The race for the best arms has never stopped, hence the evolution of weapons on the battlefield that has come a long way since fistcuffs. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, stealth planes, stuff that you never could have imagined a couple of hundred years ago are now in the hands of the elite few in different countries which act as a deterrent against war. The US Navy is looking into developing a new superweapon that can fire hundreds of projectiles rapidly in order to shoot down missile swarms. Not only that, this same weapon can also be used to take down enemy warships from afar, or perhaps bombard coastal defenses from hundreds of miles offshore. Obviously, there must be a system put in place first that can deliver pulsed power to its futuristic railgun weapon, and until such a solution can be found, it remains a pipe dream.
Right now, the Navy has a single-shot experimental railgun that we talked about previously, and it would be a weapon to behold if it can fire six to 10 rounds per minute in “bursts of 100s of shots”. That would translate the launch of projectiles at 4,500 mph to 5,600 mph across hundreds of miles. Devastating, really.
Filed in Navy.
. Read more about