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As usual, I find the music in all of the linked videos delusional, as if this high-tech killing machine was created to astonish patriotic five-year-olds. For th
by spookybones 7y ago
As usual, I find the music in all of the linked videos delusional, as if this high-tech killing machine was created to astonish patriotic five-year-olds. For the sake of analogy, someone should overlay the same music to the engineering of a-bombs and gas chambers.
- 99052882514569 7y agoSorry, are you drawing a parallel between a rail gun and gas chambers?
- bananocurrency 7y agoSorry, are you implying that a rail gun is that much more humane?
- dageshi 7y agoGas being banned under various treaties but a rail gun being essentially a faster version of existing munitions... Yeah, I probably would say it is.
- darkpuma 7y agoOne of the big differences is that gas chambers are only useful for killing prisoners while there is no indication whatsoever that railguns will be used to kill prisoners. (That said, if it were my execution and the choice were given to me, I would of course chose the railgun! Suffocating on cyanide gas doesn't seem like much fun, I'd rather be vaporized by a hypersonic artillery shell, if it's all the same to you...)
- sdinsn 7y agoIt sure is. Are you implying that a railgun is equally or less humane as chemical weapons?
- godelski 7y agoAre you implying that even if you don't think killing people that certain ways of killing people is definitely worse than others?
- sdinsn 7y agoYou are missing some words there so I'm not sure what you are asking. I think that chemical weapons are far far worse than railguns. And I'm not the only one that thinks that...
- simonh 7y agoThe railgun is a precise weapon that strikes specific targets and so the users of it can exercise reasonable judgement on it's use. It's a requirement of various treaties on warfare, such as the Geneva Convention, that war fighters be accountable for their actions and not engage targets under specific circumstances, such as if they are civilians or surrendering. Gas is an extremely unreliable and indiscriminate weapon that is highly likely to affect individuals beyond any reasonably intended target, including civilians. It's not possible to use it and still meet obligations under treaty, such as not engaging civilians and surrendering troops. Therefore it's use is not allowed and any use of it is accountable as a war crime.
- godelski 7y agoGas also tends to be a more painful and gruesome death. We humans tend to prefer quick and painless deaths, even when it is against our enemies.
- JudgeWapner 7y agoI listened to it and agree it sounds very childish. Better would have been to have some intelligent narration, the story in a nutshell. How much energy is required for a railgun? What uses do they have that cannot be done with conventional artillery? what were some of the major challenges faced by the R&D team? All of that could have been explained in the audio track that was instead used for crappy Michael Bay action movie music.
- SEJeff 7y agoOne of the problems with existing Navy "gun ships" is that explosive ordinance can be a hazard to sailors and has to be handled very carefully. Additionally, it has to be stored very carefully. One of the things a railgun hypothetically allows is launching non-explosive inert projectiles. What happen when you launch a big hunk of steel at something 200 miles away travelling Mach 6? Another huge benefit is the speed allows using this for anti-surface and potentially anti-air as well (covered in the article), something conventional munitions can not do.
- kaycebasques 7y agoI’m very ignorant about weapons technology. When you say anti-air does that imply some kind of homing technology in the projectiles?
- SEJeff 7y agoIt means taking out adversarial missiles or aircraft. When they're travelling so fast, they might not need any homing technology. The state of the art F22 Raptor has a top speed with afterburners of Mach 2 for reference. The railgun projectile is travelling at Mach 6 per the article. If the plane is within range, it might not be able to run away from one of these if they get the aiming correct.
- nradov 7y agoExisting conventional munitions are absolutely used against surface and air targets.
- darkpuma 7y agoOne day history will likely show the whole project amounted to nothing more than propaganda meant to impress teenage boys so they enlist. I anticipate this supposed weapon system seeing very little if any use in battle, but receiving extensive media and promotional coverage. Some people are hoping for a return of the battleship era, with nuclear powered ships slinging shells at each other across the horizon with electric cannons. But I'm pretty sure that is wishful thinking.
- doctorRetro 7y agoI agree on at least the first half of your statement. Although I'm not sure I'd say 'delusional' as much as - I don't know? - Jingoistic? Bombastic? I feel like I should be playing Command and Conquer to that sound track. At the end of the day, these are killing machines that are being designed to take human lives, and it does feel more than a bit inappropriate. I think that's what you're getting at with the latter half.
- ch4s3 7y agoJingoistic is exactly the word that came to mind as I watched the video.
- spookybones 7y agoPerhaps it is the appropriate word here. However, I think it undermines the bigger picture. Many of these weapon showcases are made at the behest of weapon companies, the items of which are sold to the highest bidders. See Vice's coverage of SOFEX on Youtube for a good showcase of delusion.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoA friend overlaid an EDM track (Flux Pavilion if I recall) on the original test fire videos from several years ago when the prototype was located at the Virginia test site. I enjoyed the short piece of creative they remixed in the same way I enjoyed the Iron Man franchise. It’s a killing machine, but the engineer in me still deeply appreciates the advanced technology these systems are based on (energy/thermal management, power control systems). SpaceX vehicles are a firmware update away from being high precision ICBMs (and their CEO has said they’d take DoD work and build weapons systems). No one on here is calling for somber treatment of that kit and their YouTube launch streams. Condemn the action, not the tool.
- minikites 7y ago>Condemn the action, not the tool. So it's fine to stockpile chemical weapons as long as we don't use them because they're just a tool?
- arch-ninja 7y agoSounds like they paid a highschool student to play a muted version of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRh-dzrI4Z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRh-dzrI4Z4
- Rebelgecko 7y agoHans Zimmer recycles that riff all the time (I think he used it first in Drop Zone, then Crimson Tide, The Rock, Gladiator, and probably elsewhere). I guess the Navy wanted to give it a shot too.
- TimTheTinker 7y agoDIY videos by armed service members often use over-the-top soundtracks. I bet the intent of that video wasn't to be PR or marketing, just a fun recap of work done.
- minikites 7y agoWhat makes this work "fun"?
- SEJeff 7y agoReally hard engineering pushing the limits of physics and materials science is fun, killing people is not.
- minikites 7y agoDo you genuinely see the same virtue in the engineering of a bridge and the engineering of a cruise missile?
- SEJeff 7y agoDo you not see that materials science from high performance cruise missiles might work its way through other uses of materials science such as structural engineering and bridges? Bridges can be used to hold tanks, does that mean all bridge engineers are bad?
- minikites 7y agoThere's no way other than weapons engineering to make those discoveries?
- SEJeff 7y agoIn the same vein, as an industry, pornography really improved computer storage density and video codecs whereas electronic trading really improved the tech to reduce networking latency. Virtually all engineering benefits from other engineering that came before it. There are plenty of other ways, but this is how it is. Most all of what NASA does or has ever done has directly benefited the Department of Defense. Does this mean we should shut down NASA because it helps the military make more efficient missiles or spy satellites? When does this silly argument end.
- newsoul2019 7y ago> created to astonish patriotic five-year-olds In other words, the current POTUS?
- jacquesm 7y agoI can't tell if you're being downvoted for being snarky or because people think that Trump isn't patriotic.
- Raphmedia 7y agoTo my ears, the track of the first video sounds like a royalty free copycat of Hans Zimmer's Pirate of the Caribbean soundtrack. In the context of a new canon to be installed on the Navy's ships I think it fits pretty well. It does not sound nationalistic or over the top to me. The other videos are on personal channels so they are inconsequential.
- keiru 7y agoWhen I watched it I thought "This is pirate adventure music"