(Article courtesy of Tactical Life)
The U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) has unveiled a new video showing a test-fire of its years-in-development electromagnetic railgun. Check it out above.
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The Navy describes the electromagnetic railgun as a long-range weapon that fires projectiles using electricity rather than chemical propellants. Magnetic fields from high electrical currents accelerate a sliding metal conductor between two rails to launch the projectiles at an insanely fast speed of 4,500 mph.
“[It] will give our adversaries a huge moment of pause to go: ‘Do I even want to go engage a naval ship?’” former Rear Admiral Matt Klunder, who was the ONR’s Chief of Naval Research, told Wired.com in 2014. “Because you are going to lose. You could throw anything at us, frankly, and the fact that we now can shoot a number of these rounds at a very affordable cost, it’s my opinion that they don’t win.”
It also has a “100+ nautical mile initial capability,” the Navy says. Basically, the electromagnetic railgun is not something to be trifled with.
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