ORDER_66
The Fire Rises 2023
Sure looks like China has a ship-mounted railgun
Ever since Eraser, everyone wants a railgun. Turns out China is no exception. Some photos posted by Dafeng Cao, a Twitter user who keeps close tabs on Chinese military developments, show a ship-mounted gun that could very well be the country’s very own homegrown electromagnetically propelled mass driver.
Railguns, or coil guns, accelerate solid metal projectiles using ultra-strong electromagnets, firing them well above speeds achieved by conventional ballistic methods. We’re talking Mach 6 here. The U.S. has been working on them for years, and has produced some very cool test videos, but I haven’t heard about any of them being mounted on ships.
It’s all speculation — not like the Chinese military would confirm, although apparently the railgun research is an open secret — but a few things point to the idea that this isn’t just an ordinary deck-mounted gun with a special fairing.
First, its relatively short barrel tucked deep in that housing suggests that the acceleration components are all under there, much like the functioning American guns we’ve seen demonstrated. No sense having all that surface area unless it’s protecting something, otherwise you might as well paint a target on it.
The U.S. military is like let's bring out the big guns then...
We got laser cannons on deck...
Ever since Eraser, everyone wants a railgun. Turns out China is no exception. Some photos posted by Dafeng Cao, a Twitter user who keeps close tabs on Chinese military developments, show a ship-mounted gun that could very well be the country’s very own homegrown electromagnetically propelled mass driver.
Railguns, or coil guns, accelerate solid metal projectiles using ultra-strong electromagnets, firing them well above speeds achieved by conventional ballistic methods. We’re talking Mach 6 here. The U.S. has been working on them for years, and has produced some very cool test videos, but I haven’t heard about any of them being mounted on ships.
It’s all speculation — not like the Chinese military would confirm, although apparently the railgun research is an open secret — but a few things point to the idea that this isn’t just an ordinary deck-mounted gun with a special fairing.
First, its relatively short barrel tucked deep in that housing suggests that the acceleration components are all under there, much like the functioning American guns we’ve seen demonstrated. No sense having all that surface area unless it’s protecting something, otherwise you might as well paint a target on it.
The U.S. military is like let's bring out the big guns then...
We got laser cannons on deck...
