Dude, they  just put treadmills inside the barrel. Duh.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Or

Shooting things into orbit without chemical rockets could be amazing.

Air and rail material and whatever else is in the pipe. Probably steam from whatever moisture is around as well.

Less of a hit on the wallet is a big part of it. Way cheaper than missiles.

I'd love to see the impacts

I want to see a nuclear powered railgun battleship.

And no chance for the Clintons can sell it either.

This is not a salvo.

[1900]Why should we switch to an internal combustion engine automobile? Steam powered trains and horses do just as good of a job now for a lot cheaper"[/1900]

See how silly that sounds now?

No, it's a solid metal slug.  Machined aluminum as I recall.

The smoke ane report (and fireball) come from superheating the air through near instantaneous compression.
The air turns into a plasma when compressed, then expands rapidly.  The Oxygen is ignited.

2 shots is a salvo. Just a small one.

Looking at everything they shot in the video, I'd guess it's an initial validation of the loading mechanism and the charging/firing system to see if it all works when put together.

Either way, the railgun is a project I find fascinating and I am excited af to know something that badass is going to go from sci-fi to reality in my lifetime!

I can't wait for the rest of the effects on target footage to be declassified

Oxygen is not flammable in and of itself.

It needs a fuel.

Like the aluminum of the projectile.

Technically, 1 shot from two or more guns simultaneously or at prescribed intervals is a salvo.  

Remember how you pronounce idiot in French.... EDO.

That's around 6700 fps

Frog Lube

interestingly, steam vehicles had better performance and fuel economy than comparable internal combustion engines.  but due to a hoof-and-mouth outbreak in 1914, horse troughs (the usual water source for vehicle boilers) were emptied as a public health measure.  this was the tipping point that decisively pit the ICE ahead.

mach 7 is closer to 7900 fps

Technical question for you Navy peeps. Is there a way to southern-engineer this underneath a carrier deck and hook the plane-holder thing up to it so that when it goes bang the plane launches?
Just trying to help with those next-gen catapult problems.

admittedly ignorant question.

They are pushing for something like Mach 7 velocities.

Would it give effective use at Mach 5 with longer barrel life?

If they're getting a thousand shots at full power, they're far exceeding the barrel life of an Iowas main guns.

I didn't know they had gotten the barrel life up that much.

To a point, higher speeds reduce wear.  Using a higher pulse velocity reduces the time for the rail surfaces to heat or material to start vaporizing.  Now at what points that starts/stops working, hell if I know.

Edit:  here's some engineering speak that I only understand the non-math parts of   Mind you this isn't the military grade stuff, just some guys making them at home, so it's likely refined a lot but the general concept is the same.
http://www.powerlabs.org/railgun2.htm

 Theory (a simplified overview):

RailGuns differ from other means of accelerating objects in that the acceleration in the rails occurs purely by magnetic repulsion. This magnetic force is termed a "Lorentz Force", and it has been shown to be:
F_rg = 1/2*dL/dX * I² [1]. The dL/dX term can also be written as L', the inductance gradient of the rails. From this equation it can thus be seen that even in a well designed Rail Gun (high inductance gradient), the most predominant factor in determining exit velocity will always be the power supply current.
Thus it follows that in order to produce high muzzle velocities, long rails and/or very high currents must be used. Unfortunately, maintaining a high current through a long pair of rails requires a lot of energy (Current * Voltage * Time), and with high currents high rates of rail erosion have so far been unavoidable.
 The exit velocity of a rail gun can be estimated through the equation:

V=u+L'/2m * (integral 0?t) I²dt [1] , where u is the injection velocity.
Although this equation is of limited use unless the exact shape of the current pulse is known, it once again it demonstrates the importance of a high current. It also states the obvious fact that higher exit velocities will be attainable with higher injection velocities. Not easily seen from the equation, but equally important, is the fact that at higher injection velocities the electrical arcing and ohmic heating between the projectile and the rails will not have as much time to heat the rail surfaces to vaporization. Thus, up to a certain point, a higher injection velocity will help minimize  rail damage[10]. It will also prevent rail/projectile spot welding, which can occur at zero injection velocities and low powers on metal/metal contacts. Given the energy expenditure of accelerating the projectile electrically, and the advantages of pre-injection, it makes sense to impart as much initial velocity to the projectile as possible, and only then allow the electric action to do what it is most effective at: attaining velocities that would not be feasible with a gas injection mechanism alone.

