Ok so we've probably all heard about these electro magnetic weapons capable of firing a missile at almost 8 times the speed of sound and they have been in development for some time, expected to have a prototype fixed to US Navy battleships by 2016. Whether they will use it or maybe they will/have found a better metal, currently silver plated copper is 'the best' for making these huge rails that guide and power the projectile, could we be seeing a huge spot rise when this comes about?
Its more talk about the composition of components and the link tospot price not necessarily the weapon... Ok so it sort of is
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OqlTXwLG40[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEu9LLQpOF8[/youtube]
It all adds up tho, these are old figures. http://www.eoearth.org/article/Cell_phone_recycling?topic=49558 And those Rail guns will need to be replated as well, and all those capacitors will require silver as well.
actually aluminum has a better conductivity to weight ratio and it is cheaper. I don't think the amount of silver they'd use will affect the spot price.
Rail guns are outdated technology. Don't expect it to benefit silver anytime soon. Besides, to be in favour of rail guns is to be in favour of the Kaiser:
Fair enough Samboy, The Silver plated copper was what I saw in some research but if it is as you say then I imagine that would be more suitable. Oh and the idea of a rail gun may be outdated but that 'railway gun' most certainly is Earthjade. Development is still ongoing (mainly just the reduction of size for the ammount of capacitors they need) as they have not even been tested outside of testing 'if that males sense) also a small 'coil' gun (similar to a mortar but using electromagnetic technology) is currently under development.
Railway gun again as opposed to a railgun? Railway gun; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_gun Railgun http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
Your Funny, will they go into mass production? A: No Will it effect spot price... A: No How many will be made... A: Sweet FA.. Can i ask why you think the production of a couple of these even if pure silver would effect the aggregate demand? I can think of a million more likely demand spikers in health, beauty, lifestyle, industry and even warfare.. My only point of aggrement would be "It all adds up tho"
1for1 they plan on installing them on at least a fleet of their newest electrically powered battle ships and seeing as they have such a long range they may have others being built by other countries to use as defensive weapons against land see or air targets. Providing they find a solution to the size these could become the new browning's
I think you are a little confused there SN. The US Navy no longer uses Battleships. The 4 Iowa class battelships were decommissioned at the end of the first Gulf War, after they had been brought out of mothballs and returned to service in the 80's. As far as use of the EM weapons on warships, I strongly suspect they would be intended to replace the Phalanx close-in weapons systems from the 80's - providing twice the rate of fire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
Watch 'future weapons' episodes on discovery, that is the source of most of my info here which is from military mouths...
You do know you can make some really good (highly unstable) explosive with silver. the rail gun is like a printer. it uses electrical impulse to drive the firing device. That and the fact is has no metal case to eject makes it faster. a downer for copper producers and a bonus for anyone with a weapon that can shoot farther than 2 miles
I note the Top Volume stock in Oz on Friday was Metalstorm...I think 57 mil shares at 1 cent? The company is cash broke though has some awesome IP.
