45 degree is optimal angle for firing for distance?

[Siegmund]

HeavilyArmed: depends who you ask. If you care about having a balanced budget in wartime, yes - shells are vastly cheaper to make than bombs or missiles, and big guns vastly cheaper than flying aircraft sorties to drop said bombs. The downside of course is that they are limited in their range, and that they need to be brought into position by sea or rail which tends to make them obvious targets against a well-armed enemy.

Theoretically, yes, the coriolis effect applies to shells that travel long distances north or south. Practically, no, its a vastly smaller effect than what way the wind is blowing, barrel wear, or the temperature of the powder. Remember too that (with or without the coriolis effect) if you are shooting long distances, you WILL almost certainly miss unless you have someone spotting fall of shot and making corrections based on what they see.

[goodsamaritan]

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I don't know about adjustments for simply maximizing range, but you do have to adjust for the earth's rotation in projectile warfare or you will miss badly, it's called the coriolis effect.

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Yup, you have to take into account the curvature of the earth as well.

[m_the0ry]

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Is there much use today for any large bore ballistic weaponry?

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railguns baby.

[daryn]

transverse and coriolis forces do have to be taken into account in 3 dimensional situations

the original problem reminds me of high school physics. we had an interesting multi-part problem where we had a cannon placed on a hill and had to hit a target 50m or so below the altitude of the cannon.

we had to do things like get the optimal angle for distance, and also figure out how high of a wall we had to build if were were the "target" to just prevent attack, stuff like that.

the second question about "other forces" reminds me of this hardcore mechanics class in college. i had flashbacks of multiple pulley and flywheel systems, mm.. lagrangian mechanics

[Borodog]

OP,

Neglecting air resistance, the curvature and rotation of the earth, and assuming the projectile lands at the same level from which it was fired, the maximum range of a projectile is v0^2sin^2(theta)/g, where v0 is the initial speed of the projectile upon being fired, theta is the elevation of the barrel above the horizontal, and g is the acceleration due to gravity.

[Borodog]

By the way, I just made this diagram for class and thought I would share my leet Microsoft Word illustration skillz:

[alphatmw]

everyone DOES know this exists right? i'm assuming it was implicit.

http://www.addictinggames.com/kittencannon.html

[Duke]

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everyone DOES know this exists right? i'm assuming it was implicit.

http://www.addictinggames.com/kittencannon.html

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472 ft on my 3rd try... I don't know what's good. I got lucky and got a couple extra boosts from some bombs strewn along the way.

[Johnny Drama]

[ QUOTE ]
everyone DOES know this exists right? i'm assuming it was implicit.

http://www.addictinggames.com/kittencannon.html

[/ QUOTE ]

[arahant]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
everyone DOES know this exists right? i'm assuming it was implicit.

http://www.addictinggames.com/kittencannon.html

[/ QUOTE ]


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I was going to kick your ass and post it, but it turns out you rock and I just wasted an hour of my life...