PRC/PLAN Laser and Rail Gun Development Thread

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The winner of the game.
Look like Bismark updated:(
DVBVdBVVoAAubMV.jpg
nah, the Bismarck had four two-gun turrets ... your thing resembles, with the aft turret placed so high, the
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vittorio_veneto_19431.jpg

see what I mean?
 

Inst

Captain
I'm disappointed that it's a railgun, but the rectangular turret gives it away. It's more or less a shore-bombardment only weapons now.
 

Insignius

Junior Member
I'm disappointed that it's a railgun, but the rectangular turret gives it away. It's more or less a shore-bombardment only weapons now.

Well, this might also indicate that Prof. Ma and his team found out a way to make it work as he desired it: An all purpose gun, which can do anti-ship, anti-missile and anti-air.
Have some faith in him. He's basically China's Nikola Tesla at this point.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
You joke, and yet
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is a real comment:

There is no shortage of ignoramus Sometime I wonder if they live in parallel world. Like they say denial is a way to cope with undesirable reality like this guy here for years bad mouthing China military technology It is entertaining to hear what he has to say
China's Navy Is Flexing Its New Railgun
But it's possible US naval planners are preparing an even greater surprise for Beijing.
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Feb 2 2018, 10:00am
  • 1517576941485-IMG_6511.jpeg

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    in late January of a large, previously unseen type of cannon fitted to the forward deck of a Chinese navy Type 072 landing vessel.

    In a surprise move, China’s navy has apparently installed a prototype electromagnetic railgun on one of its warships, pulling ahead of the US Navy in the ongoing race to equip naval vessels with more powerful guns.

    But it's possible that American naval planners are preparing an even greater surprise for Beijing when it comes to oceangoing firepower.

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    around the internet earlier this week depicting a large, previously unseen type of cannon fitted to the forward deck of a Chinese navy Type 072 landing vessel, reportedly at a facility
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    . Naval observers quickly identified the weapon as a likely electromagnetic railgun, a technologically advanced weapon that uses magnetic force rather than explosive gunpowder to propel projectiles.


    A railgun could, in theory, accelerate a munition to seven times the speed of sound, allowing it to quickly hit targets more than 100 miles away—nearly an order of magnitude farther than
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    . Railguns could destroy ships at sea, troops on land, and even aircraft and missiles in mid-flight.

    The US Office of Naval Research
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    railguns since 2005. In 2012, the Navy began land-based testing of two prototype railguns. For 2018, Congress
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    nearly $2.5 billion for research and development related to electromagnetic guns and other advanced ship weapons. “We continue to make great technical progress,” Office of Naval Research program manager Tom Boucher
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    Breaking Defense, a trade publication, last May.

    But the American sailing branch has yet to install a railgun on a ship, although there has been talk of adding railguns to the new Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers as early as the 2020. As Motherboard has reported, the Zumwalts' own conventional guns
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    .

    The Chinese navy has been working on railguns for several years, now. In adding a prototype cannon to a ship before the US Navy did, the Chinese fleet is positioned to conduct realistic testing and deploy operational railguns before the American fleet does, potentially giving China a huge firepower advantage.

    Of course, there's no guarantee the prototype gun will actually work. Railguns are enormous power-hogs. Indeed, it's possible the Chinese navy chose to install its prototype electromagnetic gun on a landing ship because such ships have large cargo holds and could easily accommodate the massive generators and cooling units that even a rudimentary railgun requires.


    Adding a railgun to an existing destroyer or other front-line warship could require significant changes to the ships' layouts and power systems. The US Navy has been worrying about that problem for several years now. "What do we take off our existing destroyers, cruisers and other ships in order to get this incredible capability [on them]?” Vice Adm. William Hilarides
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    in 2015.

    More:
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    Still, installing a prototype railgun to an actual ship is a step toward a solution to the power and space problem. And it's a step the Chinese navy has taken first. Hilarides said it could take a decade to refine railgun technology and begin adding the new weapons to ships. Now China has at least a small headstart.

