS does the same thing. And your kind of right about the Helicopter thing but wrong,M830 is the HEAT Round and the round used against Helicopters is the MPAT or M830A1, Basically you take a HEAT Round and twist the top to set a timed fuse, doesn't have anything to do with higher velocity. Your completely wrong about old tank rounds being better, they were made out of crappy tungsten and would Mushroom our new rounds use depleted uranium.

Mushrooming is normal for APFSDS. DU just has the advantage of shearing the "mushroom" off earlier than TC rounds, but it's still going to be mushroomed regardless. Also, TC is used because it's not nearly as poisonous as DU, and both TC and the infrastructure with which to work TC is more developed and available than that for Staballoy.

Also, where did you get the M830A1 using a timer? It's got a proxy fuse due to the fact it was specifically designed with engaging helicopters in mind. Not to mention the M830A1 is indeed faster than the M830, making it even more useful against helicopters and assorted light targets.

[cazidin]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

Your not correct, I used to be a Armor Crewmen in an M1A1, we only used Heat Rounds on Lightly armored targets because our APFSDS would go right through. An example would be a time we shot an APFSDS at a light truck and it just went right through, Also using an APFSDS on APCS does the same thing. And your kind of right about the Helicopter thing but wrong,M830 is the HEAT Round and the round used against Helicopters is the MPAT or M830A1, Basically you take a HEAT Round and twist the top to set a timed fuse, doesn't have anything to do with higher velocity. Your completely wrong about old tank rounds being better, they were made out of crappy tungsten and would Mushroom our new rounds use depleted uranium.

Thank you for your service. /salute.

[Wecx]

Yeah, i meant a proxy fuse, but it is the proxy fuse that takes out helicopters, it has nothing to do with velocity, we use a laser and tons of sensors to predict the speed of the target, windspeed, distance, etc to hit the target. we even have a sensor that measures the tempature outside. You can see the cross-wind sensor on the back of the M1A1 if you looks really hard. Velocity doesn't really matter, the round could be slower and it would still hit because our sensors predict exactly where the gun needs to be to hit.

Also the laser is pretty cool i am not proud to say i have blinded birds with it before.

In fact this is really noticeable because when we aim at targets the main gun will actually lead the target automatically even though the optic is dead on the target.

No your wrong the APFSDS does not mushroom, it self sharpens during flight time and you can see it with slow motion camera. Never have i seen an APFSDS mushroom, it is always super sharp when it hits the target.

DU being poisonous isn't an issue in war, we want to kill people and aren't really concerned about that. We were instructed not to visit wreckage because of that, but i don't see what your point is.

There are so many other factors besides momentum

Even if it did 1 point of damage, i was able to load my main gun in 3 seconds, a Tank Company has 16 Tanks,

Thats 16 points of Damage every 3 seconds, thought i'd point that out. You could take out a lot of cockpits.

Edited by Wecx, 09 October 2016 - 03:13 PM.

[TheArisen]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 02:53 PM, said:

Yeah, i meant a proxy fuse, but it is the proxy fuse that takes out helicopters, it has nothing to do with velocity, we use a laser and tons of sensors to predict the speed of the target, windspeed, distance, etc to hit the target. we even have a sensor that measures the tempature outside. You can see the cross-wind sensor on the back of the M1A1 if you looks really hard. Velocity doesn't really matter, the round could be slower and it would still hit because our sensors predict exactly where the gun needs to be to hit.

In fact this is really noticeable because when we aim at targets the main gun will actually lead the target automatically even though the optic is dead on the target.

No your wrong the APFSDS does not mushroom, it self sharpens during flight time and you can see it with slow motion camera. Never have i seen an APFSDS mushroom, it is always super sharp when it hits the target.

DU being poisonous isn't an issue in war, we want to kill people and aren't really concerned about that. We were instructed not to visit wreckage because of that, but i don't see what your point is.

There are so many other factors besides momentum

Even if it did 1 point of damage, i was able to load my main gun in 3 seconds, a Tank Company has 16 Tanks,

Thats 16 points of Damage every 3 seconds, thought i'd point that out. You could take out a lot of cockpits.

I'd bet you'd only need 1 or 2 to destroy a cockpit. If BT mechs were designed with appropriate level tech (aside from a few things) they wouldn't have glass or any sort of obvious weakpoint for a cockpit. The pilot would be sealed in & would use cameras, etc.

