Andrew Higgins wrote:
[...]
The engineering of building a larger light gas gun (larger than SHARP)
is *extremely* challenging. The 40 ton breech block of SHARP was the
largest forging of high-cobalt, high-nickel steel ever attempted.

It seems likely, to me, that EDM would replace forging for
larger structures.

There are a few 13,000 fps (~4km/s)
powder guns around today, and I've heard of plans for a 5km/s one

Reference, please. You can prove on gasdynamics grounds that a powder
gun can *never* exceed 3 km/s muzzle velocity.

I think that's not true with a travelling charge;
but nobody has made reliable travelling charge guns.

I'm not familiar with 4 km/s conventional guns either,
though, and would like to see a reference.


-george william herbert