Militaries around the world have been attempting to develop a functional, battlefield-ready railgun for over a century. Will it ever be pulled off? 🤔
railgun was able to launch its projectiles at Mach 6 - six times faster than the speed of sound. That’s roughly 5,400 miles per hour , faster than just about any other weapon on the planet.is closely related to the speed at which it can launch a projectile. Land or ship-based railguns with Mach 6 capabilities are understood to have effective ranges of roughly 126 miles or 110 nautical miles at sea.
This hypothetical railgun, at its proposed set of specifications, would use enough energy upon firing a single shot to power half of Chicago. Since then, there have been multiple attempts by militaries around the world to get a working prototype out of the drawing board and into the battlefield.Perhaps the most recent, and high-profile example, of a military attempting to introduce an actual working railgun into its arsenal would be the US Navy’s $500 million railgun project.