Anthology of Experimental Image Humor™ | NSFW

[Loire]

Hyuk hyuk hyuk hyuk.

[Cue1*]

LOL gators in the winter.

[Steph]

Its a shame that battleships became obsolete. Cant wait for railgun technology to mature; we might get a resurgence of big-gun ships. Although I'm pretty sure its just going to be limited to 1 gun/turret a ship. No 12 gun salutes

I'm curious.

Given that the Earth is curved...



...what could a surface vessel with railguns do that could not be done better by a surface vessel with missiles?

Or, heaven forbid,



...one of those?

The reason battleships became obsolete was that their engagement envelope was limited to direct line of sight. Aircraft carriers, and in more recent decades missiles, can theoretically strike any target at any point on the Earth's surface.

[Nordstern]

...what could a surface vessel with railguns do that could not be done better by a surface vessel with missiles?

Missiles can be tracked, intercepted, jammed, lose connection, run out of fuel, malfunction, fail to detonate, miss, etc.

Railguns can miss.

The reason battleships became obsolete was that their engagement envelope was limited to direct line of sight. Aircraft carriers, and in more recent decades missiles, can theoretically strike any target at any point on the Earth's surface.

The amount of fail you just said is staggering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond-...-range_missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-horizon_radar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAVE_PAWS

Now, if you said "12-inch guns are obsolete", then I'd agree with you.

ON TOPIC AGAIN:

[Drakma]

Last warning before infractions!

[Cue1*]

...what could a surface vessel with railguns do that could not be done better by a surface vessel with missiles?

Missiles can be tracked, intercepted, jammed, lose connection, run out of fuel, malfunction, fail to detonate, miss, etc.

Railguns can miss.

The reason battleships became obsolete was that their engagement envelope was limited to direct line of sight. Aircraft carriers, and in more recent decades missiles, can theoretically strike any target at any point on the Earth's surface.

The amount of fail you just said is staggering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond-...-range_missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-horizon_radar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAVE_PAWS

Now, if you said "12-inch guns are obsolete", then I'd agree with you.

Your point is still quite invalid. With a missile you can assure it's ability to hit a target using after launch course correction(ALCC), but with anything like a railgun, it's still fire and forget. If you have a flyer or a minor targeting error, or hell, the target moves before the projectile reaches the target, you'll still register a miss. Meanwhile, using ALCC, a missile is still on target. Additionally, all the same failures you mentioned with a missile are entirely possible with a railgun as well. The rail can missfire, malfunction, lose portions of it's force(AKA, run out of fuel). An EMP is going to knock out a railgun just as easily as it does a BGM.

I feel certain that if the USN R&D can create a useful weapon system from a railgun, that it will see use, but battleships will never be the answer to modern naval warfare until we reach space.

Content:

[Dogbeast]

[Nordstern]

edit: nvm, looks legit

[Tellenta]

[QUOTE=Nordstern;454843]

The reason battleships became obsolete was that their engagement envelope was limited to direct line of sight. Aircraft carriers, and in more recent decades missiles, can theoretically strike any target at any point on the Earth's surface.

The amount of fail you just said is staggering.

Alright you two, go outside find a brick wall taller than you, pick up a rock and throw it over the wall. Congrats you just threw a rock beyond your line of sight. You don't need a missile that has friend foe recognition free of aid from other people or anything along those lines to do anything beyond your line of sight. an artillery battery engages beyond their line of sight all the time unless shit and rotary impeller have met. In all you are both using the wrong arguing points, it's not line of sight that got rid of the need for battleships it was the ease of use and acquisition of less expensive material that can do the battleships job, have more range, and more versatility.

There just isn't the need for a battleship anymore plain and simple.

oh and I guess an image to satiate the drakma.

[Soapy5]

oh hai, look at these cool and invigorating images!

What a cool room!









LOL PACMAN!





MEGA CITY!




OH NOES!



mine




AND THIS




clearly this has been a post with the primary intent of sharing these images with fellow e-friends, and therefore this post will be concluded with absolutely nothing else to follow.

  Spoiler:

end of line

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

seriously nothing else here.
Go away Hast

  Spoiler:

Ok, you found them, happy now?

  Spoiler:

Like norstern said, line of sight is not really an issue with pretty much any big ordinance in the modern battlefield. If a hypothetical railgun-ship wants to engage a target, there are multiple sources of information to derive a target's location: sonar, GPS for stationary targets, AWACS, forward scouts, advanced radar techniques such as bouncing them off of the ionosphere.

Anyways, why railguns over aircraft carriers/missiles etc? IMO railguns will never replace either of these, but fill in its own niche. In the next 25 years the US Navy is expecting to be able to fire off a 10 round salvo in less than a minute, with an accuracy of 5 meters at over 200 NM, with a damage potential greater than a tomahawk (the solid railgun projectiles travel so fast that they carry more energy than a similar sized projectile filled with explosives), and a *much* lower cost per round. Sure, a tomahawk has a range of over 1300 NM, but it takes almost 3 hours to get to its target (you are essentially sending a 1.45 million dollar uav to go kamikaze a building), while a railgun projectile takes only minutes. Essentially, if the enemy is competent, it can easily detect a tomahawk launch, and have plenty of time to put up counter measures, scramble fighters to take it down, or just pack up and hide what ever valuables in a bunker. On the other hand, railguns can send very accurate fire at a distance and there isn't much that can be done to stop the projectiles.