[Znail]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

Your not correct, I used to be a Armor Crewmen in an M1A1, we only used Heat Rounds on Lightly armored targets because our APFSDS would go right through. An example would be a time we shot an APFSDS at a light truck and it just went right through, Also using an APFSDS on APCS does the same thing. And your kind of right about the Helicopter thing but wrong,M830 is the HEAT Round and the round used against Helicopters is the MPAT or M830A1, Basically you take a HEAT Round and twist the top to set a timed fuse, doesn't have anything to do with higher velocity. Your completely wrong about old tank rounds being better, they were made out of crappy tungsten and would Mushroom our new rounds use depleted uranium.

That video was about the M830A1 and it's faster then a normal HEAT round because it uses a sabot, similar to APFSDS rounds, but that also makes it less powerfull then a full caliber HEAT round. And no, it does not use depleted uranium as that is used for APFSDS, not the HEAT.

Edited by Znail, 09 October 2016 - 03:27 PM.

[Battlemaster56]

FOOLS NEITHER WILL WIN!!! BOW TO THE POWER OF THE DARKSIDE!!!!



But for real tho.. it's too difficult to just simply compare realistic military tech to advance sci-fi tech unless the full extent of the sci-fi tech can be shown or explain.

[Figure 11]

Mechs would have terrible ground pressure and sink on anything less than firm ground, as well as being big tall obbious targets.

The main reason tank guns have gone back to the good old metal slug approach (APDS etc) is that it is technically far easier to propel a sabot to very high speeds and have it punch through thick armour than it is to make explosive penetrators like heat and hesh and much harder to defend against other than by adding more armour thickness. I remember a figure of 70cm of rolled steel armour penetration at 2000 metres for current 120mm sabot ammuntion. Battletech mechs are covered in shell traps, difficult to armour joints and would likely be impossible to balance the way the armour is supposed to distributed. Peformance of armour can be increased with clever laminating and adding in bits and bobs to break up a penetrator (google chobam armour etc) but ye cannae defeat the laws of physics.

[Wecx]

Znail, on 09 October 2016 - 03:26 PM, said:

That video was about the M830A1 and it's faster then a normal HEAT round because it uses a sabot, similar to APFSDS rounds, but that also makes it less powerfull then a full caliber HEAT round. And no, it does not use depleted uranium as that is used for APFSDS, not the HEAT.

There is a video of the APFSDS as well, im talking about the APFSDS it doesn't mushroom. sorry i may have misread certain things. i'm not saying the Heat Round doesn't mushroom, but it doesn't work like a regular tungsten round. the HEAT Round forces molten copper into the target by a charge at the tip and a regular tungsten round is just a solid round that mushrooms at impact and doesn't penetrate reliably.

Figure 11, on 09 October 2016 - 03:38 PM, said:

Mechs would have terrible ground pressure and sink on anything less than firm ground, as well as being big tall obbious targets.

The main reason tank guns have gone back to the good old metal slug approach (APDS etc) is that it is technically far easier to propel a sabot to very high speeds and have it punch through thick armour than it is to make explosive penetrators like heat and hesh and much harder to defend against other than by adding more armour thickness. I remember a figure of 70cm of rolled steel armour penetration at 2000 metres for current 120mm sabot ammuntion. Battletech mechs are covered in shell traps, difficult to armour joints and would likely be impossible to balance the way the armour is supposed to distributed. Peformance of armour can be increased with clever laminating and adding in bits and bobs to break up a penetrator (google chobam armour etc) but ye cannae defeat the laws of physics.

It isnt a good old metal slug, it is a self sharpening projectile. It isn't the same thing.

Regardless, lets pretend it still does 1 Point of damage, (Even if i'm arguing that it could do more) You have 1 projectile every 3 seconds per tank. This is plenty of damage to destroy cockpits like the original argument was. 1 Tank Company has 16 Tanks (20 if you count the command platoon, but in my experience i never count that platoon)

I still think multi-able tanks could take out cockpits faster than a battlemech can hit anything. Battlemechs are super inaccurate.

Edited by Wecx, 09 October 2016 - 04:30 PM.

[Anjian]

Snowbluff, on 09 October 2016 - 11:34 AM, said:

The Gauss rifle 2000 m/s is with a 100kg projectile. That's like 15 times the energy for the purpose of the abstraction. It'd go in one end of an MBT and out the other.
I'm not saying a Daishi wouldn't be bombed to kingdom come, but you're off by like an order of magnitude when comparing rifles.


