In recent decades, the military and industry of leading countries are increasingly talking about the so-called. weapons based on new physical principles. With the help of fundamentally new ideas and solutions, it is proposed to create weapons with the highest characteristics and capabilities unattainable for traditional systems. Nevertheless, attempts to create such weapons do not always lead to the desired results. Regularly, there is news about the reduction or closure of any ambitious project. Just a few days ago, a similar fate befell another promising program.
The rail gun is "going off the rails"
A couple of weeks ago, the United States media reported on the US military's plans to cut one of the most interesting programs of recent times. It is already clear that as a result of such a decision, one of the options for a promising weapon - if it is created - will appear only in the distant future. In addition, the Pentagon will now have to revise its plans to re-equip some of the branches of the military.
According to the results of an analysis of the current situation, the US Department of Defense decided to revise its plans for a project of a promising rail gun / railgun, developed in the interests of the naval forces. This weapon, created by General Atomics and BAE Systems, was originally supposed to be installed on promising Zumwalt-class destroyers. Such ships should be equipped with a special power plant capable of ensuring the operation of promising weapons based on new physical principles.
Principles of using ship and coastal rail guns with HPV projectile. Slide from the US Department of Defense presentation
When ordering the development of a new gun, the American military wanted a system capable of accelerating a projectile to the highest speeds and sending it to a range of up to 80-100 nautical miles. Acceleration of ammunition using an electromagnetic field made special demands on the electrical systems of the carrier ship, but gave significant operational and logistical advantages. In particular, only shells could be transported in the cellars of the ship; shells with a propelling charge for them were simply absent.
According to the statements of the past, in the middle of this decade, the railgun for the Zumwalt destroyers had to pass all the necessary tests. Already in 2018-19, the first such product was planned to be delivered to the lead ship of the project. In the future, all serial destroyers could receive such weapons. A promising rail gun for American ships could be a real revolution in the field of naval weapons.
In early December, the American edition of Task & Purpose revealed some details of the current work, and also spoke about the customer's dissatisfaction with their progress. It turned out that the railgun project does not fully fit into a certain estimate, and besides, it does not fully comply with the technical requirements. In particular, the rate of fire of the gun does not yet exceed 5 rounds per minute with the required 10. The muzzle energy of the projectile also does not meet the requirements and has not yet reached the desired 32 MJ. In addition, the military had questions about the advisability of using a new gun with a promising "hyperspeed projectile" HVP.
The HVP product is a special carbide projectile capable of withstanding the highest mechanical and thermal stresses. With the help of a railgun, it can be accelerated to a speed of the order of M = 6 and sent to a distance of up to 170-180 km. This product was adapted for use by the "traditional" ship guns Mk 45. In this case, the speed is reduced to M = 3.5, and the range - to 50 km. Nevertheless, even with such characteristics, the projectile is of interest to the military. Not so long ago, it was decided to continue the development of the HVP as an independent project and without a direct connection with the railgun. This decision had a noticeable impact on the prospects of the latter.
According to the latest reports, the further development of promising weapons will look like this. The defense budget for fiscal 2018 provides for an increase in funding for the HVP project. Allocations for the railgun, in turn, will be reduced. If the contractor companies manage to complete the required work and obtain the desired results within a reasonable time frame, then the program for creating a rail gun will again return "to the old rails." Otherwise, it cannot be ruled out that it will be abandoned as a means of developing naval armaments.
The Task & Purpose edition writes that in the absence of serious success in 2019, the Pentagon may abandon promising weapons altogether. In this case, the work can be continued, but the use of the finished gun by the fleet, at least, is postponed indefinitely.
However, the refusal of the military department will not lead to a complete stop of work. It is reported that in this case, the study of a promising direction will continue. Nevertheless, due to the reduction in funding, the deadlines for the completion of work will noticeably shift to the right.
It is worth noting that such events around the project of weapons based on new physical principles are unlikely to have a negative impact on the program for the construction of ships of the Zumwalt type. Initially, it was planned to build more than three dozen such destroyers, but the rise in the cost of the program, financial constraints and technical problems led to a sharp reduction in the order. Now the shipbuilding industry will have to transfer only three ships to the Navy: the lead one and two serial ones. Instead of new railguns, they will carry artillery of existing types.
What will happen next is anyone's guess. We can say that the next 2018 will be a decisive year for a program that once seemed promising. If General Atomics and BAE Systems, as well as numerous subcontractors, manage to get rid of the existing problems, the railgun will have a chance to reach practical use. Otherwise, the list of bold but useless projects that did not give real results, despite all the costs and efforts, will be replenished with a new item.
Plasma rails
It should be noted that the potential failure of an actual project is not new or unexpected. In the recent past, several other projects of rail guns have been developed in the United States, including those designed to use unusual "shells" in the form of plasma clots. The Plasma railgun concept involved the creation of a cloud of ionized gas that could be directed in the desired direction using a pair of rails. As the current state of affairs in the field of armaments shows, such ideas never reached the stage of implementation in the troops.
