PRC/PLAN Laser and Rail Gun Development Thread

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Michaelsinodef

Senior Member
Registered Member
sferrin said:
What's wierd is the USN has also appeared to drop both General Atomics' and BAE's railguns.
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They clearly had problems with their railgun prototypes (think it got to work OK, but well, minimizing, energy reduction, lifetime etc. was still something they would need to do, so lots, and I mean lots of more money and time would have been needed).
Not to mention a lot of newer US 'tech' has been a 'failure' (Zumwalt, lots of problems with the Ford etc.)

As for China, really hard to say but we do know they made great leaps in tech (and are ahead of the US in certain areas), professor Ma Weiming came out and even said that China were 10-20 years ahead of the US when it came to electricity tech (or something like that).

There were also some months back that electromagnetic gun that fired fire extinguisher rounds (something for fire-fighting, and yes I know it only fires a round some few kilometers at a much lower speed, but it still shows that they are definitely working on electromagnetism and can even produce civilian use equipment).
Also in general, the PLA can be very secretive about stuff it doesn't want others to know and railguns is definitely an area where they want to conceal it (I believe the PLA sees it as the future? especially to replace more traditional guns)
 
O

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
What does a railgun actually achieve? The USN considers newer "hypervelocity" rounds on more conventional guns are fine. I doubt railguns would be rapid firing unless the operator wants to replace the barrel very frequently to the point it's unrealistic to put into service unless it's a niche weapon as part of a niche platform and role. Not something for actual combat that would involve quite a bit of attrition.

Working on and perfecting the tech is of course still a very worthy goal and I'm sure the program is for a finished weapon that can be put into service. I just don't think there's that much value in it for the PLAN and Type 055. Is it certainly an effective new form of CIWS? Short range missile launching at lower muzzle velocity? Only thing I can really see it do is bombardment and no doubt eventually guided shells for hypersonic muzzle velocities will be achieved but that's again mostly useful for land bombardment and possibly anti-shipping but most anti-shipping would be down to aircraft and long range weapons (properly long range like cruise missiles, HGVs, and ASBMs) so air superiority is still top priority for the navies.
 
by78

by78

General
ACuriousPLAFan said:
Speaking of which, there has been no updates/news regarding China's railgun project after the reveal of the test platform several years ago it seems...
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I don't expect 055s to have railguns anytime soon.

I read almost two years ago from a reliable source that PLAN has trouble finding uses for the railgun that could justify its deployment. The gun works, but its utility is limited by its lack of precision because it can only fire dumb projectiles. It's technically very difficult at this juncture to make maneuverable smart projectiles for the railgun and still have the entire system compact enough to fit on a ship. The railgun's adoption by PLAN depends on solving this problem.
 
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Squidward

New Member
Registered Member
TK3600 said:
I think it could serve as improved CIWS function due to very high velocity.
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Considering that the US railgun project planned for a rate of fire around 6-12 rounds per minute, I think you'll have some trouble getting one to shoot as fast as say, a type 1130.
 
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kentchang

Junior Member
Registered Member
TK3600 said:
I think it could serve as improved CIWS function due to very high velocity.
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AHEAD munitions much more effective than rail guns not to mention all the terminal phase maneuvers missiles do these days.

Rail guns are meant to deliver cheap area saturation bombing (i.e lots of possible civilian casualties) at stand-off distance. It is strictly an offensive weapon. The Zumwalt lesson is also application to China's rail gun effort.

Against which countries can China/055 use such weapons? Missiles (and arsenal ships) are much better for force projection and much more politically palatable. EM technologies have great potentials as 'launchers' (vs 'guns').
 
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