In the Network appeared pictures of the Chinese large landing ship “Jianshang” project Type 072-III allegedly set to its bow “railgun”. Western media reported that tests of new weapons could begin in the near future. If this is true, then China will be the first country that established an instrument of this class on the ship and bring it to sea for trials.
Recall that the railgun is a weapon that uses electromagnetic acceleration of the projectile force. The system design assumes that the shell in the first stage of the shot is part of an electrical circuit, which disperses it between the two contact rails (hence the name railgun). For the shot gun needs high voltage and current that can not provide simple connection to electrical network. Developing technology of this type of weapons involved in multiple countries. China, in turn, is working on a railgun since the beginning of 2000-ies, but in General, research in electromagnetic weapons conducted by the country since the 80-ies.
Free first information about the development and testing of new weapons by China appeared in 2005. Then it was about the relatively small laboratory samples, are unsuitable for scaling and use in the real world. At the end of last year, naval University of engineering Sciences of the people’s liberation army of China announced the development of technologies that can be used when you create a railgun. Specifically, it was about the method of electromagnetic propulsion of projectiles. Any other details on this score were not reported.
Overall, not the scale of the ship cannon installed in its nose, like no one existing in China shipborne artillery system. Looks like a huge tower with the barrel, where on the deck there are three shipping container. Different sources report that, perhaps, the tower has an automatic loader, while the containers may be electric system, generators, and weapons control system. It is also noted the emergence of a new element on the superstructure of the landing ship, which can be a radar fire control.
The media also noted that, generally, China uses for testing new weapons ships project Type 909/909A. All of the Navy people’s liberation army of China has four such ships, a displacement of each of which is 4.5 thousand tons. It is possible that the gun was so big that its power plant is simply not able to provide the right amount of power a railgun, so it was decided the use of the ship “Jianshang” with a displacement of 7 tons.
It should also be recalled that even before the combat prototype railgun was presented by the American company General Atomics, and British BAE Systems. Installation BAE Systems uses as projectiles kinetic metal ingots with a mass of 16 kilograms. Muzzle energy of the gun in this case is 32 megajoules. Muzzle energy of the prototype General Atomics 1 megajoule above. Last summer the research Department of the Navy, in conjunction with BAE Systems has tested a railgun that is installed on the ground of “Dahlgren” in Virginia. As part of testing the gun first fired two shots in a row.
Currently developing railguns for the research Department of the Navy United States are frozen. Engineers and military decide the fate of this project, which now seems very vague. It is possible that the project is very stop. The reason for that is the complexity of the instrument, its high energy consumption, relatively low service life of the barrel of the railgun, and the absence at the moment, the fleet of ships, suitable for installation and testing of large-scale electromagnetic systems.
China is preparing for sea trials of a railgun
Nikolai Khizhnyak