Earth Space Weaponry

[richardf]

Does anyone know the exact nature of the weapons Daedalus and Oddessy have? I have heard the term 'rail guns' used a few times but it is not clear exactly what they are. We know they are an earth weapon (as opposed to being of alien origin eg asgard), but are they energy weapons or projectile weapons (eg AA cannon)? My understanding is that projectile weapons dont work in space, yet all of earth's ships have used them in battles in space.

Any ideas?

[Peoples_General]

They're projectile weapons. However, they do not use chemical propellants (gunpowder). The projectiles are driven into Mach 5 speeds through magnetic induction, much like those rides you see in amusement parks but at a small scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun

Railguns utilize an electromagnetic force called the Lorentz force to propel an electrically conductive projectile that is initially part of the current path. Sometimes they also use a movable armature connecting the rails. The current flowing through the rails sets up a magnetic field between them and through the projectile perpendicularly to the current in the rail. This results in a mutual repulsion of the rails and the acceleration of the projectile along them.

[Avatar28]

They may actually be coil (gauss) guns too, at least the main ones. The terms are sometimes used interchangably but rail guns are limited in length and thus speed. Coilguns have no limits on speed (so you could theoretically have one that runs the entire length of the ship if you wanted to).

[richardf]

So OK Rail Guns are projectile weapons using magnetism to propell the shells through space. What are 'Coil Guns' then?

Do we know what other weaponry the earth ships have? Havent seen any others apart from using the asgard beam to deploy a nuke.

[gkyun]

So OK Rail Guns are projectile weapons using magnetism to propell the shells through space. What are 'Coil Guns' then?

Do we know what other weaponry the earth ships have? Havent seen any others apart from using the asgard beam to deploy a nuke.

Coil guns use magnets along the barrel to accelerate the projectile at high vlocities, sort of like a monorail in principle.
But I thought the rail guns Daedalus uses were adapted from staff weapon technology which use staff blasts to propel the shells (both projectile and energy based).

[Davidtourniquet]

I do recall in the siege part III, the daeddy using tacticle nuclear missiles as well as the nuke beaming and the railguns (the nukes were stopped by darts before they hit the hive ship).

[npattis]

You'd think by now we'd be able to reverse engineer an energy weapon by now. I mean, we were close in "Avenger."

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Well, non-energy based weapons do have advantages over energy weapons in some areas. For instance, dampening fields will not work on missiles, and we can deploy them while our ships are cloaked.

[Daryl Froggy]

I know this may be a dumb idea, but what about launching our missiles though some kind of Electro-Magnetic accelerator before they engage their own engines. Wouldn't that increase their range and make them harder to shoot down?

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Well, it's not a stupid idea, but it just requires more energy and money, and thus is usually thought of as redundant since the missile will accelerate anyway.

[Daryl Froggy]

Well, it's not a stupid idea, but it just requires more energy and money, and thus is usually thought of as redundant since the missile will accelerate anyway.

True but they are usually destroyed by the advanced weapons systems of our enemies before they even reach their full velocity.

[richardf]

I am surprised that the SGC/Area 51 hasnt come up with an energy weapon for the warships. I mean with all the alien weapons tech (predominantly Goauld tech), that has been aquired over the 9 years of the SG program, you'd have thought something could have been backwards engineered by now.

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Not if you upgrade them with intertial dampening technology. It would make the missiles infinitely faster and more manueverable.

[Bragi]

The power of positive thinking is Daedalus' best weapon.

[Daryl Froggy]

Not if you upgrade them with intertial dampening technology. It would make the missiles infinitely faster and more manueverable.

True, very true...but there may be a limit to how small Area 51 can get alien tech at this point in our development. Basically we may not be able to put inertial dampners on missiles because they are too small for the device to be put onto them, or because it would make the missile more expensive to mass produce than would a "simple" EM accelerator.

though I could be wrong about that.