Looks like China just installed a railgun on a warship, beating the U.S. Navy to the punch

[52051]

Type 055A

This fan-made computer-generated image of the Type 055A destroyer shows it with a railgun in place of the 130mm cannon found on the Type 055 (though the Type 055A may use a stealthier railgun turret).

Pictures surfacing online appear to show a new weapon developed in China. The nation may have just installed a full-scale railgun on a warship, something even the United States Navy has yet to do.

© BAE how railguns work
How railguns work

This BAE graphic illustrates the basic principles behind railgun technology, as well as its advantages: high launch speed and range, affordability, and high firing volume). Chinese railguns on the Type 055A destroyer would likely have similar characteristics.

Railguns use electromagnetic energy, rather than gunpowder, to sling a projectile. The concept has been incredibly appealing to militaries, as the weapon offers the speed and efficiency of a cannon, but with the range of a missile.

© Da Feng Cao China railgun Type 072III 936
A Global First

Type 072III landing ship tank (LST) Haiyang Shan, #936, would be the world's first railgun-armed warship. Its small size and lack of combat features means that it will likely be used to test and validate the technologies of the railgun.

Photos shared on Twitter show that the Chinese Navy's Type 072III landing ship tank (LST) Haiyang Shan, #936, has a new turret installed on its bow, replacing the H/PJ76F 37mm anti-aircraft turret. There are also three shipping containers.

© AndrewTear China railgun Type 072III 936
Close-Up

The entire railgun measures roughly 65 feet from turret rear to barrel muzzle, with the barrel itself about 33 feet long, and 12-20 feet in diameter. Such a wide barrel provides room for the parallel magnetic rails that propel metal projectiles to speeds of over Mach 7.

The turret spotted indicates the presence of a railgun. It's large, for one, with a barrel that measures 26-33 feet in length and 12 to 20 inches in diameter. That's 2-3 times the cannon caliber of conventional tube artillery barrels, which generally have a diameter-to-caliber ratio of 1.25:1. Alternatively, a 350-400mm naval mortar could explain the the barrel diameter and length, but such a large mortar would be hilariously unnecessary.

Due to weight issues, there is virtually no reason for a conventional cannon to have this kind of diameter-to-caliber ratio, and so the barrel's size likely accommodates magnetic rails to propel shells to hypersonic speeds. The shipping containers are another indicator; it's likely they contain some sort of power equipment, like generators or capacitors.

Its barrel length makes the Chinese railgun similar in size to the BAE 32 megajoule railgun built for U.S. Navy testing. The BAE system is designed to fire 22-pound projectiles at Mach 7 speeds to more than 100 miles.

© US Navy US Navy Railgun
USN Railgun

Despite previous efforts to install this multi-megawatt railgun on the USNS Trenton, shifting budget priorities in late 2017 may mean that this railgun may never be carried on a USN warship.

The United States had earlier planned to install a railgun prototype on the USNS Trenton fast transport in 2016, but this was postponed for budgetary reasons. In fact, current railgun research funding has been reported as in trouble, as the Pentagon focuses first on equipping conventional naval guns with the railgun's low-drag, high-speed ammunition.

This photo—recently released though taken in fall 2017 but just released—shows the #936 during modifications. The supposed railgun turret is under tarps.

China's advancing work in railgun and other electromagnetic technologies shouldn't come as a surprise. In addition to copious open-source research by Chinese scientists, a program led by Rear Admiral Ma Weiming has in the past hired Chinese military engineers to build state-of-the-art electromagnetically assisted launch system (EMALS) catapults for future Chinese aircraft carriers. The program also built integrated electrical propulsion systems (IEPS) to meet the electrical needs of future Chinese warships.

And keep in mind: just because the railgun is there doesn't mean the railgun actually works. Engineers for this test, as with all other railgun work, will have to overcome formidable challenges in material durability, power storage, and projectile guidance. If successful, however, it would offer China a game-changing capability. A working railgun would likely be installed on future versions of the Type 055 destroyer, which makes sense considering the vessel has been reported to have IEPS, which would meet the electrical demands of railguns and other direct-energy weapons like lasers.