Read what I said again. The typical "silver bullet" style round from a 120mm cannon has 1/15 the momentum of the goose waffle. I extrapolated that to 1 point of damage (excluding the explosive).

The reason I used the Gauss Rifle for the comparison is that it would have similiar round (long, thin) and more of the mass would be the round itself than any propellant.

Really where does it say its a 100kg projectile?

The weapon weighs 15 tons alone, which is pretty inefficient. A 120mm tank gun weighs about a ton.

What makes you think it would go through a tank? Assuming it would reach a modern tank, since a modern tank cannon is hitting the mech at distances much greater.

Furthermore there is a huge problem with gauss weapons --- the shell or solid metal slug needs to be ferro magnetic, and nickel iron itself isn't as hard as alloy steel or what you have as tank armor. If the projectile composition is softer and less dense than the target --- it BREAKS UP on impact.

Tank rounds are created with materials harder and denser than steel, such as Tungsten alloys or Depleted Uranium.

[Alek Ituin]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 02:53 PM, said:

Yeah, i meant a proxy fuse, but it is the proxy fuse that takes out helicopters, it has nothing to do with velocity, we use a laser and tons of sensors to predict the speed of the target, windspeed, distance, etc to hit the target. we even have a sensor that measures the tempature outside. You can see the cross-wind sensor on the back of the M1A1 if you looks really hard. Velocity doesn't really matter, the round could be slower and it would still hit because our sensors predict exactly where the gun needs to be to hit.

Also the laser is pretty cool i am not proud to say i have blinded birds with it before.

In fact this is really noticeable because when we aim at targets the main gun will actually lead the target automatically even though the optic is dead on the target.

No your wrong the APFSDS does not mushroom, it self sharpens during flight time and you can see it with slow motion camera. Never have i seen an APFSDS mushroom, it is always super sharp when it hits the target.

No FCS system, to date, will ever be able to perfectly predict the flight path of anything. Dumb rounds just can't do anything about a target that simply moves from their predicted path, something helicopters in particular are very good at. That's why AAA systems went from guns to SAM's, because the missile can actively change course to track an evading target. Thus why, despite the accuracy of the FCS on the M1's, the M830A1 still has a proxy fuse. And a higher velocity equals a higher hit chance, especially VS moving targets.

As well, you can argue against the science all you want, but the terminal ballistics of APFSDS rounds is pretty cut and dry. As the round impacts, the tip deforms and "mushrooms" as it penetrates in to the target, carried by its momentum. After a certain point however, the adiabatic shear band formation causes the sides of the mushroom to shear off, and it retains its conical form. At no point however does the pointed tip reform during this process, though the flechette itself does get thinner as material is sheared from it. Since the flechette gets thinner, it retains higher penetration for longer, which I suppose leads to the misconception of the "self-sharpening tip".

That said, if you're trying to argue that APFSDS "self-sharpens" in flight... APFSDS rounds lose their sabot petals after leaving the barrel, yes, but that's all that happens to the round prior to impact. There's no sharpening, or shearing, nor deformation of the flechette in flight. At all. Ever. And if your flechette did do any of those things in flight, you had a faulty round.

Anjian, on 09 October 2016 - 04:48 PM, said:

Really where does it say its a 100kg projectile?

The weapon weighs 15 tons alone, which is pretty inefficient. A 120mm tank gun weighs about a ton.

What makes you think it would go through a tank? Assuming it would reach a modern tank, since a modern tank cannon is hitting the mech at distances much greater.

Furthermore there is a huge problem with gauss weapons --- the shell or solid metal slug needs to be ferro magnetic, and nickel iron itself isn't as hard as alloy steel or what you have as tank armor. If the projectile composition is softer and less dense than the target --- it BREAKS UP on impact.

Tank rounds are created with materials harder and denser than steel, such as Tungsten alloys or Depleted Uranium.

You do know that a Gauss round breaking up on impact is actually a good thing, right? Especially when the targets use heavily ablative armor designed to absorb titanic amounts of punishment from ridiculously potent space-future weapons.

See, with things like APFSDS, the point is to just punch a hole. You don't have the kinetic energy, nor can you produce the kinetic energy, to actually cause damage to the target otherwise. So you have to suffice with poking holes in stuff. It works, granted, but it's not necessarily the best.

