Earth Space Weaponry

[CueBa'al]

The kinetic energy imparted by such a weapon is different than the thermal energy applied by energy weapons such as lazer/plasma beams/cannons. I have sincere doubts about the ability of any "forcefield/shield" to stop the kind of focused kinetic energy such a projectile would deliver. The Ori shields may be good at stopping energy weapons and kinetic weapons with low yield, but I sincerely doubt they can handle a 16" railgun firing a 2 metric ton DU projectile at anywhere from 0.1 -0.5c which focuses all kinetic energy from impact on a single point. The only force which, imo, could affect such a projectile is an extremely powerful gravity field such as created by a quantum singularity/black hole. Do the Ori have a forcefield which can keep a black hole at bay surrounding their ships? If they do, someone decided to go way overboard with the clarketech.

[alaskannut]

some number of vulcan phalanx CIWS

Where do you get this idea? Only railguns have been alluded to in either series since the beginning of season 9

Prometheus had them, but they were replaced by railguns

[Thor of The Asgard]

i want the asgard to give us more ships... we helped them... its about time they help us... they do help us sometimes but its not enough...

[immhotep]

Im sorry but that totally selfish adn unreasonable...what have we got of our own designs on that ship, the power source, the hull, the weapons and the computers...the shields, hyperdrive, sensors, comms, and beaming technolgy....basicly all the usefull bits are asgard...short of them giving us theri entire fleet weve got the best deal were gunna get!

[Harekin]

Im sorry but that totally selfish adn unreasonable...what have we got of our own designs on that ship, the power source, the hull, the weapons and the computers...the shields, hyperdrive, sensors, comms, and beaming technolgy....basicly all the usefull bits are asgard...short of them giving us theri entire fleet weve got the best deal were gunna get!

Have to agree, they were nearly wiped out aswell plus have the problem of facing becoming extinct due to "reproductive difficulties" (AKA Crappy Clones)

[jds1982]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but I've never seen a 304 go up against a lone Hatak, which was what they were designed to fight right? I've only seen them fight when they were outnumbered against the Wraith, LA, or outgunned by the Ori. My point is, how do we know that the railguns are ineffective? I don't believe I've ever seen a view of the Hatak bridge as they are fighting a 304 where someone mentions shield strength. Plus consider the size of a Wraith hiveship, there's not many weapons gonna hurt that thing. It'd be like shooting an elephant with a bb gun. You may very well hurt the elephant, but it's not going to care. I'm not saying that the weapons don't need upgrading, or that energy weapons wouldn't be a welcome addition, but I don't think the criticism of the current weapons has much basis. Even if our weapons were on par with our enemies, getting outnumbered in every engagement is still a recipe for an ass-kicking. So consider the situations you've seen the railguns used in, the 304s never even had a chance because they were outnumbered, or were fighting a vastly superior adversary (Ori).

[carcatcher]

What if the Sodan cloaking technology was integrated into the missles so that they could cloak shortly after launch and not be so easily intercepted

[asgardcmndr]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but I've never seen a 304 go up against a lone Hatak, which was what they were designed to fight right? I've only seen them fight when they were outnumbered against the Wraith, LA, or outgunned by the Ori. My point is, how do we know that the railguns are ineffective? I don't believe I've ever seen a view of the Hatak bridge as they are fighting a 304 where someone mentions shield strength. Plus consider the size of a Wraith hiveship, there's not many weapons gonna hurt that thing. It'd be like shooting an elephant with a bb gun. You may very well hurt the elephant, but it's not going to care. I'm not saying that the weapons don't need upgrading, or that energy weapons wouldn't be a welcome addition, but I don't think the criticism of the current weapons has much basis. Even if our weapons were on par with our enemies, getting outnumbered in every engagement is still a recipe for an ass-kicking. So consider the situations you've seen the railguns used in, the 304s never even had a chance because they were outnumbered, or were fighting a vastly superior adversary (Ori).

I was reading the spoilers for S10 of SG-1 and...