 Resistive losses in a Rail Gun are given by:

W_r= R₀(integral 0?t)i²dt = 2R₀(mv)/L' . With mv being the momentum of the projectile, it can be seen that energy loss in a railgun is proportional to projectile momentum (not kinetic energy, as might be expected), and can be minimized by increasing the induction gradient. This would imply that rail guns are most efficient at accelerating light payloads, which would steer research towards smaller bores; however it has been shown experimentally [9] that with very small calibers (<18mm)  the efficiency of a railgun decreases with smaller size bores. Clearly other factors are involved, some of which still unknown.
 For the sake of simplicity and clarity I will limit myself to these and only a few more equations on this write up. The interested reader is invited to seek further knowledge by reading the sources cited at the bottom of the page (as opposed to creating yet another copy of my design, like so many others seemingly incapable of creative thought and engineering design)

Sounds awesome but how effective will it be. I'm assuming these fast rounds will not be guided and the idea is long range so how accurate will they be?

At max (published) range, you're looking around 9.2 seconds time on target and hitting like a 1000lb bomb.  Mind you, I have no idea on if the numbers on the impact match up, but it's what I've read.   8,200fps covers a crapton of distance real fast.

I was thinking that it was material off of the projectile or the rail that was heated enough to smoke and the air displacement from the projo going down the enclosed rail expelled it.

Incredibly effective. The KE is astronomical. Years ago they were talking about guided munitions with a possible 200 mile range in bigger guns.

Naval bombardment of inland cities from international waters with cheap munitions. America!

Well, apparently they've cranked the idea up to 11 since I read it last.  It was 23 miles when I read up on the project concept. 

Ain't no way you're shooting down a ballistic missile with an unguided projectile.  This is for land bombardment.

Zumwalt isn't a nuke.  

It needs a lot of power, and nukes are probably the best way to get that power, but there's no magic about nuke power.

The issue with that idea, I think, is coming up with a guidance package that can withstand the G forces involved in 0-8500 fps acceleration in a couple milliseconds.  Not to mention the magnetic field it would be exposed to.

Completely out of my knowledge set here, but given the velocity and time to target (unless at over the horizon distances like above) can't modern fire control systems and radar plot that pretty accurately?  I don't think they need it to be more accurate than your standard artillery and all.  Although a guidance package would make it more accurate, it would also drive up the cost a good chunk IMO.

If you're thinking of using rail guns for that, think again.

Yeah, but lokifox was talking about NSFS at 200 NM ranges.  Granted, you're shooting at large stationary targets with a known position in that scenario (an airfield for example), but getting any more accuracy than old-time ballistic calculations can give you is hard.  Hitting a specific building would involve a lot of luck.

Also

President Trump

digital, not good.

Bring back God Damned Steam

Fair enough  I don't have the slightest idea how advanced or not the ability to do all that number crunching is.  

We could always find a way to mount a mini one on an A-10 or make a new AC-5 gunship 

Why, so it can half ass work like the Ford's EMC (electro magnetic catapult)?

Fuck that, these companies need to have models ready to field before we buy and install shit. The tech is still in need of much R&D before it's combat ready. But, it is starting to look very promising.

Accellerating shit to mach 7+ use's a fuck ton of electricity delivered in fractions of a second. Also the projectile gets extremely hot moving that damn fast though the atmosphere, probably burns off any oils, paint etc.

"Velocitas Eradico"

Maybe I am dumb, but I always though Gerald Bull was ahead of his time.

Since the effects on target are entirely dependent on KE, the projectile has to not only reach the target, but reach it with enough velocity to destroy it.  I've heard that somewhere around Mach 7, the projectile reaches a high enough altitude that it doesn't lose as much speed to atmospheric drag.

They will be INS/GPS guided.

We made the Sprint ABM missile work in the mid-1960s -- 0 to Mach 10 in 5 seconds, 100+G, in the mid-1960s.  I have faith.

Ceramic over melonite.

you missed the anti-gunner joke, but I concur with everything else.