Now magnetic weapons? They go all out. Their entire purpose is to accelerate that ferrous slug up to insane high-mach velocities, for the sole purpose of putting as much kinetic energy behind it as possible. And their kill mechanism? Imparting as much of that kinetic energy as possible in to the target, to catastrophic result. In furtherance of that goal, you want as much surface area as possible when that round connects, to impart as much energy as possible on target.

BUT, going that fast causes a lot of friction, which causes a lot of heat. You know what a nickel-iron alloy is good at? Withstanding heat. Nickel is used in just about every single heat/corrosion resistant alloy known to man. And all that round has to do is NOT disintegrate en-route to the target, before deforming as much as possible to pancake as hard as possible.

So no, a Gauss round wouldn't go through the tank... It would crush it like an accordion and smash it in to the tank behind it.

Edited by Alek Ituin, 09 October 2016 - 05:34 PM.

[Anjian]

Alek Ituin, on 09 October 2016 - 05:32 PM, said:

No FCS system, to date, will ever be able to perfectly predict the flight path of anything. Dumb rounds just can't do anything about a target that simply moves from their predicted path, something helicopters in particular are very good at. That's why AAA systems went from guns to SAM's, because the missile can actively change course to track an evading target. Thus why, despite the accuracy of the FCS on the M1's, the M830A1 still has a proxy fuse. And a higher velocity equals a higher hit chance, especially VS moving targets.

As well, you can argue against the science all you want, but the terminal ballistics of APFSDS rounds is pretty cut and dry. As the round impacts, the tip deforms and "mushrooms" as it penetrates in to the target, carried by its momentum. After a certain point however, the adiabatic shear band formation causes the sides of the mushroom to shear off, and it retains its conical form. At no point however does the pointed tip reform during this process, though the flechette itself does get thinner as material is sheared from it. Since the flechette gets thinner, it retains higher penetration for longer, which I suppose leads to the misconception of the "self-sharpening tip".

That said, if you're trying to argue that APFSDS "self-sharpens" in flight... APFSDS rounds lose their sabot petals after leaving the barrel, yes, but that's all that happens to the round prior to impact. There's no sharpening, or shearing, nor deformation of the flechette in flight. At all. Ever. And if your flechette did do any of those things in flight, you had a faulty round.



You do know that a Gauss round breaking up on impact is actually a good thing, right? Especially when the targets use heavily ablative armor designed to absorb titanic amounts of punishment from ridiculously potent space-future weapons.

See, with things like APFSDS, the point is to just punch a hole. You don't have the kinetic energy, nor can you produce the kinetic energy, to actually cause damage to the target otherwise. So you have to suffice with poking holes in stuff. It works, granted, but it's not necessarily the best.

Now magnetic weapons? They go all out. Their entire purpose is to accelerate that ferrous slug up to insane high-mach velocities, for the sole purpose of putting as much kinetic energy behind it as possible. And their kill mechanism? Imparting as much of that kinetic energy as possible in to the target, to catastrophic result. In furtherance of that goal, you want as much surface area as possible when that round connects, to impart as much energy as possible on target.

BUT, going that fast causes a lot of friction, which causes a lot of heat. You know what a nickel-iron alloy is good at? Withstanding heat. Nickel is used in just about every single heat/corrosion resistant alloy known to man. And all that round has to do is NOT disintegrate en-route to the target, before deforming as much as possible to pancake as hard as possible.

So no, a Gauss round wouldn't go through the tank... It would crush it like an accordion and smash it in to the tank behind it.

No. Its not good.

A Gauss round cannot be shaped like a sabot or an ogive shaped shell. A Gauss round needs to be a long rod. The longer it is, the greater the length and the surface area where it can interact with the magnets that line the firing tube.

When it breaks up, it breaks up just as it hits the armor. The longer the rod, the more it "twists" as it needs to penetrate the armor and that can cause it to break up during the process of penetrating the armor so it does not go through. The issue about heat is not even essential; what is essential is the density of the round. Do you really wonder why Depleted Uranium is used? Because Uranium is among the densest and heaviest metals out there.

And guess what other tank rounds are made of. Tungsten. Tungsten has the highest melting point and the highest tensile strength of all metals in its pure form. It has the lowest coefficient of thermal expansion than any other metal. A Tungsten round is superior to iron or steel shells every single time. Usage of this metal began with the so called APCR and HVAP rounds used in WW2 (the gold ammo in WoT).