    But it's possible the US Navy will take a shortcut toward more powerful naval guns. In addition to developing railguns, the American fleet is working on so-called "hypervelocity munitions." These highly-streamlined artillery shells can fly three times the speed of sound when fired from a conventional cannon—twice as fast as today's standard shells.

    The higher speed conveys greater range and accuracy. And perhaps more importantly, hypervelocity munitions are compatible with most of the US military's existing cannons, including thousands of Army howitzers and the gun aboard the Navy's roughly 80 destroyers and cruisers.


    “We thought railguns were something we were really going to go after, but it turns out that powder guns firing the same hypervelocity projectiles gets you almost as much as you would get out of the electromagnetic railgun, but it’s something we can do much faster,” then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work
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    in 2016.

    For now, the Pentagon is working on hypervelocity rounds in parallel with the railgun. If the US fleet decides to focus its efforts on the hypervelocity shells, it could quickly leapfrog past China’s in terms of overall at-sea firepower.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Well, this might also indicate that Prof. Ma and his team found out a way to make it work as he desired it: An all purpose gun, which can do anti-ship, anti-missile and anti-air.
Have some faith in him. He's basically China's Nikola Tesla at this point.

I don't think 10 shots in a minute is slow and with Mach 8 it can engage incoming missile at longer distance before it enter final maneuvering.They can timed and adjust the firing so that it will cross the path of the missile. Providing they have long range fire control radar which is not unreasonable to expect
So yes it has definitely has the potential to be jack of all trade and game changer weapon

Inst as always worship Japan, US and denigrating China military technology over the years he has been proven wrong!. Typical of Hongkie
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
I'm disappointed that it's a railgun, but the rectangular turret gives it away. It's more or less a shore-bombardment only weapons now.
My, how quickly we get jaded. Just a couple days ago, we were ecstatic that the Chinese have seemingly surpassed the US at a key technology that the US was bragging about and now today, we're disappointed that it wasn't, in fact, something on an even higher level that the US had not even attempted yet.

I, just like you, felt the same way as soon as someone mentioned the possibility of a coil gun... Although I personally cannot definitively tell by the grainy image whether the barrel is round or square, I still hope it can be, as someone earlier mentioned, a hybrid, with coils at the base and rails along the barrel.
 

kurutoga

Junior Member
Registered Member
I'm disappointed that it's a railgun, but the rectangular turret gives it away. It's more or less a shore-bombardment only weapons now.

While the details are certainly unknown, I can find the Chinese weaponry circle is surprisingly big on "
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", another EM induction gun that does not require direct contacts. The most common format asks for a thin plate shaped projectile and a rectangular barrel.

If everything works as I understand them, the "shoe" needs to be a conductor but there is no friction with the rails. We shall see the shape of the shoe later to know for sure. The reconnection gun's shoe is a thin plate. The regular railgun's shoe is a square or cylinder.

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kurutoga

Junior Member
Registered Member
An EM gun engineer wrote on Zhihu three years ago, as a quick summary of China's EM gun situation:
  • He categorized EM guns into:
    • #1 Rail gun. What the Americans are doing in the prototypes
    • #2 Reluctance coil gun. Home bred EM gun projects
    • #3 Conduction coil gun. Used in XM934
    • #4 Reconnection gun. This seems to be the focus of Chinese implementation in the EM proportion on carriers
  • Challenges ahead of the Chinese project (not clear if it is in #1 or #4)
    • Super capacitor is non issue. He said the ship borne EM gun uses "magnetic flux compression generator" as energy storage, not capacitors
    • The "rail" is made of carbon. Rail durability is non issue
    • The challenge here is the tip of the rail is often burned, not due to friction, but due to high temperature caused by plasmatization of the aluminum shoe
Remember this was his comment three years ago. And who knows, we can't believe everything here.
 
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