By Kris Osborn, Warrior

The US Navy’s promising rail gun weapon was designed to attack targets with the firepower and kinetic energy force equivalent to a multi-ton truck moving at 160 miles per hour. Progress with the rail gun was rather substantial, until the program suddenly and somewhat mysteriously disappeared. In its place, the Navy and Pentagon focused on leveraging the weapons hypervelocity projectile for other weapons platforms. 

What happened to the rail gun?  It  had been a huge priority for the Navy over a period of many years; the Office of Naval Research conducted years of experiments with the rail gun and pursued plans to arm Navy destroyers with the weapon. The reasons for its cancellation pertain to a mixture of interwoven variables which, not surprisingly, relate to cost concerns. Beyond budget, however, there were some practical and tactical challenges associated with the weapon to include a slow rate of fire, need for tremendous amounts of exportable power and sustainment issues. The largest operational problem with the weapon related to the massive amounts of heat which would quickly damage the gun barrel, something which caused sustainment and maintenance problems. The barrel of the gun was reportedly damaged after less than 30 shots, something which would certainly challenge any ability to maintain the weapon.  The rail gun also required a massive amount of exportable electrical power, something which could only be provided by certain ships such as the Zumwalt-class destroyers which used an electric Integrated Propulsion System which generated power. 

Railgun Power &  Technology

The energy or power of railguns is measured in units of electromagnetic power or force called megajoules, with one megajoule being the equivalent of a one-ton vehicle moving at 160 miles an hour. The service tested railgun force up to high numbers of megajoules ranging from 21 up to 32 or more megajoules. Railgun applications unleash a massive amount of force upon a target.

The railgun draws its power from an onboard electrical system or a large battery, something which Navy developers said consists of five parts, including a launcher, an energy storage system, a pulse-forming network, a hypervelocity projectile, and a gun mount.Railgun weapons work when electrical power charges up a pulse-forming network  made up of capacitors able to release very large amounts of energy in a very short period of time. The weapon releases a current on the order of 3 to 5 million amps—that’s 1,200 volts released in a ten-millisecond time frame.  That is enough force to accelerate a mass of approximately 45 pounds from zero to five thousand miles per hour in one one-hundredth of a second. 

Hypervelocity Projectile

The Navy, DoD, and even the Army have  in recent years been experimenting with integrating the railgun hypervelocity projectile with existing weapons platforms such as the Navy’s 5-inch guns or Army Howitzer.

Due to its ability to reach speeds of up to 5,600 miles per hour, the hypervelocity projectile is engineered as a kinetic energy warhead meaning no explosives are necessary. The hypervelocity projectile itself  can travel at speeds up to 2,000 meters per second, a speed that is about three times that of most existing weapons.

Railgun Comeback? 

The idea of a railgun comeback raises some interesting questions, as the tactical merits of such a weapon need little explanation. Japan has armed one ot its warships with an operational railgun, something which could inspire further US development. 

 The range and sheer destructive power of a railgun could greatly strengthen maritime attack capacity, should the US Navy find ways to mitigate damage to the barrel and develop new sources of transportable electrical power able to integrate into warships. The Navy is already making great progress engineering newer small form factor methods of storing and transmitting electrical power, and it certainly seems feasible that weapons developers might be able to engineer and build a more durable, heat resistant barrel. 

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University