The Gauss rifle design in MWO is different from the modern railgun you have today.

The current railgun design uses essentially a shell that is like a sabot. There are things that wrapped around the shell that constitutes the magnets. The magnets around the gun barrel interacts with the magnetic "cartridge" around the shell, and once the shell is out of the barrel, the "cartridge" is discarded. This means the slug itself can be non ferrous.

Just to show you that real engineers are better than scifi "engineers" when it comes identifying the problems in a design and creating a solution for it.

[Wecx]

Alek Ituin, on 09 October 2016 - 05:32 PM, said:

No FCS system, to date, will ever be able to perfectly predict the flight path of anything. Dumb rounds just can't do anything about a target that simply moves from their predicted path, something helicopters in particular are very good at. That's why AAA systems went from guns to SAM's, because the missile can actively change course to track an evading target. Thus why, despite the accuracy of the FCS on the M1's, the M830A1 still has a proxy fuse. And a higher velocity equals a higher hit chance, especially VS moving targets.

As well, you can argue against the science all you want, but the terminal ballistics of APFSDS rounds is pretty cut and dry. As the round impacts, the tip deforms and "mushrooms" as it penetrates in to the target, carried by its momentum. After a certain point however, the adiabatic shear band formation causes the sides of the mushroom to shear off, and it retains its conical form. At no point however does the pointed tip reform during this process, though the flechette itself does get thinner as material is sheared from it. Since the flechette gets thinner, it retains higher penetration for longer, which I suppose leads to the misconception of the "self-sharpening tip".

That said, if you're trying to argue that APFSDS "self-sharpens" in flight... APFSDS rounds lose their sabot petals after leaving the barrel, yes, but that's all that happens to the round prior to impact. There's no sharpening, or shearing, nor deformation of the flechette in flight. At all. Ever. And if your flechette did do any of those things in flight, you had a faulty round.



You do know that a Gauss round breaking up on impact is actually a good thing, right? Especially when the targets use heavily ablative armor designed to absorb titanic amounts of punishment from ridiculously potent space-future weapons.

See, with things like APFSDS, the point is to just punch a hole. You don't have the kinetic energy, nor can you produce the kinetic energy, to actually cause damage to the target otherwise. So you have to suffice with poking holes in stuff. It works, granted, but it's not necessarily the best.

Now magnetic weapons? They go all out. Their entire purpose is to accelerate that ferrous slug up to insane high-mach velocities, for the sole purpose of putting as much kinetic energy behind it as possible. And their kill mechanism? Imparting as much of that kinetic energy as possible in to the target, to catastrophic result. In furtherance of that goal, you want as much surface area as possible when that round connects, to impart as much energy as possible on target.

BUT, going that fast causes a lot of friction, which causes a lot of heat. You know what a nickel-iron alloy is good at? Withstanding heat. Nickel is used in just about every single heat/corrosion resistant alloy known to man. And all that round has to do is NOT disintegrate en-route to the target, before deforming as much as possible to pancake as hard as possible.

So no, a Gauss round wouldn't go through the tank... It would crush it like an accordion and smash it in to the tank behind it.

I don't know how to respond you disagree and agree with me at the same time. Sorry, i was taught in a Military Class, that it self-sharpens in flight, and i see it happen in slow motion camera, and i have seen the effects in real life. I don't know how reliable your information is, but i have documents showing i am a trained Armor Crewmen.

Also i went to find some proof of what i learned in the military, and i found some, Starting on Paragraph 6 on this link talks about Depleted Uranium "Self-sharpening properties" There are are also X-Rays as well. Read on.

the exact words i learned in the Military, Kind of interesting huh.

http://www.globalsec...unitions/du.htm

Edited by Wecx, 09 October 2016 - 08:03 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Anjian, on 09 October 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

The current railgun design uses essentially a shell that is like a sabot. There are things that wrapped around the shell that constitutes the magnets. The magnets around the gun barrel interacts with the magnetic "cartridge" around the shell, and once the shell is out of the barrel, the "cartridge" is discarded. This means the slug itself can be non ferrous.

Just to show you that real engineers are better than scifi "engineers" when it comes identifying the problems in a design and creating a solution for it.

That's...not at all how the railgun works.

A railgun simply requires a conductive piece to bridge the charged rails. There are no magnets involved here, not in the sense you are using the term, just very high current. The pieces wrapped around the projectile (which is a fin-stabilized rod) are that conductive armature, nothing more.