Experienced Boeing YAL-1 aircraft. Photo US Missile Defense Agency / mda.mil
In recent decades, several scientific programs have been carried out in the framework of the study of plasma railguns. One of the most famous and large-scale ones remained in history under the name MARAUDER (Magnetically accelerated ring to achieve ultrahigh directed energy and radiation). This program started in 1991 and was implemented by specialists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The work continued for several years and, apparently, led to some results.
In 1993, an experimental plasma rail gun was built at the Phillips Laboratory, operated by the US Air Force. It could heat 2 mg of gas to temperatures of the order of 1010 ° K and form a ring 1 m in diameter from the plasma. The kinetic energy of the plasma ejected through a specially designed barrel reached 8-10 MJ. Verifications have shown that a small cloud of plasma is capable of inflicting the most serious mechanical and thermal damage to the target object. The emitted electromagnetic pulse could damage electronic devices.
There is reason to believe that the Pentagon is interested in the Plasma railgun theme. The main argument in favor of this assumption is the fact that since the mid-nineties, American scientists have never mentioned the MARAUDER project in their new publications. Perhaps the topic was classified. The situation was similar with other attempts to study a system that combines a plasma generator and a rail system for accelerating charged particles.
Nevertheless, the presence of a number of interesting features and a certain potential did not in any way affect the real prospects of such systems. Even a quarter of a century after the start of work, not a single plasma-railgun device was brought to the test of a full-scale prototype, as has already happened with rail guns or combat lasers. It seems that an interesting direction turned out to be too difficult to master and simply could not justify itself.
"Air laser" went to land
One of the most famous American weapons programs based on new physical principles that have not left the stage of testing and research is the Boeing YAL-1 project. His goal was to create a special aircraft equipped with a laser complex and a set of various additional equipment. The new aircraft was supposed to become one of the elements of a promising missile defense system and destroy enemy ballistic missiles in the initial sections of the trajectory.
Since the early nineties, several American enterprises have been working on the ABL (Airborny Laser - "Air Laser") project, within which a new combat laser and the additional systems necessary for it were developed. At the end of the decade, construction began on a prototype aircraft with special equipment - Boeing YAL-1. According to the plans of that time, two experimental aircraft should be involved in the tests. After the completion of all checks, it was planned to build five serial machines and deploy them in the main areas of a possible nuclear missile strike from a potential enemy.
Due to its high complexity, the ABL / YAL-1 program turned out to be prohibitively expensive. Already in the first half of the 2000s, the cost of the program reached $ 3 billion, exceeding the original estimate. Estimates have shown that to get the desired results, you will have to spend at least 5-7 billion more. In this regard, the Pentagon refused to accept the new technology for service. The plane with the laser was transferred to the category of technology demonstrators. The construction of the second prototype and serial equipment for combat use was canceled.
After the appearance of such solutions, Boeing YAL-1 began to demonstrate the required capabilities. In the spring of 2007, the aircraft's equipment was able to detect and escort a training target. In 2009, two checks took place, during which the aircraft was able to accompany real target missiles. Finally, in February 2010, a laser plane destroyed three ballistic missiles on two flights. It took no more than a few minutes to destroy the rocket structure using a 1 MW beam.
After these tests, the tests of technology in practice were suspended. In 2011, the Pentagon, following the instructions of the country's leadership to reduce military spending, decided to close the ABL project and abandon further work on the Boeing YAL-1 aircraft. The only prototype was sent for storage, but in 2014 it was disposed of as unnecessary.
Failures against the backdrop of successes
Wanting to gain a military advantage over potential adversaries, the United States is developing weapons based on the so-called. new physical principles. To date, American scientists have explored a number of promising areas and created a significant number of new projects of various kinds. Systems such as rail guns (both kinetic and plasma), numerous laser devices, etc. have been studied and tested, at least in laboratory conditions. Over the past decades, a total of several dozen similar projects and prototypes have been created.
Bow laser system of Boeing YAL-1 aircraft. Photo Wikimedia Commons
As practice shows, not all such projects have real prospects and can be completed with the desired result at reasonable costs. For one reason or another of an economic, technological or practical nature, the US military is forced to close promising projects. Prototypes are sent for storage or cutting, and the documentation is archived or becomes the basis for new developments.
The current situation has one specific feature. The closure of some projects resulted in the actual loss of funding without the desired bottom line. However, the second result of closed projects was solid experience in various fields, suitable for use in new projects. Thus, even the negative results of the projects contributed to the further development of new directions and - even if indirectly - influenced new works.
In addition, it should be remembered that for every closed project of weapons based on new physical principles, there are a number of ongoing programs. For example, several companies are continuing to work on a combat laser for ships. A return to relatively old ideas is also possible, but in a new form. So, in the spring of this year, the Pentagon announced its intention to integrate a combat laser into the armament complex of the AC-130 fire support aircraft.
Thus, the failure of individual ambitious projects, while causing some damage to the budget and defense capability, still does not lead to fatal consequences for the development of the US armed forces as a whole. Negative experience points to the real prospects of certain ideas, and the accumulated knowledge is used in new projects. However, all these failures lead to unjustified expenses, delay the rearmament of the army and, as a result, turn out to be useful for "probable opponents" of the United States. Other countries, including Russia, should consider American successes and failures when drawing up new plans for the development of their own armed forces.
