A technology that will increase the Navy’s capable strike distance by ten fold is on the way. Proposed in the 1970’s under the “star wars” Strategic Defense Initiative, railguns are no longer a thing of the past or just an idea on the drawing boards. The United States Office of Naval Research has successfully fired a Railgun and has plans to incorporate the technology into Naval Ships by the year 2020. The main idea in developing the Railgun is to overcome the limitations of chemical projectiles. The Railgun will deliver projectiles to its intended target much more quickly and with an incredible amount of force. In fact, the force from a Rail Gun will be so intense, warheads will not need to be used. Charles Garnett, the project director, said that the rail gun will be able to take out a building by the time it is put into service.
Future Railguns will deliver small projectiles (3.2 KG) at immense speeds packing the punch of a Tomahawk cruise missile at a fraction of the price. For once a military technologyn is being created that greatly reduces costs to the Navy. Tomohawk Cruise Missiles can cost a million dollars a piece, while railgun projectiles are estimated to cost only $1000 by the time they are ready for use in 2020. 
Still 13 years away from actual military use, the railgun has some obstacles yet to overcome. One of the biggest challenges in creating the electronically driven railgun is to find an electronic device that can withstand the hundreds of thousands of G’s that it’s projectile is pulling after being launched from the railgun. With accurate smart weapons prevailing, GPS is becoming a more integral part of US military arsenal and the railgun is pretty useless without it. Developing a device that will shield the railgun projectile’s instruments and GPS sytems at extremely high G-forces is still underway. Similar intsrumentation protection devices have been developed in the Excalibur artillery shell which can withstand up to 16,000 G’s.
General Atomics, a San Diego Defense Contracter was awarded a 10 million dollar contract to produce a railgun. Railgun technology has many benefits such as reducing the time it takes for a projectile to reach its target, reducing the hazard of tank crews carrying explosive rounds, and the reduction in military costs to fire long distance projectiles. Although the railgun is still under development and is years away from service, the abilities of this weapon are pretty incredible, surpassing any projectile technology that we have in our arsenal today
6 Responses
Yeah ok thats gonna work….not rofl jk good idea actually
Posted on February 22nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
It could work, but there trying to make it too advanced. The simple concept has already been sized down to a pistol the schematics for which you can find in magazines. If they were “Dumb” projectiles it would already be in use, but then the question arises, what do we really need something like this for in modern day?
Posted on April 10th, 2008 at 1:15 am
The technology for a magnetic pistol has been created however for a railgun pistol it has not. The concept of a railgun is fairly simple however to achieve the results that the government is looking for a railguns main function will be that of long range cannon fire NOT small arms use. The pistol technology is worthless at the moment because it requires too much energy to output a projectile at speeds even close to a regular firearm due to the fact that it uses coil technology that simply cannot bring the projectile even close to the speeds needed to come close to a regular fire arm. So the question is not “do we really need something like this in modern day?” but rather how to more effectively harness enough energy to make the use of small arms railguns usable in combat?
Posted on March 27th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
The one slight problem I see with this, apart from the fact that they are trying to create something new, but with the same output as the old; is; who is going to handle the weapon and what targets would you really point this gun at, sure some may say, “To take out a target”, but then whats on the other side of that target… and with the speeds these guy’s are pushing for, you would need a way for the projectile to stop before they go and hit a few dozen more targets.
Posted on April 18th, 2009 at 2:48 am
Nope, ever thought that at such speeds, the “metal” projectial would melt possibly, and fragment at some point after entry? they would make specialized rounds, just life everything else dipshit
Besides, its obviously not going to be used in an urban conflict, who cares if you hit a couple extra enemy targets, seriously?
I think its amazing, and theres obviously some aspects not shared to the general public, I’m sure they’ll manage to make it … The Us has a history of making, “future” things to kill eachother with…
Look at the m16 when it was made, it looked space aged, look at the M1 Abrams, nothing before even resembeled it…
The Us will invent a working rail gun, and before you know it, its the thing of the past, and theirs new varations and versions of it… man kind will never stop in the quest to kill thy enemy, each time more effective then the next
Posted on August 18th, 2009 at 12:33 am
“Me” is right on about the projectile melting on impact due to friction at the velocities generated. I encountered data clear back in about ‘91 regarding a test with a rail gun. A 1cm projectile fired into a .25″ plate of mild steel basically vaporized a hole you could stick your head through! Velocity was 15,000 feet per second, so the kinetic energy per unit of weight was about 25 times that of, say, a .243 rifle…..a very small long-rod penetrator at that velocity would have an incredibly flat trajectory and a frightening terminal effect, probably several times that of an equivalent weight of HE. Keep in mind that the velocity of the projectile would exceed the speed of sound relative to the medium through which it passed, even steel, and weird things start happening then — none of which are pleasant for the recipient.
You can’t get something for nothing, though; It takes an enormous amount of energy and an efficient “through-put.” Man-portable weapons of this sort are difficult to conceive.
Posted on February 26th, 2010 at 4:06 am
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