NonCredibleDefense
A community for your defence shitposting needs
Rules
1. Be nice
Do not make personal attacks against each other, call for violence against anyone, or intentionally antagonize people in the comment sections.
2. Explain incorrect defense articles and takes
If you want to post a non-credible take, it must be from a "credible" source (news article, politician, or military leader) and must have a comment laying out exactly why it's non-credible. Low-hanging fruit such as random Twitter and YouTube comments belong in the Matrix chat.
3. Content must be relevant
Posts must be about military hardware or international security/defense. This is not the page to fawn over Youtube personalities, simp over political leaders, or discuss other areas of international policy.
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5. No politics
We don't care if you're Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Stalinist, Baathist, or some other hot mess. Leave it at the door. This applies to comments as well.
6. No seriousposting
We don't want your uncut war footage, fundraisers, credible news articles, or other such things. The world is already serious enough as it is.
7. No classified material
Classified ‘western’ information is off limits regardless of how "open source" and "easy to find" it is.
8. Source artwork
If you use somebody's art in your post or as your post, the OP must provide a direct link to the art's source in the comment section, or a good reason why this was not possible (such as the artist deleting their account). The source should be a place that the artist themselves uploaded the art. A booru is not a source. A watermark is not a source.
9. No low-effort posts
No egregiously low effort posts. E.g. screenshots, recent reposts, simple reaction & template memes, and images with the punchline in the title. Put these in weekly Matrix chat instead.
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No brigading or harassing other communities. Do not post memes with a "haha people that I hate died… haha" punchline or violating the sh.itjust.works rules (below). This includes content illegal in Canada.
11. No misinformation
NCD exists to make fun of misinformation, not to spread it. Make outlandish claims, but if your take doesn’t show signs of satire or exaggeration it will be removed. Misleading content may result in a ban. Regardless of source, don’t post obvious propaganda or fake news. Double-check facts and don't be an idiot.
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What the fuck was that in the last panel.
Gun large enough to hit London. The barrel had to be so long that they built it into a hillside to keep it supported
Hmm. I'm guessing they had problems with getting enough propulsion going? The modern approach would involve some very synchronized stages, but WWII tech would make that difficult.
Otherwise, this would be a pretty cheap way of doing the Blitz.
They were doing exactly that. The pairs of pipes coming out the sides of the barrel are more charges, being timed to go right after the projectile goes through.
Didn't work well also barrel life of like 5 shots and you can't aim it or move it. Dumb, like everything they did.
Yeah. Now it'd be easy to programmably trigger each charge on the order of microseconds or less, and we can make some pretty fast-shutting valves. Barrel wear is harder and would probably involve simulational fluid dynamics. More likely we'd just build a coilgun, which removes that issue very nicely, and uses similar control electronics.
Of course, if you want to destroy a city there's also nukes now, and anything else tends to either move or be very well protected. People have talked about this for space travel, but the trade-off between G-forces and length hurts at least as much as the rocket equation (despite being "only" quadratic instead of exponential).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon
if you're interested, a more modern take on the concept was attempted using conventional explosives.
Ah yes, the Canadian guy working with Saddam to start a novel space program (that totally for sure wouldn't be repurposed as a weapon). Too bad he was assassinated, that would have been really interesting and probably wouldn't have been a major military risk to anyone.
Wouldn't the modern approach largely use synchronized magnets? I suppose you could synchronize explosive charges, but that seems way more complicated than a rail gun.
Quite possibly. Synchronised coils are still a kind of stage, though.
The downside of that approach is that you have to deliver a lot of electricity quickly. I'd still try it first, just because of the difficulties around protecting the barrel, and the much reduced moving parts count. I should also mention light gas guns, which mostly work like a normal non-staged gun but can get low-hypersonic muzzle velocities just by virtue of how quickly hydrogen or helium can expand.
It's a lot easier to produce large amounts of electricity than explosives IMO, especially in war-time when your supply lines are all messed up. As long as you have batteries/capacitors available for your weaponry, you can get creative on how you charge them.
Yeah, but we're not talking about lighting or space heating here. You need all that energy at once in a split second. Vacuum flywheels or superconducting loops are the usual go-tos for powering coilguns IIRC. The power electronics and switches (as opposed to the control electronics) also need to be able to handle significant current while still being fast.
If it was that easy, normal stationary guns would be electrical, rather than using a primary and secondary explosive charge in precision-machined disposable casings.
Right, it's not easy, but it's generally a one-time cost, especially if it's going to be in a well-defended area (e.g. the electrical bits would largely be underground to protect from bombs and help w/ heat control). So once you build the infra, you just need to be able to recharge it, and it's pretty easy to create electricity even if your supply lines are cut off (burn whatever you have).
It certainly wouldn't be practical for a mobile battery, but for something like this that just sits on a hillside, I think it would be quite practical. So not something the US would be interested in, but it would make a ton of sense for something like Nazi Germany where there are a ton of enemies within shooting distance.
And enemies all exposed together in a fixed place, but somehow not reachable by normal weapons of mass destruction. That's the real reason hillgun is noncredible at this point, even if you could figure out a way to protect the muzzle end well enough.
I said in another thread here that I'd go for coilgun first, so I don't disagree. More for the resistance to wear or mechanical failure than because explosives are hard to come by, though.
I'm thinking of something like the Ukraine War, where neither side has air superiority, and both have capable air defenses. The primary long range attack option is rocket attacks, but rockets are expensive. A railgun just needs electricity, replacement rails, and something conductive to launch. As a fixed weapon, they should be pretty effective, especially if they can adjust their aim a few degrees.
Germany had air superiority vs UK, so they could use conventional bombers. But today, they'd need to contend with the US, so I don't think that strategy would work today. Launching heavy objects at incredible speed almost always works though.
Coilguns are awesome though. I think they'd make awesome anti-tank guns, but they probably wouldn't scale well enough for long range bombardment.
I mean, you can make most of the gun underground, but the muzzle always has to stick out. If you don't have air superiority I'd think that would make it pretty vulnerable.
A giant, underground gun that that can also aim a few degrees is straight up an experimental concept. I guess you could put it all on a giant turn-table?
I'm thinking of a situation where neither side has air superiority, and both have solid air defenses. In that case, I don't think the gun needs to be underground, just the expensive electrical bits, so the barrel can be exposed. The electrical bits could be anywhere in the area, as long as they connect to the rails, which should be pretty cheap.
I'm sure there area million reasons it wouldn't work, but I think it checks out on paper.
The atomic bomb. Very powerful.
What, you weren't reading it right to left like a manga? /s