Talk-Polywell.org

More reasons to get Polywell up and running...

http://www.onr.navy.mil/en/Media-Center ... -Test.aspx

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/04 ... p-on-fire/

OK, granted burnthrough is a little slow, but hey it did work!

hope the navy research not is closing due to the budget failure.

Hard to tell. Contracting is weird. Companies that have already been paid will continue on. Ones that are on periodic payments may have enough to ride out any lapses. Others may not.

Looks like an agreement on the US budget was reached one hour ago between democrats and republicans.

We will see in the next days what they have axed.

DOD lost about $2 Billion from Aquisitions. I do nto think this will have any impact on Polywell. It typically targets sacrifical lambs in big projects or a sereis of failed/no return smaller ones. They go after easy targets is the moral. Polywell is not known enough to even be target yet.

That's good to know.
Normally here they tend to do the opposite, they axe smaller project and keep the huge and useless ones.

Navy Rail Gun at it again. Yeah!

Nice pic in the release, but the Forum won't link to an .ashx file. Sorry.

Better pic:


http://www.onr.navy.mil/en/Media-Center ... ivery.aspx

Electric Ship, here we come!

Edit: Added alternate photo

Here is the 2008 test plan brief. ONR appears to be commencing INP Phase II.

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2008psa_peo/elliotday2.pdf

And finally here is the photo of the gun installed at the Dahlgren test building I tried to post earlier.



http://www.navsea.navy.mil/nswc/dahlgre ... ilgun.aspx

Still no data released about the wear on the rails, which is the only remaining technological challenge I'm aware of. They seem to have solved the wear on the projectile itself, though we won't know until they actually try to fire the thing 110 miles.

The delivered test article from BAE is designed for 100 shot proof. The existing ONR Lab Test gun has fired over 1000 rounds. Everyone I know expects the BAE article to do well beyond the 100 mark.

General Atomics claims even better performance with the Blitzer gun. They essentially claim to have cracked the nut and are pressing for near term ship installs to replace Mk 45 5inch 54/62 mounts. They say the Pulse Former and gun are essentially ready to go and provide for improved performance over the Mk 45s. They point out that the system they have is a 'variable yield' providing for tactically relevant use from 5MJ for low angle horizon shots and dial-a-round up to 20MJ for long range indirect fires or Anti-Ballistic work.

I think GA is angling to get a fullup DEMO mount and then jump start for existing hull retros. I think they may-be can pull it off. ONR will get a crack at GA's gun right behind BAE. They are stacked for testing now. BAE is installed, and will run the program this month. GA is expected to install and run the same program in March.

ladajo wrote:The delivered test article from BAE is designed for 100 shot proof. The existing ONR Lab Test gun has fired over 1000 rounds. Everyone I know expects the BAE article to do well beyond the 100 mark.

General Atomics claims even better performance with the Blitzer gun. They essentially claim to have cracked the nut and are pressing for near term ship installs to replace Mk 45 5inch 54/62 mounts. They say the Pulse Former and gun are essentially ready to go and provide for improved performance over the Mk 45s. They point out that the system they have is a 'variable yield' providing for tactically relevant use from 5MJ for low angle horizon shots and dial-a-round up to 20MJ for long range indirect fires or Anti-Ballistic work.

I think GA is angling to get a fullup DEMO mount and then jump start for existing hull retros. I think they may-be can pull it off. ONR will get a crack at GA's gun right behind BAE. They are stacked for testing now. BAE is installed, and will run the program this month. GA is expected to install and run the same program in March.

Multiple vendor is win-win, usually. If they have differing performance characteristics it is entirely possible both get picked up for use.

Pretty sure Raytheon is also in the competition, so there are 3 vendors, and they're testing up to 33 MJ. I would not however, expect them to be retrofitting anything until they have a few years work on the projectiles themselves. Though they're no longer falling apart, they are still solid lumps of metal and not a replacement for the kinds of munitions we currently have. For instance, without a high explosive round, the gun is not much use against infantry, so that 110 mile range is not put to much use. They need to develop the same sorts of guidance we currently have for it to be used against ships, tanks, bunkers, etc. The current guidance systems would be squished to mush by a 5MJ shot. Also, they need to be getting about 10 shots/minute, and I haven't seen any data on that yet. Probably needs active cooling that none of the pre-prototypes include. And there is the trouble that most of the ships that it is intended for, will need serious generator upgrades if they're going to generate enough power to fire 33 MJ at 10X/minute. I'm not sure we'll see these weapons installed for another half decade. To fit the ships that already have the higher generator capacity like the Littoral ships, you'd likely need a smaller gun.

GIThruster wrote:Pretty sure Raytheon is also in the competition, so there are 3 vendors, and they're testing up to 33 MJ. I would not however, expect them to be retrofitting anything until they have a few years work on the projectiles themselves. Though they're no longer falling apart, they are still solid lumps of metal and not a replacement for the kinds of munitions we currently have. For instance, without a high explosive round, the gun is not much use against infantry, so that 110 mile range is not put to much use. They need to develop the same sorts of guidance we currently have for it to be used against ships, tanks, bunkers, etc. The current guidance systems would be squished to mush by a 5MJ shot. Also, they need to be getting about 10 shots/minute, and I haven't seen any data on that yet. Probably needs active cooling that none of the pre-prototypes include. And there is the trouble that most of the ships that it is intended for, will need serious generator upgrades if they're going to generate enough power to fire 33 MJ at 10X/minute. I'm not sure we'll see these weapons installed for another half decade. To fit the ships that already have the higher generator capacity like the Littoral ships, you'd likely need a smaller gun.

Guidance on the equivalent of a bullet? This thing isn't shooting rockets, the whole point is to send a slag of molten metal at high speed. It's not about taking out tons of troops, it's about putting a hole in a building/bunker/ship. If you want guidance, stick to missiles and rockets...etc.