Submitted 6 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/historic-japan-becomes-1st-country-ever-to-fire-electromagnetic/
Japan Becomes 1st Country Ever To Fire Electromagnetic Railgun From An Offshore Vessel::Japan has successfully test-fired a medium-caliber maritime electromagnetic railgun from an offshore platform, as it continues to advance its defenses in the face of burgeoning regional security threats.
They fired a certain scientific railgun. Nice.
Hey look out for a certain scientific accelerator and a magical index as well.
I could have sworn that the US navy has had experimental railguns on carriers for a while. I don’t think they ever intended them as actual functional weapons, but I was pretty sure they had at least done some tests with them.
The U.S. Navy hasn’t declassified their tests so there is no official record. Japan was the first to openly do it.
Uhh, I dunno how much declassification you’re looking for but here’s the US Navy’s Youtube channel with a video of some test firings: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSce3nEY6xk
IIRC, the problem wasn’t that it didn’t work but that the barrels wore out too quickly to be useful. I suppose they could have put this on a Zumwault like originally intended but that would just be a PR stunt when the main problem was throwing the gun away after 10 shots.
From what I see, it looks like they never actually put the thing on a boat. All the testing was on land.
And after years of R&D the US Navy put the project on ice recently. Apparently they don’t think it’s worth the cost.
Funds shifted to hypersonics
We have on land. They just suck up a lot of power and missiles do the same job but better
You’re thinking of EMALS. It’s a catapult for aircraft, not a gun. Pretty close in concept though. Had some teething issues, turned out larger than expected, but works just fine now.
The GAO says it still has reliability issues that won’t likely be ironed out for about a decade.
I think I’ve only ever seen tests from land, but I’d be shocked if a ship didn’t have one, but I wouldn’t be if they were quiet about it
yeah transformers rise of the fallen featured a navy ship with an EM gun… but none that we have today are unclassified. Japan’s was first!
It was classified there too
Damn, I was just researching EM based weaponry for a fiction book. Didn’t expect to see this kind of news for a few years based on what I found.
Here, this’ll probably make your day: MARAUDER plasma railgun. The first simulations were done in 1990, the first real-world test was done in 1993. They estimated that by 2000, their prototype would be capable of firing a plasma toroid at 3% of the speed of light.
My understanding is that the little we know about it is a result of someone either not taking the project seriously, or forgetting to classify the research. The result was that the early research got leaked to the public while the later research is believed to have become classified or top secret, which is why the otherwise successful project suddenly disappeared.
That’s what I based a different weapon on in my table top rpg world :)
Been possibly for a long time. Whether or not it’s a practical solution is another story.
Eh, I could hand wave the important bits behind “war-time research and development in a universe where physics isn’t exactly the same”, but it wouldn’t really work for the story I want to tell. I want it to highlight a bit of an important side character, so if I’m hand waving their area of expertise, it falls apart.
Sad Zumwalt noises.
GrammatonCleric@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Of course the country that makes games, anime and manga full of giant mechs with railguns does it first
buycurious@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Nanomachines, son!
meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Played college ball ya know!
seaQueue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Stop asking for a grey goo incident or we’re going to have a grey goo incident
Hadriscus@lemm.ee 6 months ago
wake me… when you have railguns