Recently we wrote about the fact that the company General Atomics tested the first RC shells of the railgun cannon. And here now it became known that scientific research office of naval the U.S. Navy in conjunction with the BAE Systems lead test railgun guns, designed for high-speed shooting. Energy shot of their railgun is 32 megajoules.
Tests pass in parallel at two landfills: White Sands in new Mexico and Dahlgren in Virginia. The railgun at the first polygon will be used for test-firing missiles of distant radius of action. Weight of projectile is equal to 16 kilograms, and the impact energy of the shot at 32 megajoules flight speed would be approximately 2000 meters per second. The gun on the ground in Virginia will have a very high rate of fire for today. The railgun is able to shoot at speeds up to 10 shots per minute. It should be noted that almost all the currently existing prototypes railgun guns are capable of producing only a few shots a day and require very much energy and time to recharge.
The rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute would require about 20 megawatts of constant power. Such energy capacity have only nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines. So now experts of the U.S. Navy are working to create efficient systems for gathering and storing energy. Now they managed to create a “battery” the size of a cargo container, the amount of energy which is enough for 10 shots from a railgun.
Began testing the rapid-fire railgun weapons
Vladimir Kuznetsov