The U.S. Navy’s Railgun Is Nearly Dead in the Water

[Nitt1300]

Hey, what's $500 million between friends?

The U.S. Navy’s $500 million electromagnetic railgun—capable of slinging projectiles at hypersonic speeds—lacks funding and has no coherent plan to deploy on warships. The Navy is instead pursuing an offshoot of the railgun, a hypervelocity projectile it can fire from existing gun systems.

The electromagnetic railgun (EMRG) is a weapon that uses electricity instead of gunpowder to send projectiles downrange. Railguns use magnetic fields created by high electrical currents to accelerate a projectile to Mach 6, or 5,400 miles an hour. The velocity is sufficient to give the EMRG an effective range of 110 nautical miles, or 126 miles on land.

The Office of Naval Research began development of the gun in 2005, and by 2012 a technology demonstrator was firing projectiles at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division in Virginia. In 2015, the program was apparently doing so well the Navy announced plans to test the weapon from the USNS Trenton, an Expeditionary Fast Transport. In 2017, the Navy released a video of the Dahlgren gun firing multi-shot salvos.

More, if you have the stomach for it: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a32291935/navy-railgun-failure/

 

[Cletus11]

let's hope this is just the Navy throwing China, Russia, et al. of the scent by saying it is done when in reality it is not.

 

[Nitt1300]

let's hope this is just the Navy throwing China, Russia, et al. of the scent by saying it is done when in reality it is not.

I don't think it is. The promise of railguns has been superseded by hypersonic missiles, which have far greater range than anything ever forecast for rail guns.

 

[Obliviax]

Hey, what's $500 million between friends?

The U.S. Navy’s $500 million electromagnetic railgun—capable of slinging projectiles at hypersonic speeds—lacks funding and has no coherent plan to deploy on warships. The Navy is instead pursuing an offshoot of the railgun, a hypervelocity projectile it can fire from existing gun systems.

The electromagnetic railgun (EMRG) is a weapon that uses electricity instead of gunpowder to send projectiles downrange. Railguns use magnetic fields created by high electrical currents to accelerate a projectile to Mach 6, or 5,400 miles an hour. The velocity is sufficient to give the EMRG an effective range of 110 nautical miles, or 126 miles on land.

The Office of Naval Research began development of the gun in 2005, and by 2012 a technology demonstrator was firing projectiles at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division in Virginia. In 2015, the program was apparently doing so well the Navy announced plans to test the weapon from the USNS Trenton, an Expeditionary Fast Transport. In 2017, the Navy released a video of the Dahlgren gun firing multi-shot salvos.

More, if you have the stomach for it: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a32291935/navy-railgun-failure/

I sponsored the US citizenship for the EE manager of the project when I was junior and him a freshman. He was a college FG kicker who moved to the USA s as an early teen. He was one of the first soccer style kickers and broke every record in the league. He quit football when a lab conflicted with spring practice and the coach gave him a hard time. He wanted to be an engineer.