The weapon fired non-aerodynamic test rounds that are designed to slow down quickly. Tom Boucher, the Navy’s railgun test director at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, VA added, "But eventually the program intends to fire a very low-drag, high-speed projectile.”
The railgun is seemingly straight out of science fiction: An ultra-powerful electromagnetic gun that shoots rounds more than 100 miles away at several times the speed of sound. The weapon could be used to assault inland targets from the safety of the seas, or help Marines exploit breaches in an assault. Faster and smaller than any air-based weapon, the rail gun’s projectiles would be able to avoid enemy air and sky defenses.
Jun 2, 2007
For the uninitiated, a railgun fires projectiles using electricity instead of chemical propellants. Magnetic fields created by strong electrical currents accelerate a sliding metal conductor between two rails to launch projectiles at about 7,200 to 9,000 kilometers per hour, compared to perhaps 5,400 kilometers per hour for a conventional gun. By equipping ships with railguns rather than standard artillery, the Navy could eliminate the hazards of having high explosives on board ships.
Jan 31, 2008
The gun is made up of parallel rails and uses a magnetic field and electric current, instead of chemicals, to generate energy to fire the rounds. Forget flint and powder, even the sparks and small explosions that help a modern gun fire: this railgun will revolutionize weapons, making today’s firearms comparable to crossbows against muskets.
Feb 27, 2012
Of course that evolution is still years away. The Navy said Tuesday an industry-built prototype of the gun is being tested at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division in Virginia. At this early stage, they're focused on measuring the gun's barrel life and structural integrity because it is capable of firing rounds at up to 5,600 miles per hour, or more than seven times the speed of sound. More R&D is needed to over the next five years to ensure the weapon can cool down and handle repetitive fire. The Navy wants to be able to fire 10 rounds a minute.
The finished version of the railgun will eventually be able to fire a single projectile up to 220 nautical miles.
The Navy hopes to eventually place the railguns on DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers. However, the railguns could find their way on other classes of ships as well since the technology is scalable.
The railgun is being looked at for operational capability between 2020 and 2025, but the Navy is looking for ways to reduce the wait.
Concerns should also come with any new weapons age. “New weapons will raise the question of a global regulatory regime to prevent stockpiling or the establishment of Mutal Assured Destruction-like doctrines between the major powers,” Ivanov says.
Much like the nuclear age a half century ago, the railgun and hypersonic weapon will change the way war is waged, but also the way diplomacy and foreign policy is constructed among states. Could we see the United Nations step in with an anti-railgun treaty in two decades?