Railgun - Applications - As Weapons - Tests

Tests

Full-scale models have been built and fired, including a very successful 90 mm bore, 9 MJ kinetic energy gun developed by the US DARPA. Rail and insulator wear problems still need to be solved before railguns can start to replace conventional weapons. Probably the oldest consistently successful system was built by the UK's Defence Research Agency at Dundrennan Range in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. This system has now been operational for over 10 years at an associated flight range for internal, intermediate, external and terminal ballistics, and achieved several mass and velocity records.

The Yugoslavian MTI (MTI - Military - technology institute) developed, within a project named EDO-0, a railgun with 7 kJ kinetic energy, in 1985. In 1987 a successor was created, project EDO-1, that used projectile with a mass of 0.7 kg and achieved speeds of 3,000 m/s, and with a mass of 1.1 kg reached speeds of 2,400 m/s. It used a track length of 0.7 m. According to those working on it, with other modifications it was able to achieve a speed of 4,500 m/s. The aim was to achieve projectile speed of 7,000 m/s. At the time, it was considered a military secret.

The United States military is funding railgun experiments. At the University of Texas at Austin Centre for Electromechanics, military railguns capable of delivering tungsten armor piercing bullets with kinetic energies of nine megajoules have been developed. 9 MJ is enough energy to deliver 2 kg of projectile at 3 km/s–at that velocity a rod of tungsten or another dense metal could easily penetrate a tank, and potentially pass through it.

The United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division demonstrated an 8 MJ railgun firing 3.2 kg projectiles in October 2006 as a prototype of a 64 MJ weapon to be deployed aboard Navy warships. The main problem the U.S. Navy has had with implementing a railgun cannon system is that the guns wear out due to the immense heat produced by firing. Such weapons are expected to be powerful enough to do a little more damage than a BGM-109 Tomahawk missile at a fraction of the projectile cost. Since then, BAE Systems has delivered a 32 MJ prototype to the U.S. Navy.

On January 31, 2008 the US Navy tested a railgun that fired a shell at 10.64 MJ with a muzzle velocity of 2,520 m/s. Its expected performance is a muzzle velocity over 5,800 m/s, accurate enough to hit a 5 metre target over 200 nmi (370 km) away while firing at 10 shots per minute. The power was provided by a new 9-megajoule (MJ) prototype capacitor bank using solid-state switches and high-energy-density capacitors delivered in 2007 and an older 32-MJ pulse power system from the US Army’s Green Farm Electric Gun Research and Development Facility developed in the late 1980s that was previously refurbished by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (EMS) Division. It is expected to be ready between 2020 to 2025.

A test of a railgun took place on December 10, 2010, by the US Navy at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. During the test, the Office of Naval Research set a world record by conducting a 33 MJ shot from the railgun, which was built by BAE Systems.

A more recent test took place in February 2012 at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. While similar in energy to the aforementioned test, the railgun used is considerably more compact, with a more conventional looking barrel. A General Atomics built prototype was delivered for testing in October 2012.