The U.s. navy will in the coming month, his first commercially produced railgun test. The weapon is still in the prototypestadium, but need the projectiles to at least one hundred kilometres far can shoot.
The railgun, that in the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia is tested, in the future, on board of ships are used. To the extent that, the Office of Naval Research the first extensive tests with the usability of the system. The prototype, with an energy of 32 megajoules, was made by BAE Systems and would have a radius of one hundred to two hundred kilometers. Projectiles with speeds of seven to nine thousand miles per hour fired.
The first prototype would be followed by a second system, which General Atomics will be delivered. The U.s. navy wants systems are not only a greater range, up to about four hundred kilometers, but also upgrade to automatically projectiles to load. Also, the railguns a cooling system to prevent overheating due to high rate of fire to avoid. A third system would be through Raytheon Corp to be developed. The prototype that is being tested had previously been seen to be capable of a projectile with an energy of 33MJ to be able to shoot: a world record.
The railguns work by projectiles electromagnetically, to shoot. A metal shell or projectile is between the rails are laid, after which electromagnets the projectile accelerate. The projectiles would be without explosives can work, what the safety on board of ships increased. The destructive power must come from the kinetic energy. Metal projectiles would be approximately Mach 5 from a great height with precision to a target can be hit. Around 2016 to 2018 should the prototypestadium of railguns employability have shown.