[Snowbluff]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 01:07 PM, said:

Did you even watch how a HEAT Sabot works? momentum isn't the only tool to penetrate armor, i have a feeling you didn't watch the video.

Also APFSDS is self sharping as it heats up during flight, it isn't a Solid Slug like a bullet or ball.

You're going to tell me that that the charge accounts for a 15 times difference in energy?

Also, the friction and splinter heating is something that heats up a gauss round as well, especially if the composition is simliar, and has a similiar profile for inertial penetration.

Anjian, on 09 October 2016 - 04:48 PM, said:

Really where does it say its a 100kg projectile?

The weapon weighs 15 tons alone, which is pretty inefficient. A 120mm tank gun weighs about a ton.

What makes you think it would go through a tank? Assuming it would reach a modern tank, since a modern tank cannon is hitting the mech at distances much greater.

Furthermore there is a huge problem with gauss weapons --- the shell or solid metal slug needs to be ferro magnetic, and nickel iron itself isn't as hard as alloy steel or what you have as tank armor. If the projectile composition is softer and less dense than the target --- it BREAKS UP on impact.

Tank rounds are created with materials harder and denser than steel, such as Tungsten alloys or Depleted Uranium.

Wow.

1 ton/10 equals 100kg. I'm assuming that any sabot weight is negligible or using an armature (if used as all, assuming that they don't opt to include a ferro magnetic component in the round). Unlike autocannons, this is an easy number to extrapolate, as there is no propellant included.

And it would go through a tank. If you think that an 8 kg projectile going at 1700 m/s will go through a tank, a 100 kg project will definitely will.

The round can easily be any manner of things. The entire round doesn't have to be iron, like a APCP round. Even if it's entirely iron, I don't think a tank would take kindly to the kind of catastrophic effects of being hit with that. The energy has to go somewhere.

This is basic stuff. You got nothing.

Edited by Snowbluff, 09 October 2016 - 08:04 PM.

[Wecx]

Anjian, on 09 October 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

No. Its not good.

A Gauss round cannot be shaped like a sabot or an ogive shaped shell. A Gauss round needs to be a long rod. The longer it is, the greater the length and the surface area where it can interact with the magnets that line the firing tube.

When it breaks up, it breaks up just as it hits the armor. The longer the rod, the more it "twists" as it needs to penetrate the armor and that can cause it to break up during the process of penetrating the armor so it does not go through. The issue about heat is not even essential; what is essential is the density of the round. Do you really wonder why Depleted Uranium is used? Because Uranium is among the densest and heaviest metals out there.

And guess what other tank rounds are made of. Tungsten. Tungsten has the highest melting point and the highest tensile strength of all metals in its pure form. It has the lowest coefficient of thermal expansion than any other metal. A Tungsten round is superior to iron or steel shells every single time. Usage of this metal began with the so called APCR and HVAP rounds used in WW2 (the gold ammo in WoT).

The Gauss rifle design in MWO is different from the modern railgun you have today.

The current railgun design uses essentially a shell that is like a sabot. There are things that wrapped around the shell that constitutes the magnets. The magnets around the gun barrel interacts with the magnetic "cartridge" around the shell, and once the shell is out of the barrel, the "cartridge" is discarded. This means the slug itself can be non ferrous.

Just to show you that real engineers are better than scifi "engineers" when it comes identifying the problems in a design and creating a solution for it.

Snowbluff, on 09 October 2016 - 07:53 PM, said:

You're going to tell me that that the charge accounts for a 15 times difference in energy?

Also, the friction and splinter heating is something that heats up a gauss round as well, and has a similiar profile for inertial penetration.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_Rifle

Link just says solid metal slugs. or ferrous nickel-iron, If nickel-iron was so good why dont we use it in real life?

You have a quote in battletech lore that a Gauss round heats up and sharpens, i mean if you do thats great.

Edited by Wecx, 09 October 2016 - 08:08 PM.

[dervishx5]

Battletech armor is considerably more advanced than modern armor, supposedly:

Quote

The outer layer is an extremely strong, extremely hard layer of steel. It fragments projectiles. It ablates and conducts heat to provide protection from energy attacks. The crystalline structure of this steel is carefully aligned and radiation treated for maximum hardness and strength. Because of its phenomenal strength and hardness, the outer layer suffers the trade off of being quite brittle. It is so brittle that the second layer of armor - a ceramic, cubic boron nitride - has to act as a backstop for fragments of the outer layer, molten outer armor, and even outer armor converted into plasma by heavy attack.

