Coilguns and a paradigm shift

Muzzle velocity is lower, but not necessarily too much lower - as that coilgun demonstrates by still having 6.6 km/s of muzzle velocity.

Also, I am dubbing this type of projectile APNDS - Armour piercing non-discarding sabot. It also allows your ammo to be a LOT cheaper, since the armature materials for coilguns are so damn expensive.

Then remember that you need a RC unit to make them go off instead of being a over priced AP shell

They still exploded on impact even without RC.

Still trying to figure out how to make cost effective heavy coilgun launcher since my micromissiles can mostly do the job on their own.

But for launching solid projectile? It might just works better but I'm still not sure how.

Yes, you are right. The armature alone will be faster and more accurate, but I'm discovering a couple of things.

First off is co$t. I was getting tired of 6 Mcr of a 7 Mcr weapon system being the part that gets expended down the barrel.

Second is effect on target. I've noticed that it's difficult to shape the armature into a good penetrator (long-and-thin), most are wider than they are long causing them to easily deflect off the target unless they catch the target squarely (I was reading of one gun that fired 1-ton projectiles that were having trouble breaching targets). Furthermore, most high-efficiency armature materials have terrible mechanical properties so they'll either shatter or squish on impact.

Firing a 1.5 kg tungsten projectile at a stock gunship I'm finding the battle lasts until the first solid hit. The projectile usually enters through the front plate, runs the length of the ship, and exits through the radiation shield, reactor, and engines. EVERYTHING inside the armor envelope is destroyed either through direct effect or fragmentation.




The key seems to be minimizing projectile mass while still being an effective penetrator. I may try reducing the mass even further to see what happens.




That does sound quite a bit more professional than the APFU-T designation I was batting around XD.

It really does, my Mk.I-A5 fighter costed over 13 Mcr to field, the A6 version cuts that almost in half.

Specifics of the shape - e.g. a cone vs a blunt rod, do not matter at those speeds, no.

What does still matter for penetration, however, is sectional density, or how long the penetrator is relative to its thickness. Because, with the same mass projectile going at the same speed, a long rod will focus the energy on a much smaller area than a flat plate.

Question. Does it need the flare?