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.

  • orclev@lemmy.worldEnglish
    40·
    3 年前

    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.

    • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldEnglish
      46·
      3 年前

      The U.S. Navy hasn’t declassified their tests so there is no official record. Japan was the first to openly do it.

      • steltek@lemm.eeEnglish
        28·
        3 年前

        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: https://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.

        • HurlingDurling@lemm.eeEnglish
          7·
          3 年前

          I think there was an episode of Evangelion where they posed the same problem and solved by having multiple guns to switch to. I guess it’s common knowledge of thermal dynamics? IDK

        • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          6·
          3 年前

          If the JMSDF has gotten to this phase of development, I’m gonna have to assume they’ve either made some advances in material science that deal with the extremely accelerated corrosion/ablation in the rails/barrel, or have come up with a reasonable way to quickly swap the wear components out. Who knows - maybe it’s as simple as a spool of conductive wire/metal strip runs down the length of the barrel and gets refreshed with every shot?

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      3 年前

      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.

    • Throwaway@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      3 年前

      We have on land. They just suck up a lot of power and missiles do the same job but better

    • SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      3 年前

      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.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 年前

        The GAO says it still has reliability issues that won’t likely be ironed out for about a decade.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 年前

      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

    • crawancon@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      3 年前

      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!