The second layer, cubic boron nitride - a very hard layer in its own right - is processed to avoid porosity and includes a micro fiber web of man made diamond mono-filament fibers, along with sensors and data/control lines. This weave imparts a little bit of flexibility for this second layer that acts as a backstop to the outer layer. This layer also stops High Explosive Armor Piercing (HEAP) rounds and fast neutrons.

The next layer is a titanium alloy honeycomb. This layer provides no armor protection - it is instead used to support the outer armor layers. The first and second armor layers are millimeter- and centimeter-level thin in order to cover the massive surface area of a 'Mech with a proportionately small quantity of armor. This makes the armor very thin for its length and width. As such, the titanium honeycomb holds the armor in place and keeps it from flexing so much that it shatters like a pane of glass. The comment about strength and stiffness of endo-steel applies here. This tendency to shatter due to its extreme hardness is one of the contributing factors in why BattleMechs lose armor when they fall, suffer physical attacks from other BattleMechs, or collide with structures - flex any armor panel too far and it shatters like a piece of glass pushed beyond its limits.

The various plates of armor are mounted onto struts that extend outwards from the internal structure of the BattleMech. These mountings and the armor plates are configured so that the armor plates overlap each other, leaving only relatively small gaps, just large enough for atmosphere or liquids to traverse.
The last layer is a polymer sealant, which seals off the gaps between the individual armor plates, making a BattleMech air tight and water proof. The polymers used usually have some self-sealing capability (just enough to handle small punctures and gaps) and are heat resistant in order to survive the high internal temperatures of a BattleMech in combat.

There are other types of armor on 'Mechs. Actuator armoring can be from a wide range of protective materials - ballistic or ablative fabrics to articulated plates of standard armor. Cockpit view screens use a large selection of transparent armors in combination, anything from ferroglass to alternating diamond and polymer sheets.

Edited by dervishx5, 09 October 2016 - 08:11 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 08:06 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_Rifle

Link just says solid metal slugs. or [color=#000000]ferrous nickel-iron, If nickel-iron was so good why dont we use it in real life?[/color]

You have a quote in battletech lore that a Gauss round heats up and sharpens, i mean if you do thats great.

I dunno about sharpening, but at 2000 m/s we're at hypersonic velocities so it is most definitely heating up, lore be damned.

[Snowbluff]

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 08:06 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_Rifle

Link just says solid metal slugs. or ferrous nickel-iron, If nickel-iron was so good why dont we use it in real life?

You have a quote in battletech lore that a Gauss round heats up and sharpens, i mean if you do thats great.

Fair on the composition (according to lore at least, I've been using game stats), but it heating up is simple physics. Friction. We're doing our best to make a good abstraction for comparison.

Like I said, there are several ways around pure ferromagnetic rounds given huge tolerances of ineffeciency when using a fusion reactor, but I still think an iron round has a certain level of ****** associated with it when carrying so much energy.

Edited by Snowbluff, 09 October 2016 - 08:13 PM.

[Alek Ituin]

Anjian, on 09 October 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

No. Its not good.

A Gauss round cannot be shaped like a sabot or an ogive shaped shell. A Gauss round needs to be a long rod. The longer it is, the greater the length and the surface area where it can interact with the magnets that line the firing tube.

When it breaks up, it breaks up just as it hits the armor. The longer the rod, the more it "twists" as it needs to penetrate the armor and that can cause it to break up during the process of penetrating the armor so it does not go through. The issue about heat is not even essential; what is essential is the density of the round. Do you really wonder why Depleted Uranium is used? Because Uranium is among the densest and heaviest metals out there.

And guess what other tank rounds are made of. Tungsten. Tungsten has the highest melting point and the highest tensile strength of all metals in its pure form. It has the lowest coefficient of thermal expansion than any other metal. A Tungsten round is superior to iron or steel shells every single time. Usage of this metal began with the so called APCR and HVAP rounds used in WW2 (the gold ammo in WoT).

The Gauss rifle design in MWO is different from the modern railgun you have today.

The current railgun design uses essentially a shell that is like a sabot. There are things that wrapped around the shell that constitutes the magnets. The magnets around the gun barrel interacts with the magnetic "cartridge" around the shell, and once the shell is out of the barrel, the "cartridge" is discarded. This means the slug itself can be non ferrous.

