r/BeAmazed • u/Wooden-Journalist902 • Nov 15 '25

Technology Hypersonic railgun round goes through metal plates like they are made of paper.

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '25

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '25

There’s handheld versions of this that use copper coils. While they are extremely quiet (they make a small clicking noise because they don’t break the sound barrier) they don’t have much power because it’s on such a smaller scale.

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u/godofpumpkins Nov 15 '25

A coilgun is also a slightly different principle from a railgun. You gotta time the coils/solenoids to come on and off at just the right time to only accelerate the projectile without slowing it down. A railgun is conceptually a single loop of current where the projectile completes the circuit. The generated magnetic field is perpendicular to the rails and moves the projectile along them. Both are electromagnetic but a railgun is simpler since it doesn’t need any timing or fast switching of the coils. On the flip side, you need some hefty capacitors and fat conductors to get it to do anything interesting.

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '25

This stuff is definitely going to be used in space though, so it will eventually get some use.