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US Navy test fires powerful electromagnetic ‘railgun’

WASHINGTON: The US Navy test fired the world’s most powerful electromagnetic railgun Thursday, launching a projectile at a velocity of 2,500 meters per second, or 5,600 miles per hour, into a bunker. The test marks the latest step in US efforts to develop a futuristic naval gun that can hit a target more than 200 nautical miles away with a non-explosive slug travelling at between five and seven times the speed of sound. Instead of chemical propellants, the rail gun uses electromagnetic energy to propel a slug along rails before launching it at a velocity of about Mach 7, officials said. “The gun is designed to launch these projectiles extremely far, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 nautical miles, and their impact velocity is extremely high, somewhere in the vicinity of Mach 5,” said Jim Boyle, a spokesman for the Office of Naval Research. “So it is an extremely fast moving, long range system,” he said. The test model bears little resemblance to a gun. Instead, thick black cables plug into the rear of what looks like a long rectangular grill. That armature holds the rails together as a powerful electric current surges through them, pushing the slug forward. In Thursday’s test, the most powerful charge ever - 10.64 megajoules of energy - was sent coursing through the railgun. afp

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