This is one thkng that never made sense to me and seems (at least to me) counterintuitive even though the historical precedents speak for themselves (case in point, the long-barrelled Sherman Firefly variant which became a very effective weapon against WWII German armor that the ordinary Sherman wouldn’t normally be able to penetrate)
The way I see it, the projectile is in the barrel (and therefore engaging the rifling) for that much longer – in that time, more of the shell’s kinetic energy is lost as friction in the barrel than it would be normally, wouldn’t it?
Is the effect of friction negligible and outweighed by the increased rotation imparted by the long barrel? I just don’t understand how it makes as significant a difference as it does.
In: Engineering
Imagine blowing a spitball with a straw. Now imagine blowing a spitball with a straw half the size. Now, again imagine blowing a spitball with half the size of that.
Notice it starting to slow down yet? Why?
You will intuitively know that a stub of a straw will be difficult to hit your older brother in the head from across the room.
Your lungs want to accelerate the spitball. As long as you have forceful air in your lungs to push the spitball along its journey from start to end of the straw – the faster and bigger the splat!
Be careful though – your brother with his bigger stronger lungs can have a longer straw that shoots even faster.
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