Blitzer Railgun will it be successful?

[Nuke]

battleships are ment to be able to slug it out. you dont need to do that if your offensive and defensive weapons have a really long range. you actually want something closer to a destroyer or corvette.

[Seret]

the effective attack range of such a ship would be terrifying.

Main surface combatants already have missiles that can fight over the horizon battles. Aircraft can strike targets way beyond even those. That's exactly why aircraft became the dominant weapon at sea, they allow you to reach out and grab your enemy at a range beyond their ability to strike back (except with their own aircraft, of course).

As for the "iron dome", naval groups already have layered, integrated defence systems. Ships specialised for defending others are pretty common. So it's something that is actually already in existence. It is indeed one of the reasons why modern warships aren't heavily armoured.

[vger]

Main surface combatants already have missiles that can fight over the horizon battles. Aircraft can strike targets way beyond even those. That's exactly why aircraft became the dominant weapon at sea, they allow you to reach out and grab your enemy at a range beyond their ability to strike back (except with their own aircraft, of course).

As for the "iron dome", naval groups already have layered, integrated defence systems. Ships specialised for defending others are pretty common. So it's something that is actually already in existence. It is indeed one of the reasons why modern warships aren't heavily armoured.

Missiles can easily be tracked and as we know with "iron dome," easily defended against. But an artillery round fired from a rail cannon? I'd say we've got quite a while to go before that ever happens.

[Nuke]

thats what norad does.

[Seret]

I wouldn't say missiles are easily defended against at all. The kind of technology you're talking about ("iron dome") is designed for tracking and intercepting non-maneuvering ballistic targets dropping out of a blue sky such as unguided rockets, mortar bombs and ballistic missiles. Supersonic sea-skimming missiles that can manoeuvre right up into the terminal phase are an entirely different kettle of fish.

My point wasn't that naval groups are impervious to enemy fire (far from it), but that "iron dome" type technologies aren't especially novel or revolutionary in the naval arena.

[Idobox]

Aircrafts are currently the main weapon at sea because it is very difficult and expensive to down them.

Introduce hypervelocity guns that shoot low cost ammunition, and it becomes much easier and cheaper to defend yourself against missiles and aircraft.

Also, rail guns have the potential to deliver the equivalent of a small nuke while being cheap (ammunition, not the gun itself) and conventional, definitely a very useful weapon, but that would require a large power source, ie a big ship, ie a big target, which means risky unless you are certain you can maintain air superiority and ward off attack submarines.

I can really picture ships a few decades from now covered in smaller AA railguns, and a few larger ones to inflict damage on other ships or land targets, with weapon ranges of several hundreds of km. With something like that, you sink most of your enemies fleet before aircrafts even have a chance to take off.