Just to show you that real engineers are better than scifi "engineers" when it comes identifying the problems in a design and creating a solution for it.

1 - Since we're not on a Lunar installation, the coils on a coilgun cannot be spaced far enough apart to prevent problematic field interaction, not to mention the issues with degaussing the coils when either shutting them down or swapping polarities. Making a round designed to interact as much as possible with the fields increases the chance of the round actually being impeded by physical constraints of the gun mechanisms. Thus a balance must be struck between the length and width of the round; not so wide as to induce obscene drag, not to long as to be impractical within a compact coilgun assembly. Ogive shaped projectiles are also the closest one can reasonably get to achieving the optimal aerodynamic form, while providing a good cross section and frontal area with which to deform on impact.

2 - Breaking up on impact is ideal for a kinetic weapon that relies on imparting kinetic energy on target, especially when that target uses ablative armor. You're simply not understanding the purpose of a hyper-velocity accelerator weapon. It's not to punch a hole through the target, it's to smash a crater in to it... then punch a hole through what's left. You're imparting the literally explosive kinetic energy of the round in to the target to cause damage. It's like the "Rods from God" idea for Kinetic Orbital Bombardment systems, but for vehicles.

3 - Heat is literally everything for a hyper-velocity round. The hotter the round gets, the weaker the round gets. And at hyper-velocity, vaporization and oxygen corrosion becomes serious problems. Not to useful to fire a dense slug if half of it is splattered all over the terrain as the round travels to the target. You need it to remain in one piece until it actually hits the target, or else it's pretty useless... Unless you want a shotgun that fires molten metal chunks at several times the speed of sound.

4 - Tungsten is indeed an impressive material, but a nickel-iron alloy such as Invar can surpass its low thermal expansion coefficient, and with the addition of trace elements such as silicon or chromium, you can get superalloys far surpassing the thermal resistance of tungsten. All while remaining highly ductile and easily deformed on impact... Perfect for a weapon designed to smash targets with kinetic projectiles.

5 - It uses a sabot around the shell, yes... and that's about all you got right. Railguns exploit electromagnetism by turning the non-magnetic yet conductive rails, sabots, and shell in to a giant electromagnet by running a current up one rail and down the other. At no point are their dedicated electromagnets anywhere within the barrel assembly. This has several practical advantages, and several major disadvantages. Advantages being no need to worry about degaussing since it's basically a single "coil", less fiddly s**t and maintenance of multiple coil assemblies, and no need to worry about coil timing. Downsides being the rails get chunks disintegrated by plasma arcs every time you fire, reducing their effectiveness each shot; the ammunition is downright inconvenient with the sabots, and replacing the rails is an absolute pain. Oh, and they're brutally inefficient when scaled down.

Railguns aren't some fantastic "real engineer" solution to those silly sci-fi coilguns. They're actually a s**tty, underpowered, inefficient weapon that requires years more R&D in to power sources, capacitors, and general materials science before having a chance of becoming useful. And if we're being honest here, the Sci-fi engineers got it right, coilguns are infinitely superior to railguns when scaled down (yes the Gauss is a coilgun).

Wecx, on 09 October 2016 - 07:03 PM, said:

I don't know how to respond you disagree and agree with me at the same time. Sorry, i was taught in a Military Class, that it self-sharpens in flight, and i see it happen in slow motion camera, and i have seen the effects in real life. I don't know how reliable your information is, but i have documents showing i am a trained Armor Crewmen.

Also i went to find some proof of what i learned in the military, and i found some, Starting on Paragraph 6 on this link talks about Depleted Uranium "Self-sharpening properties" There are are also X-Rays as well. Read on.

the exact words i learned in the Military, Kind of interesting huh.

http://www.globalsec...unitions/du.htm

"muh military training" is not an argument. Nor is that link, it explains nothing and basically says "hurr hurr DU self-sharpens". Super useful, much information.

Both DU and TC rounds undergo mushrooming upon impact, with the formation of adiabatic shear bands causing the penetrator to shear off the "mushroom" as it continues further in to the target. This resultant loss of material causes BOTH DU and TC rounds to become thinner as more armor is penetrated. There is no "sharpening" action, nothing becomes sharper as the round penetrates, and the end result is only a semi-molten chunk of dense metal of a lower diameter than the initial penetrator.