Re:US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
by UnoriginalGuy on Tuesday February 18, 2014 @03:32PM
(#7260838)
You seem to have forgotten the actual problem scope.
Nobody is claiming that railguns (or cannons) don't work. The issue is that to fire a projectile over the horizon the projectile's angle has to be increased.
This poses one of two issues:
- You fire the projectile SO fast you overshoot the target
- You fire the projectile to hit a target just over the horizon but to do so it no longer contains enough energy to do measurable damage to the target.
Nobody is claiming that railguns (or cannons) don't work. The issue is that to fire a projectile over the horizon the projectile's angle has to be increased.
This poses one of two issues:
- You fire the projectile SO fast you overshoot the target
- You fire the projectile to hit a target just over the horizon but to do so it no longer contains enough energy to do measurable damage to the target.
Try a diagram and see if that helps:
http://i.imgur.com/jWihwxf.png