In terms of benefits, the railguns' hypersonic (Mach 5+), long-range projectiles would be perfect for cheaply and quickly knocking out high-threat air targets like ballistic missiles, aircraft, and even future hypersonic vehicles. The long range would also come in handy for missions like anti-ship warfare, supplementing shorter-ranged antiship ballistic and cruise missiles. Finally, such long-ranged artillery would be a significant addition to long-range bombardment of ground targets.

Peter Warren Singer is a strategist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He has been named by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential people in defense issues. He was also dubbed an official "Mad Scientist" for the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command. Jeffrey Lin is a national security professional in the greater D.C. area.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...p-beating-the-us-navy-to-the-punch/ar-BBIzHaM

 

[beijingwalker]

Why China’s ‘miracle’ railgun weapon should scare the U.S. navy
By Josh K. Elliott
January 3, 2019 2:19 pm

China appears to be testing an experimental, warship-mounted railgun capable of punching a hole in an enemy aircraft carrier from up to 150 kilometres away, according to expert analysis of images on social media.

That’s roughly the distance from Toronto to Buffalo, N.Y., or half the distance from Calgary to Edmonton.

The U.S., China and Russia have been in a race to develop the coveted railgun technology for over a decade, in hopes of using the science fiction-inspired weapon to gain an edge in naval combat.

Railguns use electromagnetic force to launch metal projectiles at supersonic speeds from Mach 4 to Mach 7, meaning they can shoot farther and do more damage than any gunpowder-propelled bullet. The weapon gets its name from two electrified rails that are used to launch the projectile.

Any warship with a working railgun would have the power to disable “almost any ship in very short notice,” according to Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute.

Bronk is one of several defence experts who concluded last January that the People’s Liberation Army Navy had built a tank-landing ship with a railgun on its bow, based on photos taken at China’s Wuchang shipyard.

That same vessel was spotted heading out to sea last week, sparking concerns that China was about to test its railgun.

“It’s confirmation of something we already suspected,” Bronk told Global News on Thursday.

The latest photos were first shared by defence blogger RedShark on China’s social media site, Weibo. The Chinese government has the capacity to filter content on Weibo, but it has not removed the photos.

If the weapon proves to be operational, China would become the world’s first nation capable of launching unstoppable, hypersonic projectiles that can disable an enemy naval fleet before full-scale combat ever begins. That would give it an edge in a number of contentious areas of the world, including the disputed South China Sea.

Railgun projectiles are cheaper to make and easier to store than torpedoes or missiles, Bronk says. They would also be much easier to aim at incoming missiles, making them superior to anything installed on today’s cruisers or destroyers. However, railguns also require a lot of electricity to run, so a warship would have to be specifically built to accommodate one.

China is in the early stages of building out its navy to rival that of the U.S., and it could easily build some of its new ships with railgun technology on board, Bronk says. The U.S., on the other hand, would have to completely gut one of its warships in order to install the same weapon.

“(China is) basically starting from scratch, and so… they can incorporate new technologies from the keel up, with much fewer problems than the U.S. navy,” Bronk said.

He described the railgun as a “revolutionary weapon” and a “miracle technology,” but stopped short of dubbing it a potential superweapon.

“The level of destructiveness on the target is comparable to an anti-ship missile,” he said.

The U.S. navy has contracted General Atomics and BAE Systems to develop its own version of the railgun. A prototype weapon fired several rounds last year, but that occurred on a testing range, not aboard a warship.

Bronk says the U.S. is currently focused on developing better long-range projectiles for its existing guns, rather than trying to accelerate its railgun program.

The U.S. did not expect China to have a war-ready railgun until 2025, CNBCreported last June. However, U.S. authorities already knew that China was testing its railguns at sea, according to an intelligence report cited in the story.

China’s seemingly railgun-equipped vessel, dubbed the Haiyangshan, is a Type 072II Yuting-class tank landing ship. The 120-metre-long vessel usually carries tanks and helicopters for amphibious warfare operations.

The Haiyangshan appears to have been specifically modified to carry a power supply and cooling system to support the railgun, Bronk wrote in a blog post last year.

The government-backed Global Times reported last March that China was making “notable achievements on advanced weapons, including sea tests of electromagnetic railguns.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/4810853/china-railgun-warship-weapon/

 

[The SC]

 

[Maxpane]

wow

 

[patero]

That second photo isn't the Chinese rail-gun, it's a badly done Photoshop job of a science-fiction rail-gun mounted on a US destroyer. Do an image search on google for naval rail-gun and that's one of the first random pics that appears.

