An artist rendering illustrates the Office of Naval Research-funded electromagnetic railgun installed aboard the joint high-speed vessel USNS Millinocket, the vessel initially expected to be used for sea trials. US Navy
Business Insider: The US Navy is talking about finally taking its railgun out to sea for testing aboard a warship
* The US Navy is talking about finally testing its railgun aboard a warship, which would be a milestone achievement for the struggling program.
* The Navy's railgun, the product of more than a decade of research costing more than $500 million, was expected to be tested in 2016, but the test was delayed.
* The US is not the only country chasing this technology. China has already managed to arm a warship — the Type 072III Yuting-class tank-landing ship "Haiyang Shan" — with a railgun.
The US Navy is planning to finally test the electromagnetic railgun it has spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing aboard a warship, according to new documents detailing the service's testing and training plans.
Unlike conventional guns, a railgun uses electromagnetic energy rather than explosive charges to fire rounds farther and at six or seven times the speed of sound.
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WNU Editor: I guess this Chinese test pushed the US Navy to do their own .... U.S. Intelligence Report: China Tested Its Naval Electromagnetic Railgun Early This Month (January 30, 2019).
3 comments:
Research is tough, start the implementation phase too fast and you lose the advantage of the pure research. Also, I think lasers are the next wave, these rail guns don't make much sense to me in a high tech missile world.
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Hyper Velocity Projectile have a serious place in Naval armaments. Lasers have there problems, and while useful, aren’t much good against a big, hard (like another ship or shoreside bunker) and can only be used line of sight. A solid or explosive projectile has over the horizon capability and a hard kill profile. Explosives make near misses effective. With laser only direct ‘Light’ does the job. At range holding the laser still from a moving ship onto a moving target long enough to deliver sufficient power is very hard.
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