Beadwindow facilitates a workshop specifically for defence industry and government agencies to explore a seemingly simple question: Which came first – tactical requirement, or technological advancement? That is, what is the fundamental factor in warfighting improvement – technological development to implement a deliberately designed tactic; or, tactical development through adaptation of existing technology?
The question tends to draw people down rabbit-holes and defining key terms, how those terms might be inter-related, and inevitably looking at myriad examples over history. We’ll leave it to the reader to figure out if there is definitive answer to the question posed. For those wanting a paperback to muse the topic while in an airport lounge or in a hotel room between meetings, Mr Paul Kennedy, of the National Defense University, might be instructive through his book ‘Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers who Turned the Tide in World War Two’. A review of Mr Kennedy’s work can be found here.
One of the outcomes of our workshops is a discussion centred upon (military capability) ‘Need’ and ‘Want’. When does one become the other? What are the triggers and thresholds? What is the relationship of Need/Want with a disciplined system engineering approach to requirements analysis? Where value to a client is important, it is the supplier who can best articulate the best option that will secure the deal. Consequently the workshop poses several plenary questions to which industry might better influence a military outcome sought by a government’s materiel acquisition.
Which leads us to this article’s true purpose: simply to look at the publicly available update on the United States Navy’s railgun program. The clip below was released by the USN on 20 July 2017.
Our limited assessment of the need for, and rise of, the railgun reduces to three top-level requirements:
- Minimise the frequency of a warship’s ammunitioning event (aka increased ammunition capacity, and/or increased targeting efficiency and effectiveness),
- Reduce a naval gunnery system’s sustainment and maintenance requirements (less moving parts and physical stress from firing the weapon), and
- Deliver an operationally-useful weight of fire at extended range when compared to conventional naval gunnery systems (repetitive firing, and hypersonic speeds to minimise combined ballistic effects over longer ranges).
Our immediate impression of the gun is ‘wow, it’s huge – it’ll never float’. While the capacitors will inevitably shrink to a ship-friendly size, the size of the ship needed to simply embark the gun itself; at least, at this stage of the railgun’s development; needs to be large. However, the gun in its current format might pose a formidable threat to ships if placed within a coastline defence system (and to do so would represent technology driving tactical development). Additionally, and noting the gun’s recoilless firing, we can’t help but wonder how long it will take before miniaturisation of the system is pursued by land and air forces.
We also wonder at the materials to be used for barrel construction in order to maximise its life, thus minimising the systems’ sustainment. Gun barrel erosion can accelerate when munitions are fired at increasing muzzle velocities, thus shortening the barrel’s service life and increasing the system’s sustainment activity and lifecycle cost: in short, hypersonic munition launch might seem counter-productive. Recent advances in ceramics technology for the aerospace industry may be helpful in understanding this aspect, assuming the railgun’s barrel is not a traditional metal alloy and the design of munition is altered to reflect a non-explosive propellant (ie electromagnetic energy).
The railgun’s creation is unlikely due to a binary argument for either technological development, nor tactical need; but a happy coincidence of both. In that respect, it’s final form will be born from the ‘art of the possible’.
