The Ultimate Missile Defense: Sci-Fi-Style Railguns

Jared Keller, Task and Purpose

Security,

Enemy missiles won’t know what hit them.

As part of its proposed $171.5 billion fiscal year 2018 budget request, the Navy carved out a hefty $2 billion for a suite of futuristic weapons systems ripped straight from the pages of a science-fiction flick. And a good part of that cash is going toward the service’s much-touted electromagnetic railgun: According to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, the service is on track to equip guided-missile destroyers and cruisers with the fancy launcher within the next 10 years. But despite this progress, it appears that the next-generation cannon won’t immediately see combat the way the Navy originally planned.

Recent reports indicated that the Navy has made “significant progress” in developing a tactical railgun prototype that can muster the energy to fire repeatedly in short intervals of time, a necessity during combat engagements downrange, Office of Naval Research Electromagnetic Railgun Program chief Tom Boucher told National Defense magazine on June 15. ONR weapons contractors BAE System and General Atomics are currently developing and testing new barrel designs and sufficiently devastating pulsed power systems that can fire five specially engineered shells with 32 megajoules of muzzle energy each minute.