And these are just "next 25-50 year" predictions. The science behind railguns is extremely simple; the main hurdles right now are the fact that the projectiles pretty much destroy their rails after one shot due to the insane frictional heat generated. Once that is overcome, rail guns could become insanely OP. As long as you can keep the rails charged, you could literally shove a chain of projectiles into it and it will fire them off as fast as it receives them. Given that the guns are planned to be installed on nuclear-powered ships, the energy problem should not be that big of a deal.

As for the railgun-battleship resurgence, I do have to take that back a bit. Dreadnought Battleships were characterized as heavily armored (up to 11 inches thick in the belt area), carrying a bunch of big guns, and being the center of a naval fleet with the intent of duking it out with other battleships (although that rarely happened). If/when railgun technology does become viable it will be placed on a nuclear-powered ship, but I doubt it will be given any more armor than any other ship in the navy, nor will it be the 'center' of a naval fleet, but instead serve as a short-medium range stationary target strike capability. Sure it could also hit other ships, but I doubt any modern navy would allow its main battle groups to get within 500 NM of each other. I think the aircraft carrier will still dominate its role as the core of a naval battlegroup, but a modern railgun ship does have its uses.


also, bring on the infractions \o/

[punkboy101]

  Spoiler:

end of line

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

seriously nothing else here.
Go away Hast

  Spoiler:

Ok, you found them, happy now?

  Spoiler:

Like norstern said, line of sight is not really an issue with pretty much any big ordinance in the modern battlefield. If a hypothetical railgun-ship wants to engage a target, there are multiple sources of information to derive a target's location: sonar, GPS for stationary targets, AWACS, forward scouts, advanced radar techniques such as bouncing them off of the ionosphere.

Anyways, why railguns over aircraft carriers/missiles etc? IMO railguns will never replace either of these, but fill in its own niche. In the next 25 years the US Navy is expecting to be able to fire off a 10 round salvo in less than a minute, with an accuracy of 5 meters at over 200 NM, with a damage potential greater than a tomahawk (the solid railgun projectiles travel so fast that they carry more energy than a similar sized projectile filled with explosives), and a *much* lower cost per round. Sure, a tomahawk has a range of over 1300 NM, but it takes almost 3 hours to get to its target (you are essentially sending a 1.45 million dollar uav to go kamikaze a building), while a railgun projectile takes only minutes. Essentially, if the enemy is competent, it can easily detect a tomahawk launch, and have plenty of time to put up counter measures, scramble fighters to take it down, or just pack up and hide what ever valuables in a bunker. On the other hand, railguns can send very accurate fire at a distance and there isn't much that can be done to stop the projectiles.

And these are just "next 25-50 year" predictions. The science behind railguns is extremely simple; the main hurdles right now are the fact that the projectiles pretty much destroy their rails after one shot due to the insane frictional heat generated. Once that is overcome, rail guns could become insanely OP. As long as you can keep the rails charged, you could literally shove a chain of projectiles into it and it will fire them off as fast as it receives them. Given that the guns are planned to be installed on nuclear-powered ships, the energy problem should not be that big of a deal.

As for the railgun-battleship resurgence, I do have to take that back a bit. Dreadnought Battleships were characterized as heavily armored (up to 11 inches thick in the belt area), carrying a bunch of big guns, and being the center of a naval fleet. If/when railgun technology does become viable it will be placed on a nuclear-powered ship, but I doubt it will be given any more armor than any other ship in the navy, nor will it be the 'center' of a naval fleet. I think the aircraft carrier will still dominate that role, but a modern railgun ship does have its uses.


also, bring on the infractions \o/

+rep

[Aea]

Fuck it, Soapy5 said all I wanted to say and I missed his hidden spoiler.

[ctrlchris]

rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble

Content

[Aea]

Trees?

[Qwert]

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

The biggest advantage a railgun would have is speed. Since they are kinetic, they have to be going hypersonic, which means you can hit a target quickly without having to have a plane with a guy inside loitering nearby. Corollary to this is cost; a hypersonic railgun round is much cheaper than a hypersonic cruise missile would be.

[Aea]

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

  Spoiler:

The biggest advantage a railgun would have is speed. Since they are kinetic, they have to be going hypersonic, which means you can hit a target quickly without having to have a plane with a guy inside loitering nearby. Corollary to this is cost; a hypersonic railgun round is much cheaper than a hypersonic cruise missile would be.

Wait a second, is that litres of PURE ethanol?

[Qwert]

Wait a second, is that litres of PURE ethanol?

According to the Reddit thread, Litres of ethanol/annum is the unit.

[Aea]

Wait a second, is that litres of PURE ethanol?

According to the Reddit thread, Litres of ethanol/annum is the unit.

Y'all are alchys.

[Me]

Wait a second, is that litres of PURE ethanol?

According to the Reddit thread, Litres of ethanol/annum is the unit.

Does it say anything about how many beers/wines/spirits a year that equates to?

[walrus]

If you drink a sixpack of 0.5 l, 5%alc, per week you get 15 l ethanol per year.