 

[The SC]

That second photo isn't the Chinese rail-gun, it's a badly done Photoshop job of a science-fiction rail-gun mounted on a US destroyer. Do an image search on google for naval rail-gun and that's one of the first random pics that appears.

The 1st pic is real, the second is to show what a rail gun might look like..

 

[patero]

The 1st pic is real, the second is to show what a rail gun might look like..

So the US Navy should be scared of an imaginary depiction of a working rail-gun.

Realistically what use is a naval rail-gun going to be to the PLAN against the US. Even if the PLAN manages to mount it on a future warship with enough power to run the thing, it's never going to get close enough to anything worth hitting (about 200 miles for arguments sake).

 

[jhungary]

Already have an article on this and discuss how unworkable this is for PLAN and even the US Navy, which have a FUNCTIONING 32MJ Railgun and a ship that have the capability to outfit it.

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/chin...-hypersonic-projectiles.594788/#post-11073849

 

[patero]

Already have an article on this and discuss how unworkable this is for PLAN and even the US Navy, which have a FUNCTIONING 32MJ Railgun and a ship that have the capability to outfit it.

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/chin...-hypersonic-projectiles.594788/#post-11073849

Yeah I remember reading that thread, I enjoy reading your contributions to discussions like this.

 

[The SC]

So the US Navy should be scared of an imaginary depiction of a working rail-gun.

Realistically what use is a naval rail-gun going to be to the PLAN against the US. Even if the PLAN manages to mount it on a future warship with enough power to run the thing, it's never going to get close enough to anything worth hitting (about 200 miles for arguments sake).

To gauge the magnitude of the shock China has caused in defense circles, reports have suggested that US intelligence estimates had predicted that China would reach this type of weapon in 2025.

A senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Malcolm Davis, told ABC that the technology would enable its countries to exchange fire hundreds of kilometers away.

Compared to traditional naval artillery, electromagnetic guns do not produce bursts of fire at the launch, reducing the risk of explosion on board or a fire that puts the crew at risk.

In the years following 2011, Chinese researchers were testing weapons for long distances, as a US intelligence report revealed that it could hit targets 200 kilometers at speeds of up to 2.5 kilometers per second (7 times the speed of sound).

Beijing knows that much of the military tension with Washington lies in the South China Sea, so it has developed its naval arsenal with the most powerful weapons.

President Xi Jinping himself oversees an ambitious military modernization program, which includes developing the capabilities of the Chinese forces and their unwavering readiness for war.

 

[The SC]

 

[jhungary]

To gauge the magnitude of the shock China has caused in defense circles, reports have suggested that US intelligence estimates had predicted that China would reach this type of weapon in 2025.

A senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Malcolm Davis, told ABC that the technology would enable its countries to exchange fire hundreds of kilometers away.

Compared to traditional naval artillery, electromagnetic guns do not produce bursts of fire at the launch, reducing the risk of explosion on board or a fire that puts the crew at risk.

In the years following 2011, Chinese researchers were testing weapons for long distances, as a US intelligence report revealed that it could hit targets 200 kilometers at speeds of up to 2.5 kilometers per second (7 times the speed of sound).

Beijing knows that much of the military tension with Washington lies in the South China Sea, so it has developed its naval arsenal with the most powerful weapons.

President Xi Jinping himself oversees an ambitious military modernization program, which includes developing the capabilities of the Chinese forces and their unwavering readiness for war.

That video is BAe railgun test for US Navy back in 2008. Chinese claim they have tested it, but no solid intelligence material suggested that whether or not they had succeed in the test, we don't even know if the Chinese have tested it.

Also, Railgun development at this stage is largely unsuccessful, because the gun that you post is a 32KJ model which make a 8 inch shell damage, its electric input is 9MW and 6 millions ampere, and that gun already existed, and even with Zumwalt 78 MW power onboard, they cannot use it and have the normal function maintain, because while it needed 9MW to operate, electricity input is not 100% to kinetic output, which naval engineer estimated that for Zumwalt to carry 2 of these (so 18MW input required), they will need 64 MW at 20% efficiency.

 

[jhungary]

Yeah I remember reading that thread, I enjoy reading your contributions to discussions like this.

