Japan showed firing from a ship-borne railgun – it accelerates projectiles to 8000 km/h

The Japan Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF) has announced that the country has become the world’s first to develop and test a sea-based railgun. It has previously reported that prototypes of this electromagnetic weapon were being tested. Now, the JMSDF has shared a video of the weapon in action and images of it being inspected by command staff.

Image Source: JMSDF

Railguns or electromagnetic mass accelerators accelerate a projectile along conductive guides. Unlike Gauss guns, which also use the principle of accelerating a projectile or sled in an electromagnetic field, railguns are subject to high wear of the guides, because the projectile or sled slides along them, while in Gauss guns the projectiles do not touch the barrel walls. But the main advantage of a railgun is its high efficiency (from 35% and higher), which is not available to Gauss guns. Ultimately, the efficiency of the device will depend on the power and capacity of the batteries and power sources.

The railgun is being developed in Japan by the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA). Work on the project has been underway since 2016. Over the past three years alone, 46.3 billion yen ($300 million) have been spent on the project. Almost nothing is known about the characteristics of the weapon. It is only said that it accelerates 40-mm projectiles to a speed of 6.5 Mach (7963 km/h), using an energy pulse of 5 MJ. At the next stage of testing, the shot energy will be increased to 20 MJ. The installation is mounted on the JS Asuka (ASE-6102), an experimental ship of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Railguns are being developed by the US, EU countries and China. And while the US has slowed down, China intends to develop the idea of ​​an electromagnetic mass accelerator to practical applications from military purposes to transport catapults, including sending payloads into space.

In Japan, the main task at the current stage of railgun prototyping is considered to be counteraction to hypersonic types of weapons. The task is considered extremely difficult not because of the difficulty of accelerating a projectile with the force of an electromagnetic field, but because of the extremely high acceleration of the projectile, which modern electronics simply cannot withstand. Hypersonic weapons are capable of maneuvering, which will force railgun projectiles to be equipped with high-speed electronic circuits with an eye on the expected overloads.