Navy Set to Begin Testing Electromagnet Railgun

It's been in the news for several years, but up till now, it's been more of a mystery than an actual product. Now, that stage is over as the Office of Naval Research is announcing that the railgun launcher is set to begin testing in the next couple of weeks.

The railgun, if successful, will be the first long range electromagnet launcher in history, and it's inclusion in a ship's armaments would add a new increased and heretofore unseen element to modern naval warfare. The difference is in how it delivers a weapon to a target, the navy says.

Up to now, virtually all guns, be they cannons, guided missiles, or something in-between, have relied on chemical reactions to get the thing that is to be sent, to the place where it is to hit. Gunpowder, for example is used in bullets, and burning solid rocket fuel is used to carry many kinds of missiles to their targets. Now however, the navy says the railgun, a project it's had under development for over a decade, is about to test a new way to deliver a projectile to a target. It uses electromagnetism instead of chemicals.

In short, it works like this. The projectile is loaded into the railgun and then, when fired, a very large magnetic charge is generated that pushes the projectile from the gun at speeds from 4,500 to 5,600 mph. Depending on the weight of the projectile, it can be sent fifty to a hundred miles away, with future plans calling for a distance of up to 220 miles.

Railgun technology is both a step forward and a step back. Its use of electromagnetism to push the projectile is new, but the underlying concept, shoving a projectile from a device, goes all the way back to the catapult.

Because the projectiles launched from the railgun won't be missiles, they likely won't be electronically guided either, which means that targets would likely be large to allow for accuracy allowances that creep in over such long distances. That could change however as new simpler guidance technology advances that can survive the punishment of being ejected from a gun at close to six times the speed of sound, are developed.

The railgun is being developed, the navy says, because of its ability to send a very large projectile, very large distances at very high speeds; all with a minimum amount of noise, which makes it very difficult for enemies to detect.