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The Navy has been working on perfecting the nonconventional railgun for more than a decade now. These guns fire non-explosive projectiles through the use of electricity rather than chemical propellants—but what makes them so deadly is how damn fast the projectiles travel after being shot.
How fast, you ask? We’re talking about speeds of up to Mach 6, or around 4,600 mph, according to the Office of Naval Research.
The railgun has been heralded as the future of the Navy’s ship-destroying capabilities, but it comes with tremendous downsides as well. Besides its gargantuan size, there’s also the fact that it could require as much as 25 megawatts of power—which could power almost 19,000 homes—to operate, hence why it has to be on a destroyer in the first place.
That could get better over time, but the railgun’s sheer power, range and the fact that it does not require explosives aboard a ship to use make it apparently worth the Navy investing in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi-BDIu_umo
How fast, you ask? We’re talking about speeds of up to Mach 6, or around 4,600 mph, according to the Office of Naval Research.
The railgun has been heralded as the future of the Navy’s ship-destroying capabilities, but it comes with tremendous downsides as well. Besides its gargantuan size, there’s also the fact that it could require as much as 25 megawatts of power—which could power almost 19,000 homes—to operate, hence why it has to be on a destroyer in the first place.
That could get better over time, but the railgun’s sheer power, range and the fact that it does not require explosives aboard a ship to use make it apparently worth the Navy investing in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi-BDIu_umo