Navy Tests High-Tech Railgun in Virginia
The weapon, which was successfully tested in October at the King George County base, fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible speeds, using electricity rather than gun powder.
The prototype fired at Dahlgren is only an 8-megajoule electromagnetic device, but the one to be used on Navy ships will generate a massive 64 megajoules. Current Navy guns generate about 9 megajoules of muzzle energy.
The railgun's 200 to 250 nautical-mile range will allow Navy ships to strike deep in enemy territory while staying out of reach of hostile forces.
Charles Garnett, Dahlgren railgun project director, called the projectile fired by the railgun "a supersonic bullet," and the weapon itself is "a very simple device."
He compared the process to charging up a battery on the flash of a digital camera, then pushing the button and "dumping that charge," producing a magnetic field that drives the metal-cased ordnance instead of gun powder.
The projectile fired Tuesday weighed only 3.2 kilograms and had no
warhead. Future railgun ordnance won't be large and heavy, either, but will deliver the punch of a Tomahawk cruise missile because of the immense speed of the projectile at impact.
The concept is not new. It was born in the 1970s, then promoted two decades ago when President Ronald Reagan proposed the anti-missile "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative.
The SDI rail gun was originally intended to use super high-velocity
projectiles to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
Now that we have a Star Wars rail gun, maybe we can get to work on a light saber!
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