Spoiler:

I think I remember reading that the Odyssey goes 1 on 3 with some LA Hatak's - it's not 1 on 1, but everyone is damaged so maybe we can get a better idea of the weapons abilities of our 304's

assuming the Asgard don't bail us out or something
...maybe...

[Harekin]

What if the Sodan cloaking technology was integrated into the missles so that they could cloak shortly after launch and not be so easily intercepted

Because this would make every missile VERY expensive to make. Missiles are by definition going to destroy themselves so it would be money wasted.

[A Lost Cause]

This information is not really relevant to the most recent information within this thread but it is an interesting bit of information to consider

"RailGuns are by far the most spectacular type of electromagnetic accelerators ever developed. They hold the record for fastest object accelerated of a significant mass, for the 16000m/s firing of a .1 gram object by Sandia National Research Laboratories' 6mm Hypervelocity Launcher, and they can also propel objects of very sizeable masses to equally impressive velocities, such as in the picture to the left, where Maxwell Laboratories' 32Megajoule gun fires a 1.6kilogram projectile at 3300m/s (that's 9megajoules of kinetic energy!)"

just an interesting bit of information you guys may want to know (copied from http://www.powerlabs.org/railgun.htm (an interesting site aswell, some cool inventions )) .

truely amazing technology, because really if the rails were long enough, a rail gun could produce an almost infinite amount of energy... oh, and to your idea of launching missiles with a railgun/coil gun. the railgun would be impossible, as it creates such a vast amount of heat when fired it would cause the missile to explode(same with mininuke, wouldn't detonate but it would melt!), however it would be possible with a coil gun, but it would be extremely wastefull, not to mention the coil would have to be bigger then the missile/nuke, and to launch effectively would probably need to be approximately the size of a house(semi-informed guess) This is with modern technology we currently have(real life) and our current level of physics.

[freyr's mother]

Because this would make every missile VERY expensive to make. Missiles are by definition going to destroy themselves so it would be money wasted.

They wouldnt be very expensive because all they'd have to do is copy down everything off of those ancient stone ruins from Babylon and then they can make their own ancient personal cloaking devices.

[jenks]

They wouldnt be very expensive because all they'd have to do is copy down everything off of those ancient stone ruins from Babylon and then they can make their own ancient personal cloaking devices.

And that would stop them from being expensive?

[Avatar28]

This information is not really relevant to the most recent information within this thread but it is an interesting bit of information to consider

"RailGuns are by far the most spectacular type of electromagnetic accelerators ever developed. They hold the record for fastest object accelerated of a significant mass, for the 16000m/s firing of a .1 gram object by Sandia National Research Laboratories' 6mm Hypervelocity Launcher, and they can also propel objects of very sizeable masses to equally impressive velocities, such as in the picture to the left, where Maxwell Laboratories' 32Megajoule gun fires a 1.6kilogram projectile at 3300m/s (that's 9megajoules of kinetic energy!)"

just an interesting bit of information you guys may want to know (copied from http://www.powerlabs.org/railgun.htm (an interesting site aswell, some cool inventions )) .

truely amazing technology, because really if the rails were long enough, a rail gun could produce an almost infinite amount of energy... oh, and to your idea of launching missiles with a railgun/coil gun. the railgun would be impossible, as it creates such a vast amount of heat when fired it would cause the missile to explode(same with mininuke, wouldn't detonate but it would melt!), however it would be possible with a coil gun, but it would be extremely wastefull, not to mention the coil would have to be bigger then the missile/nuke, and to launch effectively would probably need to be approximately the size of a house(semi-informed guess) This is with modern technology we currently have(real life) and our current level of physics.

The biggest problem with railguns (aside from rail erosion) is that they are inherently limited in length. A coilgun doesn't suffer from this limitation. It's biggest problem is switching speed of the magnets.

[Wraith Scientist]

And that would stop them from being expensive?

The Sodan managed to make them in abundance, with their technology! They could probably be mass produced on Earth

If you want a good coilgun/railgun, then make it superconducting.

What earth ships could really do with would be MAC guns (from Halo) - they were awsome!

[Sam fisher]

I've never played HALO, do you have photos?