Yeah, we have quite a serious discussion over there, a lot of information can be found there or elsewhere, its just up to people to find them.

 

[beijingwalker]

China closer to equipping warships with electromagnetic railguns, state media reports
By Euan McKirdy, CNN

Updated 0718 GMT (1518 HKT) January 4, 2019

A screengrab from China state media CCTV purports to show railgun technology on a PLA Navy landing ship.

China is getting closer to equipping its warships with electromagnetic railguns, state media reports -- which, if true, means its fleet could soon boast some of the most advanced weapons technology on the planet.

Citing CCTV, the state-run Global Times on Thursday reported the underlying railgun technology-- which utilizes electrical power rather than explosives to launch projectiles -- was based on "fully independent intellectual property," rather than copied from other countries.

Unconfirmed sightings of a Chinese landing ship apparently equipped with a test railgun in an undisclosed location have circulated around the internet this week.

Military expert Carl Schuster, former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, told CNN that if the reports were accurate, the weapon was likely to be "a year or two away from being operational."

"They'll say it's operational -- what that mean the operational evaluation has started, (and they're) testing it under more realistic conditions," he said. "Typically you're looking at a year before being deployed."
Schuster said it was significant that China appeared to be transitioning from copying foreign weapon designs to "developing their own" technology.

"It also tells you (that China) is no longer 10-15 years behind (the US)... They are now approaching parity with the west in terms of weapons development," he added.

Technological sea change
Railgun technology, which uses electromagnetic force to send projectiles up to 125 miles at 7.5 times the speed of sound, is cheaper and more accurate than traditional gunpowder-based methods.
"Using a massive electrical pulse rather than a chemical propellant, the railgun can launch projectiles much farther than the 13-nautical-mile range of the US Navy's standard 5-inch naval gun," the US Office of Naval Research says.

Railgun projectiles also don't need explosive warheads -- they do their damage with sheer speed.
"(Railguns) give you more firepower, more range, (and they can be better) guided, as you control acceleration in the barrel," Schuster added.

China's MOAB?
The claim that China is a step closer to having a combat-ready railgun comes on the heels of another Global Times report that a Chinese arms company has tested a massive bomb which, according to a Chinese military analyst quoted in the story, "can easily and completely wipe out fortified ground targets such as reinforced buildings, bastions and defense shelters."

The device, developed by Chinese arms giant China North Industries Group Corporation, better known as NORINCO, is approximately 5 to 6 meters (17 to 20 feet) long, according to Wei Dongxu, the quoted analyst.
While smaller, the Chinese bomb is similar in capability to the US' GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the "mother of all bombs."

MOAB, the US military's most powerful non-nuclear bomb, was first used operationally in 2017, when one was dropped on ISIS targets in Afghanistan, according to US officials.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/04/asia/china-pla-navy-railgun-intl/index.html

 

[beijingwalker]

RIP, U.S. Navy? Could China's Naval 'Railgun' Be Ready by 2025?
Michael Peck
The National Interest•
October 18, 2019

Key point: Beijing may end up beating America in building a working, viable naval railgun.

China could have the world’s most powerful naval gun by 2025, according to a U.S. intelligence report.

China is testing a ship-mounted railgun “capable of striking a target 124 miles away at speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second,” according to CNBC, citing anonymous sources familiar with the report.

“For perspective, a shot fired from Washington, DC could reach Philadelphia in under 90 seconds.”

A railgun is a sort of exotic cross between a catapult and a cannon, that uses electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder to hurl projectiles at hypersonic speeds up to Mach 7. Electrical currents generate magnetic fields that accelerate a projectile along two rails. In theory, a railgun should be much cheaper than, say, a $1.4 million Tomahawk missile, which offers greater range but also can be shot down or jammed. A warship could also carry a huge number of small but high-velocity railgun projectiles

U.S. intelligence apparently possesses remarkably specific information, such as each Chinese railgun round costs between $25,000 and $50,000.

“China's railgun was first seen in 2011 and underwent testing in 2014,” sources told CNBC.

“Between 2015 and 2017 the weapon was calibrated to strike at extended ranges, increasing its lethality. By December 2017, the weapon was successfully mounted on a warship and began at-sea testing, a feat no other nation has accomplished.”

https://news.yahoo.com/rip-u-navy-could-